Tesla
What I Knew Before
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Tesla is a company that began by creating high-end electric cars, and over the years has made their cars more and more electric
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Tesla has recently decided to call themselves a battery company, not a car company
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Their CEO is Elon Musk
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They recently acquired Solar City
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Tesla is currently building a Gigafactory in Nevada that will utilize economies of scale to mass produce batteries
Introduction/ Expectations
Tesla was the company that I was most looking forward to. I have been a huge fan of Elon Musk for years, and have been following Tesla throughout that time. Musk is a visionary unlike any other, and Tesla is just a piece of that vision. I have read countless articles about Musk, his career, and his visions, so I could not wait to see with my own eyes the product of everything I had learned about. When people talk about what their ideal car would be, I do not say a Porsche or Lamborghini, but rather a Tesla.
Tesla was founded in 2003 by a team of Silicon Valley engineers, and they finally debuted the Roadster in 2008 after many issues with production, funding, and leadership. Once on their feet, Musk brought the company public in 2010 raising $226 million in capital. Today, they are working through the issues of production, staying on track for production schedules, and improving range/ increasing the amount of charging stations. With that being said, they are valued at $48 billion and has experienced great success in recent years.
Visit Summary
On the visit, we visited a Tesla crash facility. We were led by a team of engineers in a group that included university recruiter Chris Garringer. In the facility, we saw a variety of robots, crashed Teslas, disassembled cars and parts, and a variety of testing mechanisms. The facility tested for things such as durability, safety, and functionality, using robots to impart forces on or manipulate different parts of the vehicles. We also learned about Tesla’s open source designs, which means that their product designs are open for anyone to use.
The employees discussed the pressure that Elon puts on them. He is described as such an intelligent, motivated, goal-oriented person, and he expects his employees to be the same way. This means that he gives them jobs and deadlines that can seem outlandish, but this motivates the employees to work to their full potential and get the job done in the most efficient way possible.
The visit memorably ended with us being able to interact with three Tesla models. Being inside a Tesla is not comparable to anything else; it feels as though you are in a spaceship because of how advanced their dashboard and features are.
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Key Takeaways
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Tesla believes that in order for the world to make advancements in the electric car field, they think that idea collaboration is very important. They do this themselves by making their designs open source because they really are dedicated to making the world a better place by reducing the pollution emitted by typical automobiles and moving to world of battery powered automobiles.
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Employees are going to strive to work like their boss when they believe in what their boss is doing. At Tesla, the employees are bought in on what Elon is saying, and that drive to succeed for Elon makes the employees take on some of his characteristics in order to get jobs done. Being a good leader means more than being good at telling people what to do; you want your actions to also inspire the way that they do it.
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As discussed in "Organizational Culture and Leadership" by Edgar H. Schein, "culture develops ​as an organization goes beyond mere compliance with its leaders' methods to sharing the leader's values." Musk has made his values very clear, and by doing so, he enables such a culture to trickle down to his employees.
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Tesla is relentlessly innovating to get products on the market. They acknowledge the production issues that they have had in the past, and it is evident that the employees do not want to see such an issue continue.
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Chris Garinger expressed how important it is to be involved with something that you are passionate about; for many Tesla Terps, they had Terps Racing, and that practical experience was something that they were able to utilize for career purposes at Tesla, and to show their passion in automobiles.
Post Visit Actions/ Thoughts
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After the visit, I connected with Chris Garinger on LinkedIn and emailed him. I posted on LinkedIn describing my experience on the West Coast, which I then sent to him and he liked.
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Tesla employees are under a lot of pressure from Elon, however I think that his leadership inspires them to be the best employee that they can be
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People often debate the long-term viability of Tesla. Based on Elon’s deep pockets, great investor support, their vision for the future, and their new focus on batteries over cars, I believe that they will be a company that is around to last. One scenario that I could imagine is a “super-company” that could combine Elon’s different businesses such as Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company. Tesla has already moved in this direction with the acquisition of SolarCity, so while it seems like a stretch of Tesla and SpaceX to merge, it is something that may be interesting to watch in the future.