Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla has become the world’s most valuable carmaker, overtaking Japan’s Toyota, after its stock hit a record high.
Shares in the electric carmaker touched $1,134 on Wednesday morning before falling back, leaving it with a market value of $209.47bn (£165bn).
That is roughly $4bn more than Toyota’s current stock market value.
Tesla produced 103,000 vehicles in the first quarter, or about 4 per cent of the almost 2.4 million made by Toyota.
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The phenomenal rise in the value of Tesla shares since the start of 2020 has been due to the fact that the investors have begun to feel more confident about the future of electric vehicles.
That is despite its founder Elon Musk having wiped $14bn off Tesla’s value in May after tweeting that its share price was too high.
Mr Musk has said Tesla will deliver at least 500,000 vehicles in 2020, a forecast the company has not changed despite the coronavirus pandemic.
After several years of losses, Tesla has delivered three straight profitable quarters since the third quarter of 2019 and surprised investors with solid first-quarter deliveries despite the virus outbreak.
Toyota’s market valuation includes the 14.3% of shares that Toyota itself holds as treasury stock, worth around $30 billion. Tesla doesn’t hold any treasury shares.
