Tesla is an electric vehicle manufacturer led by Elon Musk that has produced the Roadster sports car, Model S sedan, and plans to produce the Model X SUV. Tesla operates a growing network of Supercharger fast-charging stations and works with partners like Daimler and Toyota to develop batteries and components. While Tesla has had some success becoming profitable and establishing itself as a leader in electric vehicles, it faces challenges of disrupting the large, established auto industry which requires huge investments, operates on small margins, and will see increasing competition from other automakers.

1. Tesla: Future Cars
aka the continuing odyssey of Elon Musk

2. Makes - Past
Roadster - Base price: $109,000

3. Makes - Present
Model S - Base price: $62,400

4. Makes - Future
Model X - Base price: ??

5. Supercharger Stations
Today 2015

6. Batteries and Components
Collaborating with:
● Daimler
○ Smart
○ Mercedes
○ Freightliner Trucks
● Toyota

7. Financial Information

8. History
● 2003: founded, incorporated
● 2004: Musk joined as chairman
● 2008: Roadster is released
● 2009: Model S revealed

9. History, cont.
● 2010: IPO
● 2012: Model S deliveries start
● 2013: 2 quarters of profitability!
● The future...

10. What’s hot?

11. Special Sauce
This guy
● Studied
business and
physics
● Built and sold
Paypal
● Runs SpaceX
● Chairman of
Solarcity

12. Special Sauce pt. 2
Elon Musk’s vision
● Overall: Shape the human experience on
multiple fronts
● With Tesla: Eventually produce electric cars
for the masses
Extra sauce: a $465 million government loan

13. Story time
Musk v. Fisker

14. Story 2
Tesla Crash Test Marketing
● Tesla claims to have the safest vehicle ever
tested in its vehicle segment
● 5.4 stars out of 5 based on Tesla’s calculation
NHTSA Pushes Back
● Not off the scale as Tesla claims
● “NHTSA strongly discourages the use of
potentially misleading words such as “perfect,
“safest”, “flawless” or “best in class” to describe
the star rating received by the vehicle”

15. Competitors
Mass-market EVs and hybrids
● Nissan Leaf
● Chevy Volt

16. Competitors pt. 2
Luxury vehicles
● Audi A6
● Lexus GS350
● etc.

17. Competitors pt. 3
● BMW i3
● GM
● VW

18. Outlook 1
Success!
● Visionary leader
● Established as the electric car company
● No baggage

19. Outlook 2
Failure
● Incredibly tough industry to disrupt
○ Extremely high startup costs + with low margins
○ Very tough to pay off debts
● Cars sold at an expensive price point with low volume
○ Tesla has only sold ~16,500 vehicles in their history
● A lot of large well established competition
○ Toyota sold ~9.5 million vehicles last year alone