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Tesla has inched ahead of General Motors to become the most valuable car company in America.



The electric-car maker hit a market value of $50.84 billion on Monday, edging past GM (GM) at $50.79 billion.



It's another milestone for Tesla (TSLA), which passed Ford (F), valued at about $45 billion, last week. And Tesla is inching closer to Japan's Honda (HMC), which has a market value of about $54 billion. Toyota, the most valuable car company in the world, is three times as big.



Tesla loses money, and it sells a small fraction of the cars of its much older competitors. Tesla sold about 25,000 of its Model S and Model X cars in the first three months of the year, compared with 690,000 cars and trucks for GM and 617,000 for Ford.



But investors are optimistic, in part because of Tesla's upcoming Model 3 car. At $35,000, the electric car will cost less than the Model S and Model, and could help make the brand more accessible to middle-class shoppers.

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