Yesterday Tesla became more valuable than Ford, despite never having turned a profit.

The electric vehicle manufacturers’ market value soared 7% at the close of trading, valuing it at $49bn (£38bn), compared to Ford’s $46bn.

It comes after the firm announced a record 25,000 deliveries in the first quarter of 2017, up 70% on last year.

While Ford’s total production dwarfed Tesla’s by 6.65m cars to 76,230 last year, investors are excited about the firm’s future growth potential.

The firm has announced plans to launch a Model 3 this year, a cheaper car designed to appeal to a wider audience than its premium models.

It has also invested $5bn in the Gigafactory, a vast battery production unit in Nevada that at capacity will produce more lithium ion batteries annually than were produced worldwide in 2013. It could cut the cost of batteries by 30%.

But the firm’s ace is its charismatic CEO Elon Musk who has a knack for luring away talented employees from other firms.

In response to the news of the valuation, Musk tweeted, “Stormy weather in Shortville”, a jibe at investors who had bet on Tesla’s stock price falling.

Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst at Autotrader, told the Guardian the Model 3 would test the company’s ability to make money:

“It will make or break whether Tesla can be a volume manufacturer that appeals to a wide swath of consumers and whether it can be profitable or not.”

Ben Hallo, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. told Bloomberg: “I don’t know if people want electric cars, but people want Tesla. I’m not an Elon Musk worshiper, but people that would normally buy a Porsche are buying Teslas right now.”

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