Chart Of The Day: Trading Tesla's Conflicting Trends

 | Aug 15, 2022 14:32

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has just announced that the electric vehicle (EV) car manufacturer, has manufactured over 3 million cars. Musk pointed out that this landmark is no small feat considering China's COVID-19 lockdown, where one third of the EVs were manufactured.

Still, while Musk congratulates his employees, this news underscores how small Tesla's car business is. The world's largest carmaker Toyota (NYSE:TM) produced 10 million cars in 2021, and the second largest automaker, Volkswagen (OTC:VLKAF) delivered about 9 million vehicles in the same year. Tesla's 3 million is in the company's entire history. Nevertheless, the EV maker hit a market cap of $1,000 billion last year, more than the market cap of the top 9 global carmakers combined.

As of now, the company's market capitalization is $940.14 billion. Is it justified?

First, we have to ask how much of that valuation is because of the business, and how much of it is because of everything surrounding its CEO—Musk's investment in SpaceX and cryptocurrencies, as well as his gurulike persona?

For example, how much did the whole cryptocraze impact demand for Tesla shares?