Tesla Motors
Andrew Martin
COMM 336
Informative Paper
4/4/2013
Tesla Motors Tesla Motors is a car company that designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles. This public company was founded in 2003 by Ian Wright, JB Straubel, Marc Tarpenning, Martin Eberhard and most notably Elon Musk. Its headquarters is located in Palo Alto, California, with its main production plant in Fremont, California. The company was named after Nikola Tesla, a renowned electrical engineer and physicist. Its goal is to increase the number of EV’s (Electric Vehicles) available to the market to help make it more mainstream. Currently, Tesla motors have produced two models, the Tesla Roadster and the Model S, and has unveiled a third, the Model X. In the Future, the company plans to produce family-sized minivans, electric SUV crossovers, and electric fleet vans for municipal governments. Other business includes collaborations with other companies such as Toyota, Mercedes, Daimler, Freightliner Trucks and Panasonic. Although the company has earned much success, it has hit its share of bumps along the way such as lawsuits, recalls and founder disputes. The company began when two teams wanted to start an electric car company and since their goals were similar, they joined forces to better their chances of success. The most famous of these entrepreneurs, and one of the most important and iconic figures to the company, is Elon Musk. His success began with his first company Zip2, which was bought out by Compaq for $304 million. Then he co-founded what eventually became PayPal, which was bought out for $1.5 billion by Ebay. Elon co-founded a third company named SpaceX in 2002 where he is currently the CEO and CTO. SpaceX is a shipping company, in that it ships cargo with huge Falcon 9 rockets into space, supplying NASA’s cargo to the International Space Station. This leads us to his co-founding of Tesla Motors, where he oversaw the company’s first car, the Tesla Roadster and eventually
COMM 336
Informative Paper
4/4/2013
Tesla Motors Tesla Motors is a car company that designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles. This public company was founded in 2003 by Ian Wright, JB Straubel, Marc Tarpenning, Martin Eberhard and most notably Elon Musk. Its headquarters is located in Palo Alto, California, with its main production plant in Fremont, California. The company was named after Nikola Tesla, a renowned electrical engineer and physicist. Its goal is to increase the number of EV’s (Electric Vehicles) available to the market to help make it more mainstream. Currently, Tesla motors have produced two models, the Tesla Roadster and the Model S, and has unveiled a third, the Model X. In the Future, the company plans to produce family-sized minivans, electric SUV crossovers, and electric fleet vans for municipal governments. Other business includes collaborations with other companies such as Toyota, Mercedes, Daimler, Freightliner Trucks and Panasonic. Although the company has earned much success, it has hit its share of bumps along the way such as lawsuits, recalls and founder disputes. The company began when two teams wanted to start an electric car company and since their goals were similar, they joined forces to better their chances of success. The most famous of these entrepreneurs, and one of the most important and iconic figures to the company, is Elon Musk. His success began with his first company Zip2, which was bought out by Compaq for $304 million. Then he co-founded what eventually became PayPal, which was bought out for $1.5 billion by Ebay. Elon co-founded a third company named SpaceX in 2002 where he is currently the CEO and CTO. SpaceX is a shipping company, in that it ships cargo with huge Falcon 9 rockets into space, supplying NASA’s cargo to the International Space Station. This leads us to his co-founding of Tesla Motors, where he oversaw the company’s first car, the Tesla Roadster and eventually