Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/807528
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 5 APRIL 2017 11 Electric car maker Tesla's market value has overtaken that of Ford for the first time ever. The record pace of auto sales in the United States is slowing down, leaving investors increasingly bearish on auto stocks but Tesla continues to surge. At the close of trading Tesla had a market value of $49 billion, compared with Ford's value of $46 billion. Tesla's shares rose on Monday after the company announced record vehicle deliveries in the first three months of the year. The firm delivered more than 25,000 cars in the first quarter, up 70% on the same quarter last year. While Tesla's sales are growing fast they are still a fraction of Ford's, which sold almost 6.7 million vehicles in 2016. Tesla delivered 76,000 electric cars last year. Tesla is now setting its sights on General Motors, starkly illustrating the growing gap in investors' optimism over its future versus the prospects for the traditional carmakers from Detroit. While GM and Ford may have strong profits and healthy balance sheets, Tesla offers something Wall Street loves much more: the potential for dramatic growth. This year it plans to start selling a cheaper car in the US, the Model 3, which it hopes will have mass market appeal. "Five years ago no one knew what a Tesla was. Now people want a Tesla. It has usurped BMW as an aspirational car," Ben Kallo - energy technology analyst at Robert W Baird - said. Kallo said that the charisma, or what he described as the "magic dust" surrounding Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk, allows it to attract talented staff as well as investors. "Tesla has more going on in those four walls than we know about," he said. Meanwhile, Tesla has made a huge investment in battery production, building a $5bn factory in Nevada that when fully developed will be the biggest building in the world. Musk, hopes that by operating at that kind of scale his company can innovate faster and cut the cost of batteries by 30%. As well as supplying batteries for cars, the plant makes batteries for homes and businesses. In what was seen as a vote on confidence in the firm, last month China's Tencent spent $1.78bn on buying a 5% stake in Tesla. Business Today www.creditinfo.com.mt info@creditinfo.com.mt Tel: 2131 2344 Your Local Partner for Credit Risk Management Solutions Supporting you all the way New €50 banknote starts circulating The new €50, the fourth banknote in the Europa series, started circu- lating as from Tuesday yesterday, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced. Marking a further step towards making euro banknotes even more resistant to counterfeiting, its security features include a portrait window near the top of the hologram which becomes transparent when looked at against the light. The window reveals a portrait of Europa, a figure from Greek mythology, which is visible on both sides of the note. The same portrait is also visible in the watermark, alongside the emerald number, which displays an effect of the light moving up and down when the note is tilted. The note also includes raised print for the visually impaired. "Even in this digital age, cash remains essential in our economy," Mario Draghi, President of the ECB said. "A soon-to-be-published survey on cash use, carried out on behalf of the ECB, shows that over three-quarters of all payments at points-of-sale in the euro area are made in cash. In terms of transaction values, that's slightly more than half." The full survey results will be made available in summer 2017. The €50 is the most widely used euro banknote denomination. With over 9 billion of them in circulation, they account for 46% of all euro banknotes. The €50 banknotes of the first series will remain legal tender and continue to circulate alongside the new notes and will be gradually withdrawn from circulation. New €100 and €200 banknotes will be issued at the beginning of 2019. Tesla's market value overtakes Ford as investors bet on the future Tesla Motors' Model 3 electric car is due to go into production in later this year