Tesla slowly inched its way past top automakers such as Ford and General Motors in the past three months with regards to market value. The Elon Musk-led company eventually grabbed the fourth spot from BMW and has set its sights on Volkswagen, Daimler, and Toyota.

Tesla has so far delivered 76,230 vehicles last year. According to ExtremeTech, however, the current market cap of Tesla is valued at $60.28 billion. That's now around $5 billion more than the market cap of BMW. The popular car manufacturer sold a total of 2,367,603 cars last year. Despite this impressive figure which included BMWs, Minis, and Rolls-Royces, the former fourth player only had a $54.77 billion market cap.

Tesla's ascent to the top started three months ago after it passed Ford which recorded 6.7 million sold vehicles and $44.65 billion market cap. Tesla followed that up by overtaking GM which ended with 9.6 million sales and a market cap of $51.45 billion.

Volkswagen is currently at third spot with 10.3 million cars sold and a market cap of $67.24 billion. Next on the list is Daimler, the company behind Mercedes-Benz, with 3 million sales and $70.35 billion market cap. Finally, the leading automaker remains Toyota with 10.1 million vehicles sold and a whopping $155.88 billion market cap.

Early in the month, Tesla and BMW were involved in a cat-and-mouse affair. By June 9, Tesla gained a half a billion lead over BMW. However, Tesla lost its footing and fell behind BMW once again at the end of trading day. Come Tuesday (June 12), Tesla once again soared past BMW, as reported by The Motley Fool. It seems like Tesla got a good foothold this time as its lead over BMW has ballooned to $5 billion, as mentioned earlier.

One of the possible reasons why the company's stock value continues to rise is its upcoming Tesla Model 3. At a recent shareholder meeting, Musk assured everyone that the Model 3 will still be launched in July. Musk also unveiled at least a couple of upcoming vehicles in an electric semi and the Tesla Model Y.