Marketing Analysis Tesla

History of Tesla

How did the first successful mover of fully electric vehicles named Tesla Motors come to be? Well, surprisingly the company was not started by its current CEO, Elon Musk, who has been the face of the company since 2008, according to Tech Crunch. Tesla Motors was imagined and officially started in the summer of 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. As told by an author at Business Insider, Eberhard and Tarpenning had been business partners and friends for about a decade before the birth of Tesla. Also mentioned in the insider article was how the idea of the all-electric, high powered, luxury, sports car came to be.  Martin Eberhard was getting divorced sometime in the early 2000s and decided that he now wanted to purchase a luxurious sports car, however, what he was looking to purchase was not an option. Eberhard came across AC Propulsion who had a fully working prototype of an electric sports car with a lot of power. After being awakened by the possibilities of electric vehicles, Eberhard knew that he wanted to create his own car company. Although neither of them knew what they were really getting themselves into, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning decided to take a leap into the future and create the first successful American car company in over 100 years.

Although, Eberhard and Tarpenning have been given the title of the creators, Elon Musk was the one who created the now well-known image of Tesla. Elon Musk has been Tesla’s largest investor since 2004 when he became Chairman of the Board. Elon Musk truly had a vision for what he wanted Tesla to become. It was Musk who was forcing many major and minor alterations to the design of their first Roadster that landed it several years behind in production. However, Musk felt that the need to have Tesla’s first impression be perfect. After millions of dollars and consulting efforts, Musk took over as the CEO of Tesla in 2008 and has been the face of the innovative company ever since.

Unique Selling Proposition

Since the very beginning, Tesla Motors wanted to become known for their fully electric, high powered, luxury vehicles. When Tesla was first getting started they had a contract with Lotus car company who was going to manufacture everything except the ion-lithium battery. Throughout the years, this has drastically changed. Tesla now has the ability to build their vehicles completely in house. Tesla being able to create their own supply chain and building their own vehicles has now become another characteristic of Tesla’s advantage over its competitors.

SWOT Analysis

Tesla has been the first successful all-electric vehicle producer. To do so, Tesla had to be extremely innovative to outshine any sort of competition and Tesla has done, just that. One of the biggest things Tesla revolutionized in the car industry was the elimination of the dealership. Tesla was able to find a loophole in the auto industry that allowed them to use retail stores to showcase their products and interact directly with the consumers. In doing so, Tesla has been able to create exceptional customer service and stronger brand ties to its customers. One of the other key advantages that Tesla has with its electric vehicles is their ability to send out remote software updates to their vehicles to fix bugs which reduces the amount of repair time that its consumers have to endure. All of these advantages have been able to hold Tesla’s place as the leader in the electric car industry thus far.