This month Tesla's stock prices reached a new high of close to $500 per share, which is more than twice the level it was around three months ago.

In effect, also the company's stock market value shot to a new high of more than $88 billion, which might be more than any U.S. automaker ever.

In fact, the market cap of Tesla is now above General Motors ($49.4 billion) and Ford ($36.6 billion) combined ($86 billion).

Comparison via Reuters:

Tesla : stock market value of $88.2 billion and estimated 2019 sales of $24 billion

: stock market value of and estimated 2019 sales of General Motors : stock market value of $49.4 billion and estimated 2019 sales of $138 billion

: stock market value of and estimated 2019 sales of Ford : stock market value of $36.6 billion and estimated 2019 sales of $144 billion

: stock market value of and estimated 2019 sales of GM + Ford: stock market value of $86 billion and estimated 2019 sales of $282 billion

In terms of revenues, Tesla is not yet even at one-tenth of the combined results of General Motors and Ford. Also, the number of car deliveries are tiny in comparison, as GM and Ford delivered in 2019 several million cars in the U.S. alone, compared to Tesla's 367,500 globally.

Reuters' article points out that Tesla's is valued more like a tech company, rather than a car company. The strong Q4 delivery results, expected profitability (in Q4 and 2020), most recent launch of Gigafactory 3 in China and tons of new projects in the pipeline, triggered the stock rally.

For comparison, GM stock didn't change much over the 12 months, while Ford improved 10%.

David Kudla, chief investment strategist at MainStay Capital Management said:

“It’s clear that Tesla is back to being a story stock and there’s a lot of good news out there. But there are still some problematic issues out there, chief among them is what will its sustained profitability look like, and when will it start to be valued like a car company and not a tech company.”

Source: Reuters