VW is an EV manufacturer and is investing heavily in the transition to EVs themselves. And they’re already at a much larger scale than Tesla in terms of distribution and manufacturing the rest of the car.
When you buy a tesla, tesla gets 100% of the revenue.
When you buy a VW or a ford, what % cut does the dealership take?
How much does it cost to have 800 cars sitting on a lot, vs order on demand?
Auto industry is ripe for innovation, glad we have someone innovating. I will hopefully never need to talk to a car salesmen or do the dealership thing again.
Tesla's market cap is crazy, but is a reflection of having actual products.
I think that’s a very reasonable argument to make. However, Tesla is not even close to this peak VW might have reached, and is valued (roughly speaking) at 4x that.
VW might lose its peak, Tesla never had it in the first place.
The better answer is that nobody should buy VW either. Their business has zero potential upside and a huge downside risk in the transition to EVs; along with the inevitable rise of China's domestic automakers, which will eat a very large amount of market and sales away from the old giants. VW's position is its weakness, it has everything to lose and nothing to gain from the peak they've reached.
Which also isn't the same as saying that Tesla should be bought at its present absurd valuation.