A key part of that though, is that Tesla took 5 years before it even produced it's first car, 9 years before it's actually successful model S. Over that time they burned an enormous amount of money and they're 'disrupting' an industry that has 5-6% margins not the silicon valley style 30-40% with 0 marginal cost on inventory. Arguably the differentiating factor for Tesla was the ability to get financing in the region of Billions of dollars for close to a decade in order to break into this incredibly competitive market.
You talk about 'they promised and they delivered' yet Tesla has been a lesson in how a company can continually over promise, under-deliver without incurring any consequences. Just because Tesla eventually became successful doesn't paper over the cracks in it's early days.
Even now, if you're looking at valuing Tesla on what they delivered, well that's fine- but it's not reality. Tesla's current valuation makes them more valuable today than Ford. Which is pretty surprising when the idea of Tesla having the market share and profitability of Ford would be a very optimistic scenario.
You talk about 'they promised and they delivered' yet Tesla has been a lesson in how a company can continually over promise, under-deliver without incurring any consequences. Just because Tesla eventually became successful doesn't paper over the cracks in it's early days.
Even now, if you're looking at valuing Tesla on what they delivered, well that's fine- but it's not reality. Tesla's current valuation makes them more valuable today than Ford. Which is pretty surprising when the idea of Tesla having the market share and profitability of Ford would be a very optimistic scenario.