Tesla vs Toyota vs VW – Which car company you should have invested in

Tesla, Toyota, and Volkswagen are three big names in the automotive world.

Toyota and VW are known for being the biggest and best car companies globally, and produce best-sellers in South Africa and internationally.

Tesla is known for throwing the kitchen sink at its vision of an electric car future, and its hard-working South African leader Elon Musk.

Based on the share price of the companies, Tesla is winning the race at the moment.

Based on the fundamentals, like sales and profit, VW and Toyota are well in the lead.

To see by just how much Tesla is the stock market favourite, we compared the growth in the three companies’ share prices over the past five years.

We also listed whether they pay a dividend and what their market cap is.

Toyota

• March 2016 price – $108
• March 2021 price – $150
• Growth – 38%

Toyota’s market cap sits at just over $200 billion, and the company pays a dividend of just over $4 per share.

The company has seen relatively slow share price growth in recent years, and has a trailing PE of 14.57.

VW

• March 2016 price – $136
• March 2021 price – $277
• Growth – 93%

VW’s market cap is $128 billion and the company pays a $5.64 dividend.

The company has seen healthy share price growth since mid-2020 and has produced a solid performance over the past five years as a result.

It’s trailing PE is 10.58.

Tesla

• March 2016 price – $43
• March 2021 price – $693
• Growth – 1,572%

Tesla has seen huge share price growth in the past five years, and is up over 1,500% for the period.

Recent weeks have been hard on the share price, however, and the company does not pay a dividend.

Tesla has a market cap of $665 billion and a forward PE of 167.64.