Cars Are Suddenly Worth $3 Trillion, And It’s Not All Tesla
EVs, which should be replacing gasoline-powered cars, are only enlarging the pool — and its value.
Rivian’s electric pickup truck.
Photographer: Bing Guan/BloombergYou might think that the IPO of electric-truck wunderkind Rivian Automotive Inc. — with its valuation soaring past $100 billion on zero revenue — perfectly captured the madness in autos in 2021. I disagree; it was actually Rivian’s first quarterly results, when the company said it would miss its production target by “a few hundred” vehicles. Ever alert to any ripples in its finely-tuned discounted cash flow model, the market promptly dinged the stock by 10%, or $9 billion, in a day.
This was a weird year for auto stocks. There’s the obvious stuff, such as Rivian’s market cap. And there’s always Tesla Inc. Elon Musk’s electrified juggernaut raced past $1 trillion in market cap and then fell back below it as the Time Person of the Year sold $11 billion or so of his own stake to pay taxes — after he conducted a Twitter poll and insulted several senators, naturally.