by Chris Becker

Tesla is impossible to value, so says Matt Debord at Business Insider:

The company is fuelled financially by a “story” about the future. It could be a decade before it’s possible to properly value the company.

Tesla is easy to value, so says Tim Worstall at Forbes:

People might even be misguided as to the value of Tesla but it’s still worth whatever people will pay for it – because that’s what people will pay.

Predictions are hard to make especially about the future. Luckily the price is determinable in the present and the past, since the electric car maker is a publicly listed company, much to Elon Musk’s chagrin.

Putting it into perspective, at current market valuations, Tesla is 4th “biggest” in the world:

But Tesla only makes about 1% of the cars that GM does, let alone any other big manufacturer. Last year it made about 76,000 vehicles compared to 72 million cars worldwide.

But what’s really missing is perspective. Tesla is a short term and long term speculative stock. Its not investment grade like Amazon of 2017. It will eventually become the 4th or even larger car marker by volume, but it will take a decade or more.

Amazon is no longer a place to buy books, but where nearly 90% of American consumers buy nearly everything. Tesla started out as a niche player in exotic electric vehicles, but will likely become the biggest energy and transportation provider. The stock price resembles Amazon’s meteoric rise during the dot-com era when it made no profit and when it had to raise money hand over fist to invest in its game-changing business:

If the Model 3 roll-out hits production and/ore quality hurdles or another financial crisis comes along, there is a very high chance of Tesla stock price falling 50%, or even 90% from its current highs (although I would contend the $140 per share mark is very reasonable support!)

But there’s an equally high upside risk of it going Amazonian. And that’s why you have to ignore value and market speculators in the short to medium term. Nobody knows!

Tesla’s enigmatic stock price