In the late ’90s, an electric car named Ev 1 quickly drew loyal and hardcore fans. But the spark behind GM’s first Ev ended soon.
Tesla Motors’ birth was inspired by the destruction of the Ev 1 in 2003. Two Silicon Valley engineers named Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpon started Tesla motors. They sold their ebook business for $ 187 million and started Tesla. They aimed to build a greener car.
Elon Musk joined as an early investor leading the series of financial rounds. And taking on several other roles as well.
Tesla plan was simple but potentially genius.
First, they focus on Lithium-ion batteries, which they expected to get cheaper and more powerful for many years.
Second, they started with a high Margin high performance, sports car. The aim was to shed the existing stigma around Evs. Their motto was to invest their revenue back in the company to make more affordable cars.
Third to achieve economics of scale. Tesla wants to target another segment like semi-trucks. Tesla also started to work on the integration of energy generation and storage in the home.
With these plans, the company was ready to build its high-performance low volume sports car the Roadster. Tesla needed to lessen complex assembling by stopping the tesla from battery and powertrain into the current skeleton of the Lotus Elise. Also, foster other arising advancements like autonomous vehicles.
However, the company began customizing more and more parts which make costs spiral out of control. By the end, the Roadster and the Elise had little in common just 7% of parts by count. Tesla was very near to bankruptcy and a few CEOs went back and forth. In the long run, Elon Musk accepted the position in October 2008.
Elon Musk had to take tuff decisions to save Tesla.
He cut 25% of the workforce and reviewed 75% of the Roadsters, raising 40 million dollars of debt financing. He also formed a strategic partnership with Daimler. As well as, borrowed 465 million dollars from the U.S. government.
An aggregate of 2450 Roadsters was made and the famous vehicle turned into the springboard for the Ev insurgency.Each Roadster had a 992-pound Lithium-cobalt oxide battery which gives the car an impressive 244-mile range.
This reduced Range Anxiety, and made EVs more appealing to the masses.
In 2010 Tesla comes up with its IPO on the Nasdaq raising 266 million dollars. It was the first American car company to go public since Ford in 1956. The carmaker then aimed for a wider market by focusing on two new cars Model S and Model X. The two models were poised for success but Tesla’s ultimate potential still seemed limited by the high cost of lithium-ion batteries. If batteries were too expensive then EVs could not compete with the gas-powered vehicles on price, and this will result in that they would never being mainstream.
Seeing this alarming situation Elon musk released ambitious projects for the development of the Tesla Gigafactory. This was a step for a massive operation to reach economics of scale in Lithium-ion batteries production. And this will help ultimately to make Evs cheaper than gas-powered vehicles.
As Tesla built its Gigafactory
The company hits many other milestones. The company announced autopilot that provides Model S with semi-autonomous capabilities. The powerwall was revealed a lithium-ion battery for the home. Finally, Tesla has announced the Model 3, the car which they made for the masses in 2016. By 2017 Tesla became the most valued automobile company by surpassing Ford in market capitalization just after 7 years after its IPO.
Here to understand Tesla’s ambitious projects for the project we need to know 2 things
First, their mission Tesla wants to reform the world transition system into sustainable energy. Second, they want to productize their factories, so that the vehicle assembly can be fully automated at a revolutionary pace.
Tesla also working on changing the entire energy paradigm by promoting an ecosystem that allows homeowners to run their appliances and car off green energy and even sell it back to the grid.
Tesla’s goals are ambitious and the company strategy is even considered naive by some.
In 2021, Tesla became the company with 1 trillion dollars in market cap after 11 years it became a publicly-traded company.
Tesla has more market cap than the 11 largest global car manufacturers combined. Tesla has more market cap than the second most valuable car company Toyota, which has a $ 280 billion market cap.
Read more articles
The Biggest Internet Of Things (IoT) Trends In 2022 | What is IoT
4 thoughts on “The History of Tesla”