Tesla Inc (TSLA) stock roared right along on Wednesday to touch another intra-day high of $342.89 and reaching a market capitalization of more than $57 billion, making it more valuable than General Motors and Ford. CEO Elon Musk said again recently that the company’s market cap is more than they deserve, but even that hasn’t derailed the stock. So what is driving Tesla Inc (TSLA) stock now? One analyst suggests investors are starting to see the big picture, which includes autonomous driving and much more.
Trying to value Tesla Inc (TSLA) stock
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, a perma-bull when it comes to Tesla Inc (TSLA) stock, said in a note on Wednesday that investors are starting to see the company as existing at “the nexus of shared, autonomous and electric transportation” instead of just another automaker. As such, he feels that investors are starting to gain an appreciation for the use of artificial intelligence in autonomous driving.
He feels that Tesla Inc (TSLA) has come onto the same level as Amazon, Alphabet, Apple and other tech names that are known for machine learning technology. However, he adds that Tesla Inc (TSLA) is valued at only a fraction of what the three biggies are valued at. He also advised investors to consider whether it’s better for Tesla Inc (TSLA) to disrupt the transportation industry on its own or if it would find more value doing it “as part of a larger entity or consortium.”
Finding a comparable for Tesla
Whenever analysts try to value Tesla Inc (TSLA) stock or any other, they look at companies that are similar to the one they’re trying to value. Jonas has been trying for some time to convince investors that Tesla Inc (TSLA) shouldn’t be compared to other automakers, and he seems to think that people are finally starting to get it. But as he tries to say that the company should be valued against bigger firms with much deeper pockets, it may only be a matter of time before investors start to realize that Tesla Inc (TSLA) may have an even more difficult time ahead than currently understood.
Tesla Inc (TSLA) isn’t the only major player in autonomous driving and hasn’t been in a long time. But with Tesla Energy and all the other pieces of the business, it’s becoming clear that CEO Elon Musk is playing a long game. Amazon has done a good job of bring two pieces that don’t obviously seem to go together — e-commerce and cloud services — and excelling at both of them. So can Tesla Inc (TSLA) do the same?
The Woz is betting on Tesla in autonomous driving
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak spoke up this week with a vote of confidence for Tesla Inc (TSLA) in the area of autonomous driving. He told Bloomberg Canada that Tesla Inc (TSLA) is the one that will have the next big innovation, and he said he was betting on the company being the winner in autonomous driving. He had particularly good things to say about Elon Musk, and he even mentioned his Boring Company, which aims to improve transportation by tunneling under the ground to alleviate traffic.
He also noted that Musk was able to anticipate what would come next, like autonomous cars, based on what he wanted to build for his own life, no matter what others thought.
