Elon Musk reveals Tesla’s savior
Tesla has become the global reference in the field of electric cars.
The company and its bizarrely prescient CEO Elon Musk have become icons of low carbon dioxide emissions from the automotive sector.
The automaker currently produces more than 1.37 million electric vehicles annually, digging a huge hole with its competitors. It is profitable with margins that make its competitors pale with envy.
Its market capitalization reached $1 trillion in 2021 before collapsing to roughly $390 billion today. No other car group comes close. Toyota (TM) – Get a free reportthe world’s largest car group in terms of production volumes, has a market capitalization of $191 billion, while Volkswagen (VWAGY) – Get a free report Its market capitalization is about $83 billion. stronghold (F) – Get a free report and General Motors (GM) – Get a free report They have a market capitalization of $51 billion and $52 billion, respectively.
General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt
Tesla (TSLA) – Get a free report It has four vehicle production plants – Fremont, California; Austin, Texas; Shanghai and fourth near Berlin. In the coming weeks, the company may announce the location names of the new vehicle assembly sites.
Tesla currently markets five models: the Model 3 sedan, Model Y SUV/crossover, Model S luxury sedan, Model X luxury SUV/crossover, and the Tesla Semi. This year, a new model, the Cybertruck should be added to this list that continues to grow.
What many forget is that 14 years ago, Tesla could have simply disappeared. It was in 2009, in the midst of a financial crisis. The automaker and co-founder Musk had yet to produce one of the cars the company is currently marketing, six years after Tesla was founded.
The automaker had only produced a limited-edition sports roadster. The horizon was bleak for the entire American automobile. Detroit’s Big Three were desperate. Chrysler and General Motors went bankrupt that year. Ford was the only one who did not file for bankruptcy.
For the upstart that Tesla was then, there was no other way out than lowering the curtain because everything was against the company. The climate was not suitable for electric vehicles. Affected by the crisis, consumers thought of only one thing: saving while investors ran away from all risky assets.
But a savior arose: Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz. This is what Musk just revealed during a Twitter thread.
“I wonder what would have happened in 2009 if the Fed had raised interest rates instead of lowering them. The higher the rates, the harder it was to fall,” the billionaire wrote on Twitter on January 13.
Daimler “saved Tesla”
“Lucky Tesla found an investor at that time,” one Twitter user commented.
Musk replied, “It’s true that Daimler’s investment in 2009 was actually what saved Tesla.”
On May 18, 2009, Tesla and Daimler (Damry) He announced a strategic partnership, including the acquisition of a stake in the American company by the German automaker.
Mercedes-Benz’s parent company has acquired nearly 10 percent of Tesla, and the two automakers have agreed to cooperate on battery systems, electric drive systems and on individual vehicle projects, according to the company. press release.
“Our strategic partnership is an important step to accelerate the global commercialization of electric motors,” said Dr. Thomas Weber, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, responsible for the group’s research and development of Mercedes-Benz cars.
“It is an honor and strong endorsement of our technology that Daimler has chosen to invest in it and partner with Tesla,” Musk said. “We look forward to strategic cooperation in a number of areas including benefiting from Daimler’s engineering, production and Suppliers expertise. This will accelerate production of our Tesla Model S and ensure that it is a superior car on all levels.”
This alliance validated Musk’s vision and Tesla’s strategy. Daimler understood that the future of automobiles lay in electric vehicles and that the key to success lay in getting to market quickly. Since Tesla was already qualified, joining Musk’s group would significantly reduce the research and development time needed before Daimler’s first 100% electric cars went into production.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but several articles mentioned $50 million. Daimler sold its stake in Tesla in 2014 with a huge gain.
“Ironically, the company that made the first commercially viable internal combustion engine car saved the company that made the first commercially viable electric car!” Musk concluded on January 13th.