The development history of Tesla

Tesla's initial entrepreneurial team mainly came from Silicon Valley, and built cars with IT concepts, rather than the ideas of traditional automakers represented by Detroit. Therefore, Tesla's electric car is often seen as a story of a Silicon Valley kid against a Detroit giant.

1At the end of 990, General Motors developed EV- 1 and put it on the market as the first mass-produced electric vehicle. This car is ugly, with a cruising range of 140 km. Due to the low input-output ratio, after producing more than 2,000 cars, General Motors announced its abandonment in 2002. This incident made GM take the blame, and a documentary called "Who killed the electric car" made this incident widely circulated. After that, Al Cocconi, an engineer who participated in the EV- 1 project, founded AC Propulsion, an electric vehicle company in California, and produced T-Zero, a lead-acid battery car for one person only.

When AC Propulsion was in trouble, an engineer named martin eberhard from Silicon Valley invested $65,438+$500,000. In exchange, he hopes Cocconi will try to use the lithium batteries of thousands of laptops as the power of T-Zero. After switching to lithium batteries, the mileage of T-Zero has exceeded 480 kilometers. Eberhard persuaded AC Propulsion to build such a car for him, but Coconi had no intention of setting up a car company. Eberhard decided to come by himself. Martin eberhard, a Silicon Valley engineer, veteran car fan and entrepreneur, found that the hybrid Toyota Prius often appeared in many private car lanes in the United States where supercars were parked. He believes that these people don't buy Prius to save fuel, but Prius is just a way for these people to express their dissatisfaction with environmental issues and make changes. As a result, he had the idea of combining sports cars with new energy sources. The customer base is this group of high-income people and celebrities with environmental awareness.

On July 1 day, 2003, martin eberhard and long-term business partner Marc Tarpenning jointly established Tesla Motors, and its headquarters will be located in Silicon Valley, California, USA. After its establishment, Tesla began to look for the investment and materials needed for efficient electric sports cars. Because martin eberhard had no manufacturing experience in this field, he finally found an exchange promotion company. Under the introduction of CEO of AC Propulsion, elon musk got to know martin eberhard's team.

In 2003, the mileage of T-Zero reached 480 kilometers after replacing it with a lithium battery. Tesla spent about five years polishing Roadster before putting it on the market. During this period, the main time and money were spent on research and development. For example, the endurance that Tesla electric vehicles are proud of comes from a battery pack consisting of more than 7,000 batteries. Even if it is short-circuited, it will not catch fire, and the damage of a single battery will not affect others-this battery control system is Tesla's own. So far, there has been no battery failure. Moreover, this model can also ensure the use of the most advanced batteries to equip Tesla electric vehicles at any time.

In February 2004, elon musk invested $6.3 million in Tesla on the condition that he became the chairman of the company and had the final decision on all matters, while martin eberhard, as the father of Tesla, was the CEO of the company.

From 2004 to 2006, although the number of companies increased from 20 to 150. However, the development of the first model, Tesla Roadster, has encountered a bottleneck.

In 2006, eberhard wrote in Tesla official website's opening blog titled "Attitude" that the electric vehicles manufactured by traditional large automobile companies have limited cruising range, mediocre performance and average appearance. "Tesla cars are built for people who love driving. We are not trying to minimize the use cost, but to pursue better performance, more beautiful and more attractive. "

When the crisis broke out in 2007, the gearbox problem became the fuse. As a super sports car comparable to Porsche and Ferrari, Tesla Roadster requires high performance acceleration. At this time, the ordinary electric vehicle without multi-stage gearbox can not meet the needs of Roadster, because the power output efficiency of asynchronous motor is low at low speed, so it is logical to introduce two-stage gearbox. But the problem is that there is no precedent in the industry on how to do systematic research and development between high-voltage and high-power electronic control system and gearbox coordination.

In 2007, Zef Drori took over as CEO of Tesla. Ze'ev Drori is the founder of Monolithic Memory, which is also famous in Silicon Valley.

In 2008, the new CEO fired several key figures, including founder martin eberhard and his partner Marc Tarpenning, who left Tesla one after another. The main reason may be that Martin eberhard did not satisfy elon musk in cost control.

In February 2008, Tesla began to deliver the first sports car. The first seven cars were offered to Masco and other investors as "founder series". This list includes Larry Page of Google, sergey brin, Jeff Skull of ebay, etc. Of course, this also includes eberhard who has left the company.

In June 2008, the first batch of TeslaRoadster rolled off the assembly line and began delivery. However, the actual cost of Roadster, which was originally planned at100000 yuan, is as high as10.2000 yuan, which is far from the established cost of 70000 yuan. Musk had to raise the price to 1, 654.38+0 million yuan. This move attracted great dissatisfaction from the scheduled customers. At the customer meeting in Los Angeles, angry buyers almost besieged Musk and fainted to the ground. However, even if the price increase is 654.38+0 million, Tesla still faces the dilemma of losing money to sell cars. Subsequently, Tesla spent eight weeks converting a Smart into an electric car, including chassis, battery, motor and electronic control system. Musk impressed Daimler with advanced technology, and the latter finally invested 50 million US dollars to acquire a 0/0% stake in Tesla/KLOC, and the two companies also entered a closer stage of strategic cooperation. Soon after, Tesla signed a cooperation agreement with Toyota to provide Toyota with battery packs and electric engines. In order to maintain cash flow, Musk took out his only remaining $60 million as working capital for production and engineering.

In 2009, Obama and Steven Chu visited the Tesla factory, and Tesla also successfully obtained a low-interest loan of $465 million from the US Department of Energy.

20 10 in June, Tesla landed on Nasdaq, with IPO price of 17.00 USD, net raised funds of 654.38+84 million USD and financing amount of 226 million USD. On the opening day, elon musk also turned the tables, earning $630 million, making Tesla the only independent manufacturer of pure electric vehicles listed in the United States.

20 10 in July, the company hired George Blankenship, vice president of Apple Retail Store, to take charge of its retail strategy. He will become the vice president of the car project of the electric car company, helping to promote the development of new cars.

20 12 On June 22nd, Tesla Factory in fremont, California, USA, the first electric sports car of the brand-new electric vehicle series "Model S" produced by the company was officially delivered.

In 20 12 and 10, Tesla motors co., ltd. obtained the special funds of California energy commission100,000 dollars to produce Tesla Model X SUV and further expand its fremont factory.

In early May of 20 13, Tesla announced its first profit in the first quarter of 20 13, which immediately became the focus of global attention. In the past month, its share price has risen by about 80%, and it is rushing to 100, with a market value exceeding 100 billion.

On May 9th, 20 13, Musk wrote in his personal blog, "I just want to say thank you to customers and investors. You gave Tesla a chance to travel through the long night. Without you, we can't go today. "

On June 8, 20 13, Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer, opened higher and walked higher, closing up 4.82% to close at 102.04 USD. Back to above $ 100. The market value of the company is about11800 million USD.

On the afternoon of February 20 14 19, Tesla motors issued an email to shareholders in 20 13. According to the email, in the fourth quarter, Tesla achieved record car sales, and its annual revenue exceeded $2 billion. At the same time, Tesla also hopes to reduce the cost of electric vehicles.