As reported by Reuters on 24^th October 2019, Tesla shares gained 17% last week, as the company managed to achieve their targeted profits for the quarter. Due to this gain, Tesla’s market capitalization crossed that of General Motors', a legacy manufacturer in the automotive industry. As explained in the report, this sudden increase in profits for Tesla were mainly due to the increased demand for the Tesla cars. This news clearly highlights the trend that the automotive customer’s affinity has shifted from the conventional combustion engine vehicles towards the more technologically advanced electric vehicles. Tesla being a pioneer in this segment has been hailed as the driving force behind this shift. On the heels of this news, we think it is of utmost importance that investors study the patent portfolios of these companies to understand where, how and by how much the two automotive technology developers differ from each other.

We performed the following analysis using our patented patent data analytics software, LexisNexis^® PatentSight^®. By selecting the portfolios of the two owners and using a variety of available charts and tables to draw insights from, we compared the portfolios of these innovation leaders to find answers to the questions we asked in the previous section. Read on to learn how Tesla was able to achieve this success based on the quality of the technology that they own.