Tesla’s Bet on Self Driving Cars
Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Fast forwarding 5 years later to 2008; Elon Musk took over as a CEO from his previous position as a Chairman after a series of dramatic events. The company went public 2 years later and raised $226 M in an impressive IPO priced initially at 17 USD a share in 2010.
Tesla’s premise was embodied in Musk’s first master plan for the company which was to build a more affordable electric car using money from selling less affordableelectric cars. Back in 2006 this didn’t seem achievable to most people, however, a lot has changed since then, the company defied logic and was able to sell many Teslas , build an electric charging network, start building a big battery factory, and acquire a solar energy company to create a system that charges its Teslas and store electricity at home.
The company was valued at almost $ 60 Billion and its share price in 2019 is $255 up from its IPO price of $ 17 in 2010 (1,474% increase). This extraordinary growth is without doubt countered by skeptics and this is evident in the fact that TSLA is the biggest shorted stock on the stock market.
Now, let’s examine the underlying value of Tesla in order to have a better understanding of the valuation and try to make sense of the explosive growth of the company and its future. At this point of time…
