Electric car manufacturer Tesla has reached a market value of $49bn (£39.4bn), overtaking Ford by $3bn, according to news reports.
Share values rose on Monday after Tesla recorded a 69% year-on-year increase in first quarter sales to 25,000 cars, consisting of 13,450 Model S saloon cars and 11,550 Model X SUVs.
Tesla reported revenues of $1.74bn in the fourth quarter of 2016 and gross profit of $435m over the same period. First quarter production also increased year-on-year to a record of 25,418 cars in 2017. The company has not yet released its full results for Q1 2017.
Tesla unveiled several plans in 2016, including introducing plans to further develop vehicle autonomy and branch into car sharing, and offering insurance and maintenance costs within the price of its cars sold in Asia.
The car manufacturer delivered a total of 76,000 in 2016, compared to Ford’s 6.7m. According to reports, Tesla aims for its upcoming, cheaper Model 3 to be a mass market product.
Tesla announced that it was likely to introduce fees for charging at its supercharging facilities for the Model 3 in June last year.
On March 28 Chinese business Tencent revealed that it had a 5% passive stake in Tesla worth $1.78bn.
