Investor's Corner
Projecting Tesla’s Growth for the Next 6-10 Years
When Tesla announced its Gigafactory, it provided us with a fairly detailed picture of its growth going forward. And now that the Gigafactory deal is done with Nevada, that growth seems to be a low risk assumption. Tesla has also provided us with some color about 2015 and using all this information and filling in the blanks, I’ve come up with this chart for Tesla’s automotive growth going forward:
Tesla’s Gigafactory is expected to produce 50GWh of battery packs in 2020. If we assume that 85kWh is the average pack size – I expect the Model 3 pack to be smaller and Model X pack to be larger – Tesla will need 42.5GWh for automotive use. That leaves an excess of 7.5GWh for energy storage. By early next year, Tesla will be using as much or more than the rest of the global cylindrical cell output combined based on their stated Model S run rate goal of 50,000/year. So at 500,000 cars per year, Tesla would be using 10 times the current global output of cylindrical cells and more than the current total global output of batteries.
However, the Gigafactory should be maxed out by then and my personal prediction is that we will either see a major expansion of the Gigafactory go online shortly after 2020 or we will see more such factories go online in the coming years. Considering that the current Gigafactory that expects to start production in 2017 broke ground in 2014, factory 2 should break ground in 2018, just after the first one goes online. My expectation is also that during that time frame at the latest, Tesla will start considering auto factories on other continents.
Tesla has also stated that they are building superchargers at a rate greater than one per day. At that rate, by 2020, Tesla will have 2000 superchargers globally, enough to give them a major leg up over any other manufacturer. In fact, by 2017, which is the earliest that any long range EVs are expected, Tesla should already have 1000 supercharger stations in place. That would already put the Model 3 ahead of any potential competition in the space.
As far as storage batteries go, Tesla currently sells some storage batteries through SolarCity both for residential and commercial customers. Currently this is a very small limited availability offering. However, the Gigafactory will change all that making batteries more affordable and giving SolarCity the ability for bigger and more widespread deployments. As someone with solar panels, this excites me as much or more than automotive growth for Tesla. As solar system prices are dropping, over the next decade storage along with panels might become the norm. The market for this is potentially limitless.
So if you think that you have missed out on Tesla’s growth, you are wrong. Major growth is still to come. If there is one company I see becoming bigger than Apple, it is Tesla. Here is what Tesla’s revenue growth would look like with Model S average price of 100,000$, Model X at 110,000$ and Model 3 at 60,000$ from cars alone.
At 500,000 cars, Tesla will have 0.5% of the global auto market still leaving significant growth potential ahead. Even though there has been a recent up tick in rumors of 200 mile EVs, I expect none of them to be competitive with Tesla until at least 2020 and that too only if the rest of the industry bothers with a charging network to enable long distance travel in an EV.
My personal estimate is that Tesla will produce 2 million cars by 2024. At that time, I estimate Tesla auto revenues of $160 billion – about equaling current GM revenues. However, none of this takes into account Tesla’s storage revenues. If by 2024, Tesla can sell 100GWh of storage batteries at 150$/kWh, that would bring in another $15 billion in revenue but at a higher margin than the auto business. At $175B in revenue and growing, with margins of 15% and a P/E of 20, Tesla would be worth more than $500 billion then. Tesla will still be a growth company with 4-6 available models and more coming soon.
Disclosure: I am long TSLA, SCTY.
Visit my personal finance blog or visit me at Seeking Alpha.
In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli responded to rumors of an imminent bankruptcy that was reportedly being mulled after a report stated the automaker was working with the firm AlixPartners to iron out its next steps.
The company felt a massive loss on Wall Street yesterday, as the report essentially pushed the stock down as much as 55 percent on Tuesday.
The report, published initially by Eletric-Vehicles.com, claimed Lucid was essentially in dire straits and was told by AlixPartners, a commonly used restructuring advisor, to either take shares private or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Lucid’s head of Communications, Nick Twork, immediately challenged the report and stated the company “has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year.”
Now, the company’s CEO is chiming in as well, stating that the report is “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Napoli said:
“Lucid is not considering bankruptcy or a transaction to take the company private. Those reports are false. The Board did not explore either scenario. Period.
As disclosed in our most recent quarterly filing, Lucid has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations well into next year.
We work with outside advisors to improve operational performance and execution. They are not advising Lucid on a take-private transaction or bankruptcy, and any suggestion that they have recommended either course of action to management or the Board is false.
My priority is clear: turn this company around. That is where the leadership team and I are focused.
I look forward to providing a full update during our quarterly earnings call on August 4th.”
🚨 Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli calls rumors of financial issues “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Read his full remarks here: https://t.co/t3Pg1NHvzy pic.twitter.com/LvHUPhO4Qf
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 15, 2026
It seems pretty clear that Lucid is confident things will be okay, and, to be honest, they should not have much to worry about, especially considering the company has been backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for years. It has solid financial backing, and its sales, while weak, are pretty much right on par with a company of this age.
Lucid also sent a Cease & Desist letter to the publication for their report.
Lucid shares have rebounded nicely and are up nearly 21 percent at the time of publication. As soon as the company dispelled the rumors of bankruptcy yesterday, the stock began to climb back toward more reasonable levels.
Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
Elon Musk sends first warning to SpaceX short sellers
