Tesla's 10-K shows an accumulated shareholder deficit of $6B. That's over and above money spent to buy factories which are still operating. That's $6k a car at 1M cars sold. Add to that the $7500 rebate the US was providing until recently. That's $13.5k, on average, they lost per car they sold through the end of 2019.
Saying nothing about Tesla cars versus other companies, that's a huge financial advantage against other car companies. This is particularly true given that most of those car sales happened post-Q1-2018, when Tesla had already established a strong brand.
I'm not sure any established player could, at that point, compete with a company that gets to lose $13.5k per car they sell. That would be like if Nissan started building base-model Sentras and selling them for $4500. Yes, they would sell a lot of them.
As markets normalize and Tesla has to compete on a level playing field, my guess is their product is viewed more and more as what it is: a luxury car. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to see them owning more than a few percent of the market, especially considering established companies have gone all in on electric at this point.
And, nothing can justify a price-sales multiplier of 20 for the company. Nothing.
Saying nothing about Tesla cars versus other companies, that's a huge financial advantage against other car companies. This is particularly true given that most of those car sales happened post-Q1-2018, when Tesla had already established a strong brand.
I'm not sure any established player could, at that point, compete with a company that gets to lose $13.5k per car they sell. That would be like if Nissan started building base-model Sentras and selling them for $4500. Yes, they would sell a lot of them.
As markets normalize and Tesla has to compete on a level playing field, my guess is their product is viewed more and more as what it is: a luxury car. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to see them owning more than a few percent of the market, especially considering established companies have gone all in on electric at this point.
And, nothing can justify a price-sales multiplier of 20 for the company. Nothing.