Maybe what you're saying is true regarding the company itself, but it's a meme stock. You go down and talk to people, people will say that yet wouldn't actually invest in the basket of companies of those industries.
It's not a problem for Tesla or Elon per-se, but we shouldn't assign intelligence to people basically voting for their favs with their wallets.
Shouldn't also blame these people, because the stock market is as much prescriptive as it's predictive: if enough people "vote for their favs with their wallets", those favs may actually start (or keep) doing OK because of that, if they're not completely incompetent.
(Myself, if I had some funds that are not already earmarked for something more important, I'd dump some into TSLA just as an expression of support to Musk and electrification of transport. I'm sure many people did just that, with no expectations of return.)
People are generally shifting toward green investments in their long term portfolios in my little sphere of the world, but Tesla typically isn’t one of them because it’s considered too risky.
That risk is what made a lot of people rich of course, but investments in green energy companies in Denmark have seen a 15-35% increase in value, year by year, over the past decades without any real risk. It’s been safer than index funds here.
All energy companies have really, but you feel better when they are green.
Tesla may yet revolutionise batteries the same way the personal computer or the smartphone became something we all have, and thus be the best investment you could make right now, but it also might not.
The energy companies on the other hand aren’t going to stop selling a steady flow of energy to people. Why we let investors benefit from utilities is another discussion, but as long as we do, it’s going to be some of the safest investments you can get into.
Isn't Tesla one of the least capital efficient ways to invest in transport electrification? How much of that will end up in genuine R&D and furtherance of your aims, as against paying for transient meme interest and massive risk loading?
They literally developed a completely new battery manufacturing factory and cathode plant from the ground up. Plus of course their own batteries with their own chemistries. No other car company comes even close to that.
They are vertically integrating to the point where they themselves are building their own battery manufacturing equipment.
They are even slowly getting into mining themselves. And of course solar, stationary storage and so on.
Hard to see what company is doing considerable more. Tesla is doing a pretty large amount of innovation.
I don't know where your figures come from. I've seen Tesla's 2020 FY R&D expense was $1.5Bn, but that is dwarfed by the other players if the linked data is correct[1].
So apart from paying a massive premium, dollar for investment dollar you'd get much more R&D for your money buying a basket of non-Tesla automakers than tesla.
It's not a problem for Tesla or Elon per-se, but we shouldn't assign intelligence to people basically voting for their favs with their wallets.