How Tesla Could Be Bigger Than Ford and GM—Combined(in sales)—in Just 5 Years

TruckElectric

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Tesla could be bigger than both General Motors and Ford Motor combined, by sales, in just five years—if everything plays out the way Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas is thinking.

It’s a provocative idea for investors to ponder—and a bit of a shocking one.

Two century-old auto makers with hundreds of billions in sales eclipsed by a start-up founded less than 20 years ago doesn’t seem plausible. It really shouldn’t be. The market has already declared a victory in the electric vehicle transition. Still, the math behind that kind of market share shift and growth is something to behold.
“Most auto investors we speak with still struggle with the idea that Tesla could ever be bigger than either GM or Ford,” wrote Jonas in a report published Thursday.

But Jonas doesn’t find the idea hard to grasp, at all. In fact, he believes Tesla sales will be larger that GM plus Ford by 2027.

There is one catch with his thought experiment. Tesla will be bigger than both on a “run-rate” basis—essentially annualizing whatever data is most recent. Tesla, for instance, sold roughly 309,000 cars in the fourth quarter of 2021. Using Jonas’ math, the EV pioneer is producing cars at a run-rate of roughly 1.24 million units.

Tesla’s fourth-quarter sales came in at roughly $25 billion, putting its run-rate sales at $100 billion or so. GM’s amounted to $33.5 billion, or an annual run rate of about $134 billion. And Ford’s came in at $37.7 billion, or an annual run rate of about $151 billion.

For January, Jonas calculates Tesla had 4% of the dollar value of U.S. sales and he estimates the company’s share of unit sales was about 3.5%. Tesla’s vehicles are more expensive than the average vehicle.

By the end of 2026, Jonas figures Tesla will have 10% unit share of the U.S. market. His estimates for GM and Ford unit share are roughly 14% and 11%, respectively. Tesla will still have higher average selling prices by then.

Put it all together and Jonas projects run rate sales for Tesla at the end of 2026 at about $300 billion. GM and Ford should still be stuck around $150 billion each.

For Jonas’ clients, he’d better be right. Tesla is already priced like its going to win market share. Its sales might still trail GM and Ford, the Tesla dwarfs every other auto maker on one key metric: market capitalization.

Tesla’s market cap is roughly $900 billion that is roughly six times the combined market value of GM and Ford.

With a disparity like that, Tesla will need to keep growing in 2027 and beyond. Jonas definitely sees that happening. He has Tesla “share of wallet,” which is essentially unit share times average pricing, to 23% of the U.S. market by the end of the decade.

On Friday, Tesla stock was down about 0.9% in midday trading. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Averag e were down 0.4% and 0.9%, respectively.

Right now, Wall Street is seriously wondering what Jonas could be thinking. If he is right, his clients won’t only be happy. They’ll be having the last laugh.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-bigger-than-ford-gm-5-years-51643992236
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Ogre

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GM’s sales have declined every year for the past 5 years. At the current rate, Tesla will pass them in volume fairly quickly.

Ford is more challenging, but Ford’s problem is they just don’t have an interesting portfolio outside of their trucks.
 

GnarlyDudeLive

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For Tesla, I am more concerned that big gov is going to step in like the tech companies of past and determine Tesla is too diverse, large and encompassing therefore must be split up....
 

Ogre

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For Tesla, I am more concerned that big gov is going to step in like the tech companies of past and determine Tesla is too diverse, large and encompassing therefore must be split up....
I kind of hope Tesla breaks up voluntarily.

The company would probably be worth more in pieces than as a single epic whole.

A battery company
A car company
An Energy Company (Both home solar, grid backup, and home solar based grid assist!)
An artificial intelligence/ software company
A … robot company??
Maybe HVAC?

Right now very little other than the car company is assigned any value at all.

Obviously… lots of problems with how you split it without screwing up the benefits they get from vertical integration.
 

Crissa

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The whole idea of splitting companies that way has been a sham for ages. Either you end up with parallel monopolies or you end up with unbalanced supplier/customer relationship.

It doesn't increase competition. It merely masks ownership, and opens these companies up to being preyed upon by private capital.

Besides, Tesla has always practiced good partnerships - like with their battery suppliers - and sold off unused assets like Maxwell Technologies or let execs wander off to specialize like Redwood Materials.

Even if you split off the battery tech, the auto manufacturer would still need to develop cells which met their needs, not a cell manufacturer's needs. The robot company would need AI that worked for it, while the car company would still need the software developers to stay agile. And HVAC and energy are technologies which come from the car manufacturer, so splitting them off just makes them into dead-end projects that somehow all need to interwork.

-Crissa
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