While Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) dominates the electric car market and has potentially a bigger market cap than all 7 Japanese automakers combined, they've yet to impress Toyota's (NYSE: TM) CEO, who was quoted saying they're not a real business at all.
Toyota's Chief Executive Akio Toyoda was hesitant to say it, but he said that Tesla "[has] not created a real business in the real world yet," quoted by CNBC.
Toyota used the analogy that likened the two companies to a kitchen and a chef. While Tesla has a kitchen, their chef is still trading recipes and trying to become the best. Even better, they're trying to become the future standard. While Toyota is already established, and knows what their customers like and want.
Toyoda started with praise for Tesla, but quickly pointed out that it was more like a dream than a reality. Unfortunately, that dream is currently ahead of Toyota in the electric car race. Toyoda did admit that Toyota can learn from Tesla in some departments, such as renewable energy and reducing CO2. But, Tesla is behind in terms of products to offer. While Toyota has been serving demanding customers in the car business for years, Tesla is still creating its business.
Toyota started marketing its hydrogen fuel cell Mirai in 2014, pointing to electric cars as the way of the future. It seemed they were ahead of their time, since Mirai sales flopped in the United States, totaling only 1,502 by 2019. Tesla, however, stole the show with their eco-friendly car, selling close to 370,000 Electric Vehicles (EVs) in 2019 alone. Even that was an impressive 50% increase from the previous year. Toyota projects they'll be able to sell 500,000 electric vehicles annually in 2025. But Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk one-upped them again, claiming Tesla would be selling 500,000 EVs in 2020, and up to a few million 2025 across the world.