Another week, another stupid report about how Tesla is overvalued based on cars sold.

The latest blockheaded example, from Reuters, talks about how the market capitalization of Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA, +4.42% is “equivalent to $620,000 for every car it delivered last year, or $63,000 for every car it hopes to produce in 2020.”

With due respect to this reporter, that’s a stupid statistic, and only an idiot would think it’s important.

For starters, a basic complaint: Since when did we ever value companies — particularly high-growth companies — based on the prior year’s output?

Secondly, what about the $1.2 billion in cash on Tesla’s books? What about the $8.1 billion in total assets thanks to, you know, factories and these super-cool robots? I mean, I’m pretty sure robots aren’t free. If they are, I would like some — and a free $1.2 billion to go with them.

Lastly, who on Earth thinks an appropriate measure of Tesla is cars delivered anyway? As the old saying goes, not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

Model X Quality Issues a Challenge for Tesla

Market-cap horse racing and lazy data dumps have always been a pet peeve of mine, such as comparisons over which company is “bigger” (as if that’s a measure of value) or inane headlines about how “Facebook adds a DuPont to its market cap.”

But I’ve learned something in my time as a finance writer: If you can’t beat them, join them and get the page views.

So if you like the Tesla per-vehicle math, here are some more “valuable” statistics to consider:

Netflix — worth $490 per streaming subscriber

Last week, I talked about how Netflix Inc. NFLX, -0.05% is great because it has 81.5 million streaming customers right now.

In hindsight, I should have done the math. Because at a stock-market value of $40 billion, that is about $490 per subscriber.

Considering the service costs $7.99 a month for basic service, is that too high? Or since a year’s worth of fees adds up to about $100, perhaps that’s too low?

I’ll leave it up to the Tesla “experts” to decide what’s appropriate.

Facebook – worth $26.6 million per employee

Facebook Inc. FB, -0.89% is the house that Mark Zuckerberg built, full of energetic “hackers” that are reshaping the way digital media works.

Since Facebook doesn’t produce anything tangible, why not value the company based on the number of Silicon Valley eggheads it has on staff tweaking the social media platform?

As of Dec. 31, Facebook had 12,691 employees. That’s a staggering $26.6 million per employee!

Apple – worth $6,600 per iPhone sold in 2015

Apple Inc. AAPL, -3.17% sold $32.9 billion worth of iPhones last quarter, according to the latest Apple 10-Q. The company also reported it sold 51.2 million units. That works out to $642 in revenue per iPhone!

Pretty good. But as Tesla critics will tell you, revenue isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Valuation matters.

So let’s look at how much each iPhone drives in market cap.

Consider that iPhone revenue represents 65% of Apple’s top line in the latest report. Therefore, 65% of Apple’s valuation should come from the iPhone, no?

By that math, $338 billion, or 65% of Apple’s $520 billion valuation, is from the iPhone — meaning Wall Street thinks each iPhone that Apple sold last quarter is “worth” $6,600 in market cap.

No wonder critics say Apple is overvalued!

I mean, there’s probably some other reason to buy Apple — like that $230 billion in cash and investments on the books. So let’s subtract that and redo the math. Ready?

A market cap of $520 billion minus $230 billion equals $290 billion, and 65% of that is $188.5 billion or so. Divide that by 51.2 million, and you get a bit more than $3,680 per iPhone.

I’d run the numbers based on actual value of that cash based on repatriation taxes, but that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

New York Times — worth $30 per web reader

The future of communication is pretty bleak, so you would think that investors should care about how New York Times Co. NYT, -0.99% is valued based on its online readership.

According to the company’s media kit, the New York Times network has 65.8 million unique visitors each month — an important measurement of “readership.”

So with a valuation of $2 billion, that means New York Times stock is “valued” at $30 per reader.

That may sound low to some readers. But knowing what I know about the typical rates for online ads, investors should be pretty pleased that the New York Times commands that figure.

Coca-Cola – worth 27 cents per 8-ounce serving sold in 2015

Coca-Cola Co. KO, -0.19% measures sales volume in “unit cases” and “unit case volume” — that is, 192 fluid ounces “directly or indirectly sold by the Company and its bottling partners.” That works out to 24 8-ounce servings.

Coca-Cola sold 29.2 billion unit cases, or about 700.8 billion servings, during 2015. At a current market valuation of $194 billion, that’s roughly 27 cents per serving.

Seems fair, I suppose.

But wait. Who the heck drinks an 8-ounce serving? This is the land of comically large travel mugs, except in New York City, and that’s hardly enough to quench the average American’s thirst.

On further review, 12-ounce cans seem a fair serving size. So those 29.2 billion cases actually come out to 5.6 trillion fluid ounces using that measure, which equals 467 billion cans or so.

That’s actually more like a valuation of 41 cents per can of Coke.

Or Diet Coke. Or Sprite. Or whatever.

Your favorite biotech stock — worth an infinite amount per pill sold

The typical development-stage biotech company that bleeds cash on research and development as well as clinical trials literally has sold nothing last year.

Are you really comfortable paying an infinite amount per pill sold?

No wonder biotechs have had a bad 2016. I guess investors have gotten hip to the math!

This is perhaps the silliest example of all, since clearly many biotech companies are quite valuable despite a lack of 2015 pill sales. But it proves an important point: All of these metrics can tell us something about these companies, but not everything.

Investors need to consider the broader context of a biotech company’s valuation and its growth potential before they ascribe it a value of zero.

And similarly, investors need to look at the broader context of Tesla as a stock and as a long-term growth play before they bandy about hysterical headlines.