Few if any enterprises have evoked such wide-ranging forecasts as Tesla.

Founder Elon Musk has spread uncertainty by consistently promising production rates and financial performance that he fails to deliver, as well as pledging that Tesla needs no new capital, only to raise $8 billion in debt and equity over the past three years.

As for investors, their view of Tesla’s future is a study in extremes. At the positive end, esteemed money manager Ron Baron reckons that the electric car maker could be worth $700 billion in a decade, meaning that its share price would jump more than ten fold to exceed $4,000. Leading the Wall Street naysayers is JPMorgan, which predicts that Tesla shares will fall to $195 by December, a decline of 38%.

Although opinions on what Tesla will do covers a gigantic spectrum, what it has to do to enrich investors can be forecast with reasonable accuracy. Starting with Tesla’s rich valuation––a major handicap for its future stock performance––we can calculate how big and profitable it must be to deliver even moderately good returns. And will need to be both plenty big, and plenty profitable.

Today, Tesla boasts a market cap of $53 billion. But since it holds just $2.2 billion cash and will need a lot more, it’s reasonable to estimate that Must will have to raise another $5 billion in equity over the next year or two. So we start with an equity valuation of $58 billion.

Let’s assume investors will require a 8% return on their Tesla shares. That’s probably a bare minimum given that this is the epitome of a high-risk stock. In that case, Tesla would need to grow its value by 51% by the end of 2024. By the end of that five year, four month period, Tesla’s market cap would need to reach $88 billion.

Five-plus years from now, it’s likely that Tesla will be a fairly mature company. A reasonable prediction puts its price-to-earnings multiple by late 2024 at 16.6. In effect, that means investors from that point on would expect Tesla to provide 8% returns on consistently growing sales and profits, but with a constant PE, meaning its years of stupendous growth are in the rear-view mirror.

At that PE, Tesla would be generating net earnings of $5.3 billion ($86 billion divided by 16.6), representing a swing of $8.4 billion from its annualized losses of $3.1 billion through the first half of 2018.

Today, the world’s most profitable major luxury car producer is BMW, which last year posted after-tax margins of 8.8%. But we’ll accept the view of many analysts that Musk can advance not only automative technology, but profitability, and forecast net margins of 10%, a full 14% above BMW. In that scenario, Tesla would be generating sales of $53 billion in just over five years. That’s an annual growth rate of 31%.

Even to achieve these modest returns, Tesla would need to conquer a giant share of the future luxury car market. (Musk says that the Model 3 will be a mass market vehicle, but its current pricing, and the phasing out tax credit as volumes grow, is likely to confine Tesla to the premium category.)

According to a study by market research firm Profshare, the luxury market will grow at nearly 11% through 2024, expanding from current revenues of $100 billion to $173 billion, or 73%. In the second quarter of 2018, Tesla’s sales were running at an annualized rate of $12.2 billion, meaning it holds just over 12% of the market.

At our goal of $53 billion by the end of 2024, Tesla would need to grow its sales by $40 billion, and grab 30% of the premium car market. It would absorb no less than 54% of the category’s total growth over that period, leaving less than half for its competitors.

Today, a trio of luxury brands from three German carmakers BMW, Mercedes-Benz (Daimler), and Audi (Volkswagen), control almost 80% of the premium market, each holding between 23% and 26%. Tesla would need to steal around 14 points of share from the three German champs, or almost five points each.

“Tesla will be challenged,” says Bart Demandt, automotive analyst and consultant at Carsalesbase.com. “Virtually every luxury player wants to be in the electric car business. Audi is moving ahead, and BMW already has a head-start. It’s a highly competitive market that presents a risk for Tesla.”

Can Tesla get there? It would need to lap a field full of formidable competitors. Keep in mind that Tesla might need to raise a lot more than $5 billion in new equity, that an 8% return might not satisfy investors, or that its margins might be only excellent, not a world-besting 10%. A Humphrey Bogart told Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon on the reasons why he didn’t trust her, “Just look at the number of them.”

Tesla’s road to success also requires by 2024, something like half of all the premium cars on the road are electric vehicles, a multiple of today’s number.

Elon Musk wants his investors to believe in miracles. He’ll need one to make his stock anything but a creaking jalopy in the years ahead.

很少对有哪家公司的预测，会像特斯拉这样出现明显的两极化。

特斯拉的创始人埃隆·马斯克经常许诺要达到怎样的量产率，公司的财务业绩要达到怎样的水平。马斯克还说，特斯拉已经不需要注入新的资本了，过去三年，特斯拉只筹措了80亿美元的债务和股本。然而钱虽然到位了，公司却迟迟达不到他许诺的目标，让股民不免心里打鼓。

投资者对特斯拉的前景也出现了两极化的看法。持积极态度的人——比如理财经理罗恩·巴伦认为，十年内特斯拉的市值将达到7000亿美元，也就是说它的股价会增长十倍，超过4000美元。持消极看法的人，比如以摩根大通为代表的一票华尔街银行则认为，特斯拉的股价在年底前会跌到195美元，跌幅将达38%。

尽管人们对特斯拉未来的发展前景存在很大分歧，但对于投资者能通过特斯拉的股票获得多少收益，我们却并非没有猜测的依据。首先是特斯拉的高估值——这一点其实对它远期的股市表现很不利。我们可以算算，它的规模和盈利能力必须达到多大，才能给股民带来哪怕是适度的回报——答案是，它的规模必须要相当大，盈利能力必须要相当高。

今天，特斯拉的市值已达到530亿美元。但它手中只握有22亿美元的现金，显然它的现金缺口依然是很大的。因此我们可以合理推测，未来一两年，特斯拉必须还得额外募集50亿美元的股本，所以我们把它的股市估值算做580亿美元。

假设投资者对特斯拉股票的预期回报率是8%——考虑到它是一支高风险股票，8%其实算不上一个很高的要求。这样的话，到2024年年底，特斯拉的市值必须增长51%。也就是说，在接下来的五年零四个月里，特斯拉的市值得达到880亿美元。

五年多以后，特斯拉很可能已经成为一家相当成熟的公司了。我们可以合理地将它届时的市盈率估计为16.6。换句话说，特斯拉要想给股民带来8%的收益，就得持续提高销量和利润，同时保持稳定的市盈率。这样的话，这几年它必须要保持相当惊人的增长才行。

在这样的市盈率下，特斯拉的净收益必须达到53亿美元（即860亿除以16.6）。而2018年上半年，特斯拉的年化亏损还有31亿美元之多，那么它至少得比现在多挣84亿美元才行。

如今，全球利润最高的主要豪华车厂商是德国的宝马。去年，宝马集团的税后利润率是8.8%。有很多分析师认为，马斯克不仅将推动汽车技术的进步，同时特斯拉的盈利也会超过传统车企。我们姑且相信这种说法，将特斯拉的预期净利润假设在10%，也就是整整超过宝马14个百分点。在这种情况下，5年间特斯拉将创造530亿美元的销售额，也就是年增率达到31%。

要达到这个水平的回报率，特斯拉必须抢占豪华车市场的一大块份额才办得到。（马斯克表示，Model 3是一款面向大众市场的车型，但考虑到它当前的定价，再考虑到随着销量的上涨，它的税收减免将逐步取消，因此特斯拉可能仍将被限制在高端市场上。）

市场研究机构Profshare的一项研究显示，到2024年，豪华车市场的销量将增长近11%，营收入将从现在的1000亿美元增长至1730亿美元左右，增幅约为73%。2018年第二季度特斯拉的年化销售额约为122亿美元，也就是说，它仅占据了该市场12%的份额。

要想在2024年实现530亿美元的目标，特斯拉的销售额必须增长400亿美元，至少占据高端车市场的三成份额。也就是说，它必须吸收这段时间内高端市场54%的增量，只把一小半留给它的竞争对手。

而目前，“德系三巨头”宝马、奔驰、奥迪控制了80%的高端车市场，“三巨头”控制的份额都在23%到26%之间。特斯拉必须从“三巨头”手里抢来14%个百分点，也就是从每家手中抢来5%的份额。

Carsalesbase.com的汽车业分析师、顾问巴特·德曼特认为：“特斯拉也会遭到挑战。现在几乎所有高端车企都想进军电动汽车业务。奥迪正在向这一领域进军，宝民已经有了初步成果。这是一个高度竞争的市场，对特斯拉也意味着风险。”

那么，特斯拉能达到我们假想的目标吗？至少它要在一众强大竞争对手的绞杀中突出重围。不要忘了，特斯拉要募集的股本可能远远不止50亿，而且8%的回报率也许并不能满足投资者的胃口。另外，特斯拉的利润也许只能达到“不错”的水平，或许并不能达到世界前10%。在电影《鹰巢喋血战》中，亨莱特·鲍嘉曾告诉玛丽·阿斯特自己为什么不相信她的话： “看看他们的数量就知道了。”

特斯拉的成功还需要一个重要的前提，那就是到2024年，路面上跑的高端车得有一半左右都是电动汽车，这个比例几乎是今天的几倍。

马斯克希望他的投资者都相信奇迹。但接下来几年，要想让特斯拉股票不变成一台越跑越慢的老爷车，他得先创造一个奇迹才行。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎