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Motor Trend
’s Car of
the Year, the highest scoring car
Consumer Reports
ever tested, the “Car of
the Century” by
Car and Driver
, and the “Most Important Car Ever” by
Top
Gear.
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In 2015, it was the highest-selling plug-in electric car in the United
States—despite selling for twice the price of its competitors.
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The car that has the potential to turn Tesla into an automobile powerhouse
is the forthcoming Model 3. Starting at $35,000, it registered 325,000
reservations (requiring a refundable $1,000 deposit) within a week of its
announcement.
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Few firms get access to $325 million in capital for a year at
zero borrowing cost. This is a horseman-grade achievement around
storytelling.
Still, quite a few variables stand between Tesla today and becoming a Fifth
Horseman at some point in the future. Indeed, the company faces challenges
beyond those faced by traditional auto companies, as it needs to set up vast
networks of charging stations and service stations (where backlogs are an
issue), set up global distribution, deal with an array of government subsidies
and expectations for electric cars, and manage regulators in the back pocket
of the auto industry. However, what appear (now) to be obstacles could end
up being the type of analog moats that sustain a giant. Tesla does as well as
any current company against the T Algorithm.
Compare Tesla to our criteria. Its product is unparalleled in quality and
technical innovation. Tesla is not just an electric car; it’s a better car across
several dimensions, including a massive and beloved touchscreen-based
dashboard, over-the-air software updates (big data/AI), an industry-leading
autopilot mode, and design touches (like rethought door handles) that
customers love.
Tesla controls the customer experience in a way that no other car company
has done, or will be able to do without radical and costly changes.
Automobile firms fail the vertical test, as they have pursued a capital-light
strategy with independently owned dealerships that are time machines—
visiting one is a trip to 1985. These entrenched third-party dealer networks,
the limited ability to modify or enhance the vehicle after it has left the
factory, and an industry focus on moving the steel off the lot have created a
gulf between car companies and consumers.
Tesla’s most revolutionary change to the auto industry is not its electric
engine—everyone is building those—but its proximity to the customer. From
Musk’s livestreamed product announcements, to their owned dealerships, to
the regular, over-the-air product updates, Tesla understands that a $50,000–
$100,000 purchase is the start of a multiyear relationship with Tesla, not John
Elway’s Claremont Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. If Tesla can maintain quality
customer support in the face of its rapid growth, Tesla’s superior repeat
customer rates will become a static part of the story that enables access to
cheap capital, which will provide resources to enhance the customer
experience, increasing repeat purchases, and so on, and so on.
Tesla trades now at nine times revenue vs. Ford and GM at less than .5
times. In April 2017 Tesla surpassed Ford in market value despite selling
80,000 cars in 2016 vs. Ford’s 6.7 million. Tesla has returned to the public
market for secondary offerings regularly since its 2010 IPO, most recently
raising $1.5 billion to fuel production of the Model 3—despite never
recording a profitable quarter.
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It does so because investors respond to
Musk’s vision; they buy into his story. This is a guy who says he’s going to
put rockets into space, revolutionize the car industry, and transform the
power storage industry. Oh, and build hypersonic trains on evenings and
weekends. What if you could go back and invest in Thomas Edison’s ideas?
Well, here’s your chance.
Yahoo! Finance.
https://finance.yahoo.com/
Tesla owners describe their purchase decisions in messianic terms and
value the company’s “mission” above the particulars of its product.
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But this
isn’t your hippy uncle’s green brand. Tesla is also a luxury brand, and that
combination is potent. Every other electric car looks like a Birkenstock; the
Tesla looks like a Maserati. No other brand can simultaneously tell people:
“You can afford a $100,000 car, you have great taste,
and
you care about the
environment.” Or put another way, I’m awesome and you should definitely
have sex with me. That means, even more than Apple, Tesla has the ability to
hit the customer—gently—right smack in the groin.
Don’t bet on Tesla limiting itself to automobiles. It already is developing
deep expertise in the capture, storage, and transport of electricity. It is putting
self-driving auto technology on the road by the tens of thousands while
Google and Apple are still in the research park. These are technologies and
skills that go beyond personal automobiles and hold the potential for early
market leadership in other transport markets, in alternative power generation,
and in other uses of electricity in the digital age.
Still, there remain two big obstacles to Tesla in its race to the stable. First,
it’s not yet a global firm—the majority of its business is done in the United
States. Second, Tesla doesn’t have a ton of customers, so it doesn’t possess
data on individual behavior at scale yet. But its cars are data-collecting
machines, so the challenge here is scale and execution, not the underlying
capability.
Uber
As I write this, around 2 million people drive for Uber (called “Driver
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