John Doerr, a senior partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2015 conference in San Francisco, California, on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Famed venture capitalist John Doerr on Thursday said he believes bullish Tesla analysts are probably right and predicted the company will lead the way during the global transition to an all-electric transportation sector.
“They are committed to being a global leader and I believe they will be in the transportation future,” Doerr said at the CNBC ESG Impact summit.
Doerr’s remarks come after Tesla hit a $1 trillion market cap on Monday following news that Hertz would purchase 100,000 electric vehicles for its rental fleet by the end of 2022. The deal with Hertz brings in a reported $4.2 billion for Tesla in the biggest ever purchase of electric vehicles.
“I think the fundamentals of driving Tesla is the size of the market and the excellence of the product,” Doerr said. “If you haven’t driven a Tesla, people aren’t buying Tesla because it’s green. They’re buying it because it’s a great automobile.”
The transportation sector is one of the largest contributors to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for roughly one-third of emissions each year. The transition towards electric cars and trucks will be a critical solution to fighting climate change.
“The powerful thing that Tesla has done beyond creating a trillion-dollar company that’s worth as much as their next four competitors is they’ve put the global auto industry on notice that the future of electric transportation is what consumers will demand when we get cost and prices to be competitive globally.” Doerr said.
Tesla has sold a majority of the electric vehicles in the U.S. in recent years, according to IHS Markit. However, that market share is expected to quickly decline as traditional automakers invest billions in building new electric vehicles to compete against Tesla.
Sales of electric vehicles are expected to comprise less than 4% of U.S. sales in 2021, according to industry forecasters. Of those, all-electric models, such as Teslas, are at just 2.6% of the market, or about 394,000 vehicles, according to forecasts by LMC Automotive.
— CNBC’s Michael Wayland contributed reporting
