The question here is, what's it worth without assuming great future growth? Tesla is in the price range of BMW, in the midrange luxury segment. Assume they stay there. What's Tesla's value?
Hopefully that assumption doesn't hold. Quoting from the earnings call:
"Our cars are not affordable enough—we need to fix that. We are making progress in that regard. We need to not go bankrupt, obviously, but we're not trying to be too profitable. One or 2 percent, it's not too crazy. Slightly profitable and maximize growth, making the cars as affordable as possible"
Tesla's price movement has been in the other direction - upward. The Model 3 was originally supposed to sell for $35,000. Now, it's "$39,990 - $56,990".
Assuming no great growth isn't entirely reasonable when analyzing a company that has had a CAGR of greater than 50% for the last 8 years, and intends to continue.
If you think that's the reality, you should go short in a big way. Stock would be overvalued by 90%.
Meanwhile, a 50% CAGR on an annual revenue of $25 billion is exactly what you want when interest rates will be zero indefinitely. Not at any cost, of course, but if you were so smart that you saw this in 2015, you would have bought then.
