The typical Tesla bull is an optimistic cheerleader who celebrates the self-proclaimed genius of founder and CEO Elon Musk.

The Tesla true believer can in fact be expected to re-charge a Model S off the solar panels he or she also uses to juice-up a laptop that tracks the soaring price of Tesla’s shares.

Those shares have been on fire this week, hitting all-time highs while punching through the $300 barrier (all figures in U.S. dollars). The market values Tesla at nearly $49-billion, even though Tesla lost $773 million last year. (Less loved and comparably valued car companies like Ford and General Motors earned $11 billion and $9.4 billion in profit last year.)

Tesla cultists believe their dreamy company will within a decade run over Ford, GM and other established automakers. Tesla, the story goes, will dominate the EV industry, just as Apple has crushed it in smartphones and Amazon owns online shopping.

Tesla’s happy faithful see more than a car company, something reflected in Tesla’s recent name change from Tesla Motors to Tesla Inc. They argue that Tesla is a solar and battery innovator poised to dominate a world shifting to environmentally friendly, all-electric power.

Tesla will need to amp up the scale of its service and support network once the Model 3 comes to market.

Tesla’s fastest model, the Model S Ludicrous+ can do 0-60 miles per hour in 2.28 seconds, but that only mildly excites investors and zealots. No, a centerpiece of Tesla’s business plan is a futuristic fleet of cars that drive themselves and are part of a broader global transportation supplier.

Tesla, then, won’t just disrupt Ford, GM, Daimler, BMW, the Volkswagen Group and Toyota, but also Uber and any number of utility and power companies, perhaps some logistics suppliers and more. Septuagenarian billionaire Ron Baron of Baron Capital argued this week on CNBC that Tesla “is reinventing the electric grid. That’s a bigger opportunity than cars.”

Baron isn’t the only one living the Tesla dream. MarketWatch reports that six analysts have a “buy” recommendation on Tesla shares, with one rating it “overweight.” Another nine see Tesla as a “hold.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

On the other hand, seven more rate Tesla either “underweight” (two) or “hold” (five). So those who are paid to know Tesla best are split.

Tesla’s biggest booster in the analyst community is Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas, whose price target is $305. Jonas says investors should view Tesla as a transportation and infrastructure company which one day may compete in the $10 trillion light weight mobility market, the $1 trillion logistics market, and the $2-$3 trillion energy market.

Far less sanguine is Barclays analyst Brian Johnson, who underweights shares with a $165 price target. Johnson argues that Tesla’s stock long ago became unhinged from basic market fundamentals. Tesla trades on the cult of Elon Musk, he says.

Musk, notes Johnson, expresses a “science fiction-like future” filled with “rockets to Mars (SpaceX), hyperloops, advanced tunneling and now brain-computer implants.” If you buy Tesla, he adds, you see yourself owning a “ticket to the future.”

Tesla Model 3 concept.

Musk works hard to reinforce his image as an extraordinary, even other-worldly thinker. In a TED Talks discussion, the Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO said he doesn’t reason by analogy, like a mere mortal, but instead draws on his training as a physicist and economist to frame his thinking in “first principles reasoning.”

Huh?

Musk boils down his intellectual approach to a deep recognition of “fundamental truths.” He then reasons “up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy.”

Musk argues that “Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations…

“But when you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach. Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics.”

This, he says, is how he manages to envision the unimaginable. And it’s not limited to products and services, but also extends to manufacturing. In a 2016 third-quarter earnings call, Musk said this thinking will allow Tesla to achieve an unprecedented level of automation and productivity in its factories. The goal: create an assembly line “free of direct human labor,” bestowing on Tesla “a radically disruptive competitive advantage.”

The Tesla Model 3.

These sorts of bold pronouncements and predictions are central to the unprecedented devotion Tesla enjoys among owners, followers and investors. The faithful say the legend of Musk overwhelms mundane thinkers mired in prosaic fundamentals.

But in a nod to the real world, Barclay’s Johnson questions Tesla’s advantages in battery and energy storage technology. Tesla is betting on lithium ion battery technology, but other competitors argue that vanadium flow or some other energy storage technology or chemistry has more upside, especially for stationary and large storage applications.

Johnson also suggests that Tesla’s perceived lead in autonomous driving technology may be over-hyped. Tesla has an edge in “autopilot” customer-data collection, true, but that may be only because rivals, when testing similar technologies, are less willing to harvest customer data.

They instead choose to be more careful and less customer-intrusive – as well as extremely mindful of government regulators. Indeed, Reuters reports that GM will field “thousands” of self-driving electric test vehicles, primarily based on the Chevrolet Bolt platform, starting in 2018. Other carmakers are similarly engaged.

Tesla, however, is rapidly approaching the point where hype and promise must give way to execution and delivery. Tesla expects to start delivering the long-promised $35,000, four-passenger Model 3 by the end of this year – on the way to ramping up sales from 76,000 cars in 2016 to 500,000 a year in 2018.

Tesla says the Model 3 will have a 354-km range (220 miles), with batteries guaranteed for an eight-year minimum. You will be able to juice up for free in 30 minutes along Tesla’s 200-station supercharger network. The Model 3 will be fully equipped with self-driving technology, too.

What Tesla proposes to do is make the leap to a functioning car company on the road to the greatness envisioned by Musk. Car companies selling 500,000-plus vehicles annually, however, face very real challenges. They need a massive sales and service network and a deep and wide research and development structure.

They must also have — or have access to — a refueling or charging infrastructure capable of keeping vehicles functioning. Most important of all, however, car companies need money. Lots and lots of it. This is a capital-intensive business.

Money-losing Tesla is burning cash at a staggering rate. Some feel the current trajectory is unsustainable without further cash injections along the line of Tencent’s recent $1.8 billion investment.

For now, the share price reflects some pretty healthy investment optimism and interest. This means Tesla’s current financial state is not precarious. Deutsche Bank, in fact, says Tesla is on track to become cash flow positive next year.

Morgan Stanley expects Tesla to become cash flow positive by the end of next year – and profitable in 2019. Morgan Stanley expects Tesla to post an $881 million profit in 2020.

And never forget that nearly two-thirds of Tesla’s stock is held by large institutional investors like Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Fidelity, all of which can be expected to do everything imaginable to protect their stakes. Do not underestimate the lengths to which big-money interests will go on Tesla’s behalf.

But even in a worst-case scenario, Musk could turn to the likes of Google founder Larry Page for financial help. As recently as 2013, Musk and Page had a deal to sell Tesla to Google at a time when Tesla was in deep trouble.

Tesla’s automotive rivals should assume that Tesla will continue to present a competitive challenge. And to that end, they are pushing ahead aggressively with their own EV and self-driving research and development.

Ford, GM, Fiat Chrysler, Tata’s Jaguar, Daimler, the Volkswagen Group (Audi, Porsche and the rest), along with Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai – all the world’s big automakers are all deeply committed to launching vehicles that directly challenge Tesla. GM already has the $30,000-ish (with subsidies) Bolt in showrooms.

The Chevrolet Bolt in San Francisco with Jeremy Cato.

All the big automakers have been forged in the fire of the financial crisis of 2009-2010. The world’s car companies have been steeled in a diabolically competitive industry. They are efficient operations that know how to manage scale and are supported by strong dealer networks.

The other car companies grasp Tesla’s competitive threat – and the marketplace excitement Tesla has created. Tesla may yet run out of money, or morph into something else through a partnership with Google or some other technology company. Or Tesla may get acquired by an existing auto manufacture. It’s too early to know how this story will play out.

We do know that the market will get the true measure of Tesla with the launch of the Model 3 in a few months’ time. The current share price points to the high expectations for the Model 3 and what it means to the bigger future Musk envisions for Tesla.