Anand Mahindra on Tuesday quote-tweeted a post that highlighted Mahindra & Mahindra is now the 11th most valued automaker in the world, surpassing the likes of U.S. legacy automaker Ford and European giant Stellantis.

“In 1991, when the Indian economy opened up, the world believed there were scant chances of our survival as an independent automaker,” Mahindra, who has built a mammoth social media presence posting aspirational stories from across India, said.

The CEO of Mahindra & Mahindra said the company sought out the French company Peugeot, which has since merged into Stellantis, to understand the workings of an engine and Ford and Renault for knowledge on how to build modern cars.

Mahindra & Mahindra is “grateful” to have the partnerships at the time but the billionaire said he also feels a “tinge of gratification” at seeing his automaker now surpass those giants in market valuation.

How significant is the surpassing really?

Mahindra & Mahindra share price has made an impressive jump of over 10x since pandemic-lows to hit ₹3,029 per share. The automotive stock has surged nearly 78% just this year, on momentum around its electric vehicle forays and overall healthy sales.

Ford and other legacy automakers in the West, meanwhile, are struggling badly — and I mean, badly.

Ford, for example, is down 16% just this year and only trading at about double the pandemic lows.

Stelllantis, which was formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot in 2021, has lost a whopping 40% of its value year-to-date.

Yet, this slump in the Western automakers is not due to any dim outlook in the auto industry in the West overall — quite the opposite as market leader Tesla’s $1.45 trillion valuation would testify.

Consumer interests in the West — and China — are rapidly shifting to electric vehicles, with autonomous driving technologies — and the market cap of the companies in the segment are reflecting that.

Tesla, which is run by the world’s richest person Elon Musk — has a valuation that surpasses all other automakers, in the whole world, combined.

While Tesla grabs much of the market share for the emerging consumer trend in the West — China market is now increasingly favoring local players.

BYD, a legacy automaker which made a rapid shift to EVs, is now valued at a whopping $108 billion, making it China’s largest and the world’s third-largest automaker by valuation — next to Tesla and Japan’s Toyota.

In India, meanwhile, there are no pure-play EV four-wheeler companies yet.

Legacy automakers have rolled out EV cars and separating EV units — helping them gain favor with the investors, but the overall market is yet to show the same level of maturity as it has in the West and China.

Tesla has been plotting an entry into the Indian market for years but haven’t been able to sketch out the details with the central government.

Even if it does make its entry, Tesla with its price points would serve a very premium market in India — leaving mass-market for others to grab, like BYD did in China and much of southeast Asia.

In essence, I think it’s essential for us to see Tesla, BYD and the likes as the real competitors with the shifting market trends and it would be interesting to see how the auto sector and taste for electric vehicles evolve in India in the four-wheeler segment.