Musk puts electric car firmly in driving seat
The stock climbed 3.9% to a $168.07 at 10.13am New York time after reaching an intraday record of $169.30.
Shares of the Palo Alto, California-based company, which had its initial public offering just three years ago, have surged about fivefold this year.
The 10-year-old carmaker named for inventor Nikola Tesla intends to deliver 21,000 units of its flagship Model S electric sedans this year and double that in 2014.
Chief executive Musk, 42, has said demand for the car, priced from $70,000, outstrips Tesla’s ability to make it.
“Tesla’s the Apple of automotive — it’s managed to cross the automotive and technology fields to become this hot commodity,” said Alan Baum, an independent auto analyst at Baum & Associates in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
“Justified or not, the expectations for this company are very high.”
By sales and production volume, Tesla ranks among the smallest of international automakers. General Motors, the biggest US auto-maker by sales, has a $49bn market capitalisation.
Ford’s market value of $65bn is the largest among US-based carmakers.
Tesla’s Model S was named 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine; Consumer Reports in a May review rated it among the best it’s ever tested; and this month the company said the model received top crash and safety ratings in tests by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The company made a secondary public share sale in May, after posting its first quarterly profit.
That helped Tesla raise more than $1bn to fund product development and pay off a US Energy Department loan nine years early.
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