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.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX IPO set to provide massive $11.6B windfall for teacher pension plan
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) stands to reap one of the most extraordinary returns in pension fund history thanks to a bold 2019 investment in SpaceX.
According to a recent report from The Globe and Mail, the Toronto-based fund invested roughly $300 million CAD (~$220 million USD at the time) in Elon Musk’s space company as its inaugural deal through the Teachers’ Innovation Platform.
At SpaceX’s anticipated $1.75 trillion IPO valuation, set for a mid-June debut on Nasdaq under ticker $SPCX, that stake could now be worth up to $11.6 billion USD. This would represent a roughly 50x return and easily become OTPP’s most successful single investment ever.
The fund manages $279 billion in assets for approximately 346,000 working and retired teachers in Ontario, potentially delivering an average boost of around $33,500 per member if fully realized.
SpaceX has filed its S-1 and plans to price shares at $135 each, aiming to raise a record $75 billion in what would be the largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco. The company reported $18.67 billion in revenue for 2025, driven primarily by Starlink satellite internet growth and NASA contracts, though it continues to post significant losses tied to ambitious R&D in Starship and AI initiatives.
Important pieces moving forward include:
- Starlink Expansion: The satellite broadband service is scaling rapidly, targeting global connectivity, especially in underserved rural and remote areas. This segment offers massive recurring revenue potential as numbers climb.
- Starship and Reusability Leadership: SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship aims to slash launch costs dramatically, enabling frequent missions, Mars ambitions, and lucrative government/defense contracts. Success here could unlock exponential growth.
- AI and Diversification: Recent moves, including ties to xAI, position SpaceX in high-growth AI infrastructure, broadening beyond traditional aerospace.
- Validation Scrutiny: While the $1.75 trillion target excites investors, analysts like Morningstar value the company closer to $780 billion, citing high multiples (around 90x trailing revenue) and execution risks. A 180-day lockup period will prevent early investors like OTPP from selling immediately post-IPO.
The irony has not been lost on observers. Ontario’s government previously canceled a Starlink rural internet contract amid political tensions involving Musk, yet the pension fund’s savvy investment, made when SpaceX was valued around $33-36 billion, and Starlink was nascent, delivers outsized gains independent of politics.
For OTPP, this windfall strengthens its already solid 111 percent funding ratio and underscores the value of patient, innovation-focused capital allocation.
For SpaceX, the IPO marks a new chapter: greater transparency, access to public markets for talent retention and growth capital, and heightened pressure to deliver on its multi-planetary vision.
All eyes are fixed on whether SpaceX can justify its lofty valuation through sustained execution. For Ontario teachers, the returns are already stellar, but SpaceX, like other Musk companies in the past, has plenty of things to prove. Perhaps the most ideal person for the job is at the helm, hoping to bring the company to a massive valuation.
Investor's Corner
Tesla has its answer to auto growth, it just has to bring it to the U.S.: analyst
Tesla has its answer to grow its automotive sales over the next few years, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli says, but it just has to bring it to the U.S.
On Thursday, Michaeli reiterated his $490 price target and the ‘Buy’ rating he already held on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA). However, its automotive division has struggled to show sequential growth over the past few years, mostly due to its focus on AI and Full Self-Driving. Tesla already axed two of its lower-volume vehicles with the Model S and Model X earlier this year.
However, Tesla does not need to engineer an entire new vehicle to trigger an upward tick in sales; it just has to bring it from China to the U.S., Michaeli said.
He is talking about the Model Y L, a slightly larger version of the all-electric crossover that is already available in China. U.S. customers have been pleading with CEO Elon Musk to bring it to the country since its launch in Asia last year, but he’s not convinced of it because of the advent of self-driving and its importance in this particular market.
The problem is that Tesla owners have been requesting something larger that could fit a typical American family. The Model Y L is slightly larger than the standard Model Y, but some are concerned that it could still be too small to fit what most people might need.
Instead, they have asked for a full-size SUV from Tesla.
Tesla gives big hint that it will build Cyber SUV, smaller Cybertruck
Nevertheless, the Model Y L still presents a great opportunity for Tesla in the U.S., and Michaeli says that there is an additional sales opportunity of about 100,000 units, with demand potential falling somewhere between 60,000 and 135,000 units.
TD Cowen’s note to investors also analyzed that Tesla’s growth could come from a stock perspective as well, positively impacting the stock price, as it has been widely reliant on vehicle sales, even though Tesla has truly phased itself away from that being an important metric.
Tesla stands to gain greatly from the introduction of the Model Y L in the U.S., but only if Elon Musk sees it as a viable fit for the market. Families may need to see Tesla bring something larger to the U.S., or they might be forced to buy from another automaker that offers something that fits is needs for more interior space to haul around the kids.
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.