Tesla Now Worth More Than Daimler

One-and-a-half year after Tesla was worth more than German carmaker BMW for the first time, now they surpassed the next German car manufacturer. On December 5th, 2018, Tesla was worth more at the stock exchange than Daimler.

With 63.18 billion dollars (55.68 billion Euro) the small American electric vehicle pioneer was worth almost two billion dollars more (61.27 billion dollars – 54 billion Euro) than the much larger German company. 

To compare: both BMW and Daimler produce and sell over two million vehicles per year, while Tesla for the first time broke through the 100,000 number only last year. And this year, thanks to the successful launch of the Model 3, the company will produce more than 250,000 vehicles. And more to that: Tesla made ist first significant profit for the first time only last quarter, while BMW and Daimler have both healthy profits in the billions.

How this crazy evaluation of Tesla can be explained, I described some time ago in this article. And nothing really changed in that analysis. Also the bonus plan for Tesla-CEO Elon Musk just reflects in what categories Tesla-shareholders are thinking.

But we have seen some dramatic sales decreases for German carmakers in the US, and that in the segments that the Model 3 is competing in. In the months of August, September, October, and November the Germans sold on average a 25 percent fewer cars in the sedan category than in the year before.

The only German car company that is still worth more than Tesla is Volkswagen, and Volkswagen produces more than 10 million vehicles per year. But the market capitalization of 73 billion dollars (64 billion Euro) is coming now awfully close to Tesla’s reach.

This article was also published in German.