2017 - Tesla Motors - Documentary - Nat Geo - July 8


Tesla

Main article: Tesla, Inc.
Tesla, Inc. (originally Tesla Motors) was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding.[87]
Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Elon Musk's involvement.[88] Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors as its chairman.[89] Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.[90]
Following the financial crisis in 2008,[91] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect, positions he still holds today. Tesla Motors first built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster in 2008, with sales of about 2,500 vehicles to 31 countries. Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan on June 22, 2012. It unveiled its third product, the Model X, aimed at the SUV/minivan market, on February 9, 2012; the Model X launch was however delayed until September 2015.[92][93][94] In addition to its own cars, Tesla sells electric powertrain systems to Daimler for the Smart EV, Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive and Mercedes A Class and to Toyota for the RAV4 EV. Musk was able to bring in both companies as long-term investors in Tesla.[95]
Musk has favored building a sub-US$30,000 compact Tesla model and building and selling electric vehicle powertrain components so that other automakers can produce electric vehicles at affordable prices without having to develop the products in-house; this led to the Model 3 that is planned to have a base price of US$35,000.[96] Several mainstream publications have compared him with Henry Ford for his work on advanced vehicle powertrains.[97]
In a May 2013 interview with All Things Digital, Musk said that to overcome the range limitations of electric cars, Tesla is "dramatically accelerating" its network of supercharger stations, tripling the number on the East and West coasts of the U.S. that June, with plans for more expansion across North America, including Canada, throughout the year.[98]As of January 29, 2016, Musk owns about 28.9 million Tesla shares, which equates to about 22% of the company.[99][100]
As of 2014, Musk's annual salary is one dollar. And, similar to Steve Jobs and others, the remainder of his compensation is in the form of stock and performance-based bonuses.[101][102]
In 2014, Musk announced that Tesla would allow its technology patents to be used by anyone in good faith in a bid to entice automobile manufacturers to speed up development of electric cars. "The unfortunate reality is electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn't burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales", Musk said.[103]
In February 2016, Musk announced that he had acquired the Tesla.com domain name from Stu Grossman, who had owned it since 1992 and changed Tesla's homepage to that domain.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

Comments

Post a Comment