On July 28, 2017, Tesla delivered the first Model 3. That day, the car cost $49,000. Today, that same car is worth about $13,961. The same $49,000 put into Tesla stock that day is worth $770,207 today. But before jumping to conclusions, there are a couple of details worth a closer look.
The real entry price wasn’t $35,000
The Model 3 was announced at $35,000, and that’s still the number most people remember. But on the day of the first deliveries, that version didn’t exist yet. The two options needed to reach $49,000 carried the label “Required for first production” — they weren’t optional, they were mandatory for that first production run. The $35,000 version didn’t arrive until 2019, two years later.
The result after nine years
$49,000 invested on July 28, 2017, value today
The Model 3 (depreciated) — about $13,961
Tesla stock — $770,207
The car loses more than two-thirds of its value. The stock multiplies the capital by almost 16. It’s the comparison you’d expect between an asset that depreciates with use and a company that has grown extraordinarily over these nine years.
In June 2019, that same $49,000 in Tesla stock was worth $26,172 — almost half of what was invested. Anyone who bought on delivery day and sold in a panic less than two years later, with the stock nearly cut in half, would have completely missed everything that came after. The final result doesn’t tell you about the hardest part: holding through the red before seeing the other side.
The car’s current value is a depreciation estimate published by iSeeCars, which depends on mileage and condition. The stock figure comes from Tesla’s actual price, adjusted for the two stock splits the company has done since then.
This exercise is part of a series that looks at real historical cases to understand what long-term investing really means. If you want to track Tesla’s price or any other stock in real time, with charts and analysis tools, ProRealTime gives you live quotes and everything you need to follow it.
Past performance does not guarantee future returns. This exercise compares a real, verifiable historical case, but it is not a suggestion of what to buy. The goal is purely educational: to show how a depreciating asset compares to a stock investment, and to remember that final returns rarely reflect how demanding the path was.
Conclusion
$49,000 in a Model 3 today is worth a fraction of what it cost. The same $49,000 in Tesla stock multiplies the capital by almost 16. But the headline hides the important part: along the way, that money was worth almost half of what was invested, and only those who held through that drop without selling got to see the final result. The lesson of this exercise isn’t “buy stocks instead of cars” — it’s that long-term returns almost never come without an uncomfortable stretch first.
