Tesla Motors Brand Research And Analysis
Introduction
The purpose of this brand research and analysis assignment is to really understand the brand as it is now and why it exists. This document will cover the background of the company, in this case, Tesla Motors, its vision and as well as its mission for the future of both the company and the environment around it. Tesla Motors is an American multinational corporation that was formerly founded in 2003. Tesla specializes in electric vehicles, solar panel manufacturing, lithium-ion battery energy storage and much more. They use exclusive technology, excellent design and highly advanced manufacturing processes to create the new generation of electric vehicles.
Tesla is named after Serbian-American physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla, who made many breakthroughs in the electrical power industry during the early 1900’s. He invented the world’s first alternating current motor and he developed alternating current generation as well as transmission technology. The company’s founders are Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Its co-founders are Jeffrey B. Straubel and Elon Musk, who currently serves as their CEO and head of operations, as he oversees everything. Musk has also found other such successful companies such as, PayPal, SpaceX, Zip2, X.com as well as the Musk Foundation. Its headquarters are based in Palo Alto, California.
Background
Tesla Motors was incorporated and founded in July 2003 by engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. They funded into the early development phases of the company alongside Elon Musk, which included the first round of financing for the company back in 2004. Eberhard and Tarpenning were initially the active roles in Tesla’s early development stages prior to and after Elon Musk’s major involvement in the company.
The founders were influenced and inspired to start the company after GM recalled all its EV1 electric cars in 2003 and then destroyed them. They named the company after Nikola Tesla, who revolutionized the electrical power industry. In February of 2005, funding of their first vehicle, namely the Tesla Roadster, began. This was their second round of funding and financing in order to begin development of the yet-announced Tesla Roadster. In 2008, they released their first car, the Tesla Roadster that was produced by Tesla from 2008 to 2012. It ran solely on battery, as it was a fully electric sports car. This car also went on to become the first production car ever to be launched into orbit, which was carried by a rocket in a test flight on February 6th of 2018. In the years 2008-2012, during the production of the Roadster, Elon Musk had gained total control over Tesla and injected millions of his own fortunes into the company, which nearly escaped bankruptcy. By the year 2015, Tesla introduced self-driving software into its vehicles. From the Roadster onwards, they went on to create and produce many other successful electric cars such as the Model S and Model X.
Mission and Vision
Tesla’s vision is to ‘create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electrical running vehicles.’ Its mission and focus, as it displays on the company’s website, is to ‘accelerate the world's transition to sustainable transport and energy.’ Tesla’s founders were a group of engineers who wanted to prove that people did not need to compromise to drive electric and that electrical running vehicles can be better, quicker and more fun to drive than gasoline cars’. They want the world to switch to electric mobility while having affordable pricing for all future and potential consumers. This way, the Earth’s environment will have a huge weight of pollution off its shoulders. They not only make their products to help the environment and humanity but also set about goals to reach safety measures. One of their cars, the ‘Model S,’ achieved the lowest probability of injury of any car ever tested by the United States Government. Elon Musk has provided some insight into Tesla’s long-term goals in the past. He has therefore stated that, Tesla is looking into becoming the most desired manufacturer of electric vehicles because that is what Tesla wants the future of automobiles to hold. They have a concept that oil and gas will become expensive in the later years to come and therefore, become a scarcity, thus making electric motors and vehicles in big demand.
Brand Overview
Each company has a reason why they exist and each company has its own unique brand essence. Tesla has made it clear that its ‘raison d’etre’ and why they do what they do is to sustain more eco-friendly environments and mentalities within and among the Earth in order to live better lives and for the betterment of this planet’s future, humanity and generations. Tesla’s values and beliefs are based solely on making this planet a better living environment. Tesla wants to revolutionize the automobile industry and accelerate the world's transition to sustainable transport and energy. The purpose of a brand overview, is to indicate the company’s image and what they are doing on a daily basis in order to portray the image of the company and the direction it is taking. All of this ties in with what the company could do to better themselves and improve.
Target Market
Tesla is very unique in that they create amazing products that are available to the public. However, like any other company out there in the world, Tesla does have a target demographic and target market in place. Their market positioning status consists of the prices of their products, the target demographic for their products as well as the social status of potential consumers. For instance, the gender for the market is directed at both females and males. Tesla’s consumers are mainly young to middle-aged people who are either in the upper middle or upper class system. The consumers’ consumption conceptions suggest that people who are looking for more eco-friendly, high tech and fancy options are more than likely to buy Tesla products. Tesla products also influence cultural backgrounds such as an increased desire of social responsibility amongst consumers. The industry Tesla is in, automobiles and vehicles, is also very high in competition because cars are edging towards being more eco-friendly than ever before and consumers are becoming more and more conscious about safety. Technology should also be considered in today’s world, as it’s being improved everyday within the automobile industry globally.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Tesla has always been very functional and professional at what they do and have a very organized structure because of the company’s relative newness to the market. The brand’s ‘why’ is properly aligned with its brand vision, mission and long-term goals. Tesla, as a brand, stands for the betterment of the environment of the Earth and is currently accelerating at a quick pace to get to where they will be going as a company in the future.
The message Tesla portrays and sends out is a very important issue in today’s world; environment pollution is a big mess today and will only get worse if people take the same direction they are taking right now into the future. Alike all other companies, Tesla too has its own weaknesses and threats. In this case, Tesla does have a global market, however, there are many undeveloped countries that still don’t have access to Tesla’s products. In the near future, a solution for Tesla would be to hopefully exploit themselves as a world leader in automobiles and hope to have their products all around the world. Tesla is also trying to include more affordable products as the company grows, this way, they will be in more demand all over the globe.
In short, Tesla has really revolutionized the automobile industry and has changed lives and the way many people live forever. Environmental awareness is very important today and many countries are encouraging more and more people to go green and use Tesla.
