﻿Tesla here, Tesla there. There is no day, the e-car manufacturer is not in the news.
But does that mean you know everything about the company?
Let's see. Here are the five most interesting facts about Tesla.
From the outside, it seems like Elon Musk’s eccentricities are what makes Tesla so
omnipresent in the media. The longtime CEO is connected in celebrity circles, regularly posts
controversial opinions on his twitter account and clearly loves being in the limelight.
At the moment, no other CEO is so much in the public eye like Musk.
But behind the unconventional style is a company that has risen to the top very quickly.
From the start up days in 2003, to 2020, Tesla went from nearly bankrupt to the most valuable
car maker in the world, worth more than 350 billion dollars. That’s much more than traditional
automakers like Toyota, Vokswagen and General Motors. All of this with less than 2% of the
auto market share and much smaller revenues. The company has disrupted a multi-billion market
with its electric models; and seems to be on the fast track to conquer the world. After opening
a factory in Shanghai in 2019, a new one is expected to open in Germany in 2021. The country,
home of Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW, is bracing itself for what will probably be the beginning
of a new era, in which its most important companies might be pushed to the sidelines.
With such a meteoric rise, there are facts and data that show what makes
the Tesla trajectory so extraordinary. So here we go. Five Facts about Tesla.
Number 5 The first years were full of drama
Elon Musk has become the face of the company, but he wasn’t there in the beginning. Tesla
was founded in 2003 by engineers Martin Eberhaard and Marc Tarpenning. In 2004,
the two partners were looking for investors when Musk appeared on the scene.
This was after Ebay bought Paypal, an operation that gave Musk 180 million dollars, according to
reports. He then invested 6.4 million dollars in Tesla, becoming chairman of the board.
Eberhaard was replaced as CEO and named president of technology in 2007. It didn’t last long. He
left In August of that same year. Eberhaad publicly said that he was not happy with the
situation. Musk blamed his inability to deliver the eagerly awaited first Tesla on schedule and
on budget and said that sidelining the founder was a unanimous board decision.
In 2009, Eberhaard sued Tesla and Musk for libel and breach of contract. The lawsuit
alleged that Musk sought to "rewrite history" by taking credit for the accomplishments,
damaging Eberhard's reputation. But that wasn't all. The founder of Tesla also accused the company
of not honoring its agreement after removing him from the CEO position. And that he did not
receive his Tesla Roadster as promised. Instead, he received a damaged test car. Tesla at the time
issued a statement claiming that the accusations were inaccurate and that Eberhaard was fired
because the Roadster model ended up costing more than double what he had estimated as CEO.
Later that year, Eberhaard dropped the lawsuit and there were reports of a
settlement between both parties. The details of the settlement were
not made public, but to this day, Musk is credited as co-founder on
Tesla’s website and corporate material. There are reports that Eberhard said he very
much enjoys seeing Tesla’s recent success, although he is not Musk’s biggest fan.
The feeling seems to be mutual. In 2019, Musk wrote on his twitter account: “Tesla is alive in
spite of Eberhard, but he seeks credit constantly and fools give it to him”. The tweet was deleted
later on the same day proving that the drama from the beginning years still bubbles up.
Number 4
Tesla sells much more than cars. Even hot pants!
The company is famous for its luxury electric cars, but sells
much more than that. Among the items that it’s possible to buy on its website there are classical
products like solar panels and car accessories, but also items such as toys and apparel.
Let’s look into the weirdest merchandising that people can buy on Tesla's website:
One of the sold out products in the online shop is the Women’s shorts,
that cost 69 dollars and 42 cents. Launched in July 2020, the product was
promoted on Elon Musk’s Twitter upon its release and contains an obvious marijuana
and sex position pun. But there were reports claiming another hidden meaning behind it.
Some say that the 42 cents was a jibe against short sellers,
investors who bet against the company’s stock and anticipate a fall in price. $420
is the price at which Musk said he would take the company private in a previous tweet against the
short sellers. That tweet prompted the Securities Exchange Commission to sue Musk for securities
fraud after it sent Tesla’s stock price soaring. Are the Tesla hot pants just a provocation?
Number 3
Tesla model S can be easily transformed into a James Bond car by pressing one button
Musk's obsession with James Bonds movies left the private sphere
and entered the cars’ operating system. Model S owners can hold the T button on the center panel,
which usually takes the user to a service screen, and see an image of the submersible Lotus Esprit
S1, the car used in the James Bond “The spy who loved me” movie. What at first sight looks just
like gag, is actually a very personal pun. Musk actually owns the original Lotus Esprit
used in the 1977 movie. In 1989, a couple from Long Island paid roughly
100 dollars for an unclaimed storage unit. It was a blind auction and they had no idea what they
just had actually purchased. Later they realized they had bought the half-car-half-submarine from
the James Bond movie. The couple restored the piece, displayed it exhibits and in 2013 put it
up for auction at RM Sotheby’s. The car was sold to a secret buyer for 997 thousand dollars.
Later that year it was confirmed Musk was the secret buyer.
In an interview, Musk mentioned his disappointment in knowing it was
actually not a hybrid, but just worked underwater. And he said that he would
try to actually make the transformation from car to submarine a reality.
According to Musk, the Lotus Esprit is not only present as a gag in the Model S
operating system, but also influenced Tesla’s Cybertruck design.
Number 2 Tesla patents
are accessible for anyone to use In 2014 Musk posted a blog entry on tesla's
website titled “all our patents belong to you”. He wrote that patterns enrich “only those in the
legal profession”, had no actual benefit for investors and therefore Tesla would share all
its patents with any company that would like to invest in sustainable transportation.
When he wrote the Tesla post, the company was the assignee of over 350 utility and
design patents in the United States. In his post he asserted that the company
would not initiate any patent lawsuit as long as the companies were acting in “good faith”.
There was much speculation about what was behind the announcement. One the one side, people
believed that it was a strategy to incentivize the market and expand Tesla’s position. Musk’s vision
of the future includes electric automobiles and sophisticated energy storage systems. He is aware
that Tesla alone will not be able to change the infrastructure around our current energy system,
as it is needed to really unlock all the electric market’s potential. Opening up the patents could
instigate other companies to invest in the same direction as Tesla is doing, expanding
the infrastructure and promoting changes that are so crucial for Tesla’s domination plan.
But some also believe that the announcement was mainly a PR stunt. By adding ‘good faith’ to the
conditions, the use of technology by competitors is limited.
According to reports, those using Tesla’s patents in good faith would not be able to
assert any patent or intellectual property right against Tesla. No matter what happens.
Giving Musk’s company a free pass to use whatever technology it wants,
without the possibility of legal action. This could probably mean a level of
exposure unwelcome in most of the corporations around the world.
And that’s not all. The companies using Tesla patents also need to be willing to
agree not to assert its own patents against any company operating in the
electric market anywhere in the world. Plus they cannot produce a “knock-off product”.
What a knock-off product would mean is up to Tesla and not explained in detail.
With so many conditions, it’s hard to believe that any company would take the risk of using Tesla’s
patents. But Musk has said in an interview that many companies are already using them.
He did not release information on which companies or which patents.
Number 1 Tesla was the first entirely foreign company
allowed to operate on its own in China In 2018, the Chinese government announced that
it would change its policy for international investment in the field of electric cars.
The share-holding limit, a tradition in all sectors, would be scraped. And tariffs on
imported cars would also be reduced. As a result of these changes Tesla was the
first western company to be allowed to establish a chinese subsidiary without having to partner
with a local company. In 2019, the company opened its first factory in Shanghai.
Tesla then had access to the biggest electric vehicle market in the world. In return the company
promised to open a research and development facility in the country and also to design
specific cars for the local market. Let’s look at the numbers of the chinese
market: According to the
international Energy Agency, there were 7,2 million electric cars in the world in 2019,
47% of this total in China. In 2019 alone 1.21 million electric Autos were sold in the country,
that represents 4.7% of the total. In 2018, e-Cars were 4.5% of the chinese market.
All of this makes China the perfect place for tesla to grow. And Musk seems to know
that. “China Rocks!”, he said recently in a podcast interview. He praised chinese workers
as hardworking and said that he sees complacency and entitlement growing in the United States.
But Tesla’s exposure to China could also be a source of concern among investors. There are
reports saying that some fear that maybe Tesla is exposing itself too much in a country which the US
government increasingly sees as an enemy. So that's it for this video. Five facts about
Tesla. What other companies would you like to see featured in this series? We’d love to hear from
you in the comments section below. Since you made it to the end, stick around, click into
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