But there is nothing unique about their self driving that multiple other companies can't do as well. By the time that FSD is truly perfected, they will find themselves in a crowded market and having to compete on price for something many customers might want but unwilling to pay much for.
Funny thing is that other technology leaders
in the industry are saying the opposite. I'm inclined to trust their judgment over yours on this matter.
They are a car company that had a huge lead in electric vehicles 10 years ago. But that lead is pretty much gone today. It still is better than its competition in the US. But that has more to do with the inability of Chinese manufacturers being able to sell their cars here.
A car company, a charging network company, a grid-scale storage company - and soon to become a semi truck company, an autonomous taxi company and a robotics company. Those last three might not pan out, but if they do Tesla's net worth could easily reach 10 or 100 times what it is today.
I really don't get what justifies their almost insane P/E ratio.
It's not actually insane when you look at where they came from to where they are now compared to other EV makers. Tesla is profitable, most of the others aren't. BYD is only surviving due to support from the Chinese government. They sold more cars than Tesla last year, but how much did they make on them? Many other Chinese car companies are going out of business.
Other legacy car companies are subsidizing the loss with gas and hybrid sales. Ford just gave up on that with the F-150 Lightning because they couldn't afford to continue losing $30,000 on every vehicle sold (so much for trouncing the Cybertruck!). Toyota gave up on making their own EV platform and are now using a Chinese one. Other pure EV companies are also not doing well. Rivian continues to pile up debt. Waymo is still a money pit after 5 years of commercial operation, and just received
another injection of $5.6 billion from Google last October. Several others have imploded or aren't going anywhere. Aptera is a joke.
Tesla stock is risky, but that applies to all tech companies who are pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Compared to other EV makers their potential is much greater too. Which
other EV maker would you choose to invest in to make a potentially huge return? Not VW, not GM, not Ford, not Toyota or Stellantis. You would go for the company which is truly innovating and using their knowledge and resources to diversify into new fields that other car companies are only dabbling in or not touching.
To truly understand why Tesla stock is so valuable you have to know what they have. Their manufacturing and assmbly line system is way ahead of legacy car campanies. Their Berlin Factory takes 10 hours to make a car, compared to 30 hours at VW. Their Shanghai factory spits out a car every 30 seconds. In Texas the car
drives itself to the holding area as soon as it rolls off the production line.
Because Tesla started making cars from the ground up their designs don't suffer from the legacy issues of other auto makers. They also have strong vertical integration which makes their cars work better because they control the design of more parts. Tesla uses its powerful AI not just for FSD but also in design and manufacturing. They can make changes on the production line in real time, rather than having a development cycle of months or years. They will use the same system for making robots too. Eventually the robots will make themselves!
Due to their emphasis on innovation Telsa
is doing things that other car companies can't. People deride the Cybertruck for its looks, but its real value is in the 48V architecture, Ethernet comms and steer by wire. Other car companies aren't doing that stuff. They are sticking with slow CAN bus, 12V electrics that need heavier wiring (and a 12V lead-acid battery - the archilles heel of many EVs) and less flexible mechanical controls. We all know about Tesla's extensive use of 'giga' castings, but do you know about the
other innovations in their vehicles? For example they developed a cooling system which is more advanced and uses way less parts than a 'normal' system. Their in-car software is better integrated and more reliable than most legacy cars makers too, largely because it was designed from the ground up to handle every aspect of the vehicle - not just talk to other modules from different manufacturers.
Calling Tesla 'just a car company' is selling them short. They are a tech manufacturing company which currently mostly makes EVs. Once they start pushing a million robots out the door every year investors will look at the current stock price and kick themselves for not buying as much as they could.
