One of the most exciting companies in the last decade is Tesla. The automative maker that shocked the world with their fully electric car and it’s even more exciting CEO, Elon Musk.
Most people assume Musk founded the company, but that is not the case, if this Tesla fact surprised you, keep reading to learn much more
Facts about Tesla
1. Elon Musk is not the founder
The company has been always associated with a more popular and familiar name, Elon Musk.
Truth is, the engineering and tech mogul only joined Tesla Motors around 2004, after it has been established a year before by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning with Ian Wright joining shortly after.
2. Tesla Motors name originated from
Nikola Tesla was a famous electrical engineer who have been once the best inventor of his time.
Unfortunately, with the lack of business skills and marketing opportunities, Tesla was not able to create a multi-billion company out of his inventions as the one baring his name.
That is where Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning created and incorporated Tesla Motors in 2003.
Both decided to use Nikola Tesla’s name as a reference to its unrecognized ingenuity. Elon Musk joined in when the company needed funding and the rest as they say, is history.
3. Elon Musk car name
Elon Musk decided to name Tesla first car as the Roadster as the first fully electric car that can compete with a gas engine car, hence the name implies it is the better car on the road.
4. Tesla Motors made Elon Musk a billionaire
There is no denying that Elon Musk is a business tech magnate now, however we want to know if he was a billionaire before Tesla? The answer is no.
Although Mush was very wealthy, he was not yet a billionaire. He co founded PayPal and sold it for $1.5B for his share was around $182M.
5. Who established Tesla Motors?
Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard are the brainchild with Tesla Motors’ creation. They have incorporated the company in the year 2003.
6. Is Elon Musk the owner of Tesla Motors?
Elon Musk only joined Martin and Marc in early 2004, when the company needed more funding and help in its research and development. Now, Tesla Motors is quite popular as one of Elon Musk’s companies.
7. Other people behind Tesla Motors
Other less popular personalities behind the automobile company are JB Straubel and Ian Wright as founders and incorporators. So as to speak, Elon Musk did not created Tesla by himself nor started it at all.
8. Who is Tesla that the company is named after
Tesla Motors is named after the famous engineer and inventor of alternating current (or more popular as AC) and induction motor.
9. Tesla Motors’ primary branding
With the scarcity and continuously rising prices of gasoline, Tesla Motor founders decided to incorporate a company that will create and manufacture energy sustainable vehicles to replace gas operated cars into an electric operated one.
Tesla vehicle is actually deemed and aims to be an eco-friendly car to somehow help reduce pollution that causes climate change.
10. Automated Tesla car
Tesla motor is probably one of the first automobile companies who have maximized the automation and technology put into one car.
The first few manufactured cars of Tesla are auto-pilot with which have driver assisted system to digitally (and mechanically) identify center of the lane, automated driving gears, auto-parking, and auto-vallet/passenger (or driver) pickup system.
This makes the Tesla vehicles unique from most automobile brands.
11. How much shares do Elon Musk bought from Tesla
Reports say that Elon Musk was able to purchase more than $20 million when he joined the company in 2004 which almost gave him majority of the ownership of the automated electric automobile company.
Although there are still remaining stocks for public to buy under TSLA in NASDAQ for the current price per share from its entire share pool.
12. Tesla versus Ford
Tesla is considered to be the leader in EV cars. The market share of Tesla is much higher than other car brands like Ford because of the advancements the company was able to make in a short period of time.
Although other car manufacturers like Ford are gaining speed and the market is becoming more competitive.
13. Cheapest Tesla car
With the technology provided with most of the cars released by Tesla Motors, people often are quite hesitant to purchase one because of the price.
The cheapest car is the Model 3 brand which has the lowest asking price. The car was originally only made available in the US, however after a few years the company started selling their popular models across the world too.
14. Number of units sold
The company’s latest release on the US sales shows that Tesla company was able to sell over 1.3 million units.
While still relatively small numbers compared to other car makers, the company’s numbers are growing each year at a fast paste.
15. NASDAQ public listing
Tesla went public on June 29 2010 and the shares on average just kept growing every year.
16. Operating at a loss for a long time
The company actually didn’t show any profit until 2020 where they finally broke the profitability plane finishing the year with a profit of $862 million. Since then the company grew massively to billions in profit each year.
17. Plan to make it a private company
With the speed of the declining of profits of the tech giant, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk actually was planning to privatize the company again so as to rehabilitate the losing money in the past 15 years.
However, it was later learned that there isn’t enough money to make that move and Elon dropped it.
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