Final Project: Preparation 1- Tesla Motors
The company Tesla is an automaker company with the mindset of energy innovations and technology designs for both home and automobile applications. The organization was established in 2003, and the company’s name was inspired by the famous Nikola Tesla who’s patent was used to produce the company’s first sports car. Tesla is quite different from other auto companies; they do not have a long history in the automobile industry, and their primary focus and products are electric vehicles. Tesla’s mission statement “is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” (About Tesla, 2017)
Tesla doesn’t only produce cars but is currently creating new ideas on how to change the way people use energy. Telsa’s latest creation the “powerwall.” The powerwall is a stylish solar roof tile, it amazingly looks like your regular shingles but has the ability to “allow light to pass through from above onto a standard flat solar cell.” (Randall, 2016) The Powerwall was created to provide a source of backup power during utility outages, natural disasters. It allows it’s customers the ability to self-power their homes and allowing them the possibility of going off the grid.( Reliable Power Day and Night, 2017).
The idea of Tesla producing a more affordable electric car to address the carbon crisis, the CEO, Elon Musk decided to release their patent to other manufacturers in producing their version of electric vehicles. Elon understood, in order to make a difference in addressing the carbon crisis he believed “that Tesla and other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.”(Musk, 2014) By releasing Tesla’s patent in providing more electric cars also may help improve with the issue on having more charging stations for those with electric vehicles since Tesla has to maintain its own fueling network. The problem here is that it’s costly to build a supercharging station, so with the idea of having more electric vehicles there would be a higher demand for supercharging stations. With other competitive manufacturers utilizing tesla’s patent free of cost producing more electric cars while reducing fuel emissions, those other manufacturers would be dishing out for the cost of supercharging stations.
Another issue that Tesla’s faces are finding enough skilled manufacturing workers. They’re going to have to hire software code writers and electrical engineers than manufacturing workers. Finding such qualified workers will not come cheap to help the organization maintain the production of quality while selling their cars at an affordable price to customers.
Tesla also has a problem with how they’re choosing to sell their vehicle. Tesla wants to be able to sell their cars directly to their consumers, eliminating the middlemen. By getting rid of the car dealerships, Tesla seeks to establish a network of stores where customers may come in take a look at and test drive the cars directly, exactly like what the company Apple does but with cars. However, the idea of cutting off the dealerships may create for problems in areas such as servicing cars, but since the electric cars is a much simpler machine, there would be less maintenance. Also, the majority of Tesla’s manufacturing is only in a couple of states such as California, New York, Washington-Baltimore and Florida. People in other countries aren’t buying the concept of getting rid of the dealerships since the electric car’s batteries cannot withstand a long distance without being charged in which reverts to the problem of not having enough supercharging stations.
Elon Musk demonstrates excellent leadership skills in his amazing visions and drives by manufacturing electric cars that provide sustainable energy by the use of solar energy, Elon’s route to a carbon- emission free world strategies does not stand without running into problems in the highly competitive market today.
References
About Tesla. (2017) Retrieved May 14th, 2017
from https://www.tesla.com/about
Musk, E. (2014) All Our Patent Are Belong To You Retrieved from
https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
Randall, T. (2016) No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming Retrieved from
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-31/no-one-saw-tesla-s-solar-roof-coming
Reliable Power Day and Night (2017) Retrieved May 14th, 2017