Tesla
Tesla, Inc. is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company based in palo alto , California . Tesla’s current products include electric cars , battery energy storage from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar roof tiles, as well as other related products and services. In 2020, Tesla had the highest sales in the plug -in and battery electric passenger car segments, capturing 16% of the plug — in market (which includes plug-in hybrids) and 23% of the battery-electric (purely electric) market. Through its subsidiary Tesla energy , the company develops and is a major installer of solar photovolatic energy generation systems in the United States. Tesla Energy is also one of the largest global suppliers of battery energy storage systems, with 3 GWh of battery storage supplied in 2020.
Founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc tarpenning as Tesla Motors, the company’s name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola tesla Elon musk who contributed most of the funding in the early days, has served as CEO since 2008. According to Musk, the purpose of Tesla is to help expedite the move to sustainable transport and energy, obtained through electric vehicles and solar power. Tesla began production of their first car model, the Roadster , in 2009. This was followed by the Model s sedan in 2012, the Model X SUV in 2015, the higher volume Model 3 sedan in 2017, and the Model Y crossover in 2020. The Model 3 is the world’s all-time best-selling plug-in electric car, with more than 800,000 delivered through December 2020. Tesla’s global vehicle sales were 499,550 units in 2020, a 35.8% increase over the previous year. In 2020, the company surpassed the 1 million mark of electric cars produced.
Tesla has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and controversies arising from statements and acts of CEO Elon Musk, allegations of creative accounting , allegations of whistleblower retaliation, alleged worker rights violations, and allegedly unresolved and dangerous technical problems with their products.
Founded as Tesla Motors, Tesla was incorporated on July 1, 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc tarpenning . Eberhard and Tarpenning served as CEO and CFO, respectively. Eberhard said he wanted to build “a car manufacturer that is also a technology company”, with its core technologies as “the battery, the computer software, and the proprietary motor”.
Ian Wright was Tesla’s third employee, joining a few months later. The three raised US$7.5 million in series A funding in February 2004 from various investors, including Elon Musk, who contributed the vast majority at $6.5 million.Following the investment, Musk joined the company and became chairman of the board of directors. J.B straubel joined Tesla in May 2004. A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five — Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel — to call themselves co-founders.
The Cybertruck is a light duty truck unveiled on November 21, 2019, with production set for late 2021. On September 22, 2020, Musk revealed roughly 600,000 Cybertruck preorders.The truck’s angular design had a mixed reception, and some Wall Street analysts questioned whether pickup truck buyers will have interest in the Cybertruck. James Goodwin, chief executive of an Australian car safety organization, says that the angular design and steel construction of the Cybertruck may pose safety risks.After the Cybertruck’s unveiling, Musk announced that the Tesla cyberquad , an electric four-wheel quad bike revealed alongside the Cybertruck, would be an optional accessory for Cybertruck buyers in 2021.
Global expansion (2019-present)
In recent years the company has been expanding their production capacity globally. Tesla opened its first Gigafactory outside the United States in Shanghai, China, in 2019. The Giga shanghai was the first automobile factory in China fully owned by a foreign company, and was built in less than 6 months. The following year Tesla also started construction on a new Gigafactory in Berlin, Germany, and another in Texas, United States. In March 2020, Tesla began deliveries of its fifth vehicle model, the Model Y crossover
On January 10, 2020, Tesla reached a market capitalization of $86 billion, breaking the record for greatest valuation of any American automaker. On June 10, 2020, Tesla’s market capitalization surpassed those of BMW,Daimler and Volkswagen combined. The next month, Tesla reached a valuation of $206 billion, surpassing Toyota’s $202 billion to become the world’s most valuable automaker by market capitalization. On August 31, 2020, Tesla had a 5-for-1 stock split following the increase in value.
From July 2019 to June 2020, Tesla reported four profitable quarters in a row for the first time, which made it eligible for inclusion in the S & p 500 Tesla was added to the index on December 21 of the same year. It was the largest company ever added, and the sixth-largest company in the index at the time of inclusion.As investors tried to buy more shares as a result of this inclusion, some analysts, such as J.P morgan’s Ryan Brinkman, suggested investors exercise caution as Tesla was “dramatically” overvalued. In 2020, the share price of Tesla increased 740%, and on January 26, 2021, its market capitalization reached $848 billion, more than the next nine largest automakers combined and making it the 5th most valuable company in the US.
In October 2020, Tesla told Electrek that they had dissolved their PR department (with the exception of a few PR managers representing Tesla’s European and Asian markets), becoming the first automaker to do so.
Tesla hit its goal of building a half-million cars in 2020.The company ended the year with over $19 billion of cash, compared to $6.3 billion at the end of 2019.
In February 2021, it was revealed that Tesla had invested some $1.5 billion in the Cryptocurrency Bitcoin and the company indicated it would soon accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. In the first quarter of 2021, Tesla sold some of the Bitcoin it had invested. In late March 2021, Tesla started accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment in the United States and claimed that they would introduce Bitcoin payment in other countries later that year. On May 12, 2021, Tesla indicated via a tweet from Elon Musk that they would no longer accept Bitcoin as a form of payment due to climate change concerns. This resulted in the price of Bitcoin dropping by around 12% on May 13.
Originally published at https://futureisgrow.blogspot.com.