Tesla turns 20 years old: How Elon Musk transformed the auto industry

Visionary, disruptor, revolutionary — no automaker is equated with subversive terms as much as Tesla. The U.S. electric car pioneer has turned the industry upside down.

After more than 100 years of the all-powerful internal combustion engine, Tesla came along and helped the electric drive to achieve a breakthrough. This was indeed a revolution. And it’s still in full swing.

After many ups and downs in the early years, Tesla is now — at the age of 20 — a force. It is the global market leader in electromobility, a pioneer in battery technology, and an important protagonist in autonomous driving. Tesla wants to be first everywhere. The company is driven by CEO and main owner Elon Musk.

Tesla sold 1.31 million vehicles last year. In the first quarter of 2023, the company overtook the German premium brand Audi in unit sales for the first time. If growth continues at this rate, Tesla will also surpass Mercedes-Benz and BMW in 2024. Musk expects sales to grow by between 40 and 50 percent each year. He wants Tesla’s success story to continue without end.

Nevertheless, there was a big dent in 2022. The erratic Tesla boss became tangled up in the totally overpriced Twitter purchase and complained about the "woke" society on the social media platform. Investors began to worry, the stock market value plummeted by several hundred billion dollars.

Musk realized that he had to do something. He promoted Tesla's China chief Tom Zhu to take direct oversight of the company’s U.S. assembly plants as well as sales operations in North America and Europe, which calmed things down.

Tesla also boosted sales with price reductions. This, however, put enormous pressure on margins, which immediately punished investors. Musk is currently engaged in crisis management – and this seems to be a favorite pastime of his.

Of course, all this happens at a high level. With a market capitalization of about $830 billion as of Friday's close, Tesla is still by far the world's most valuable automaker. In the financial market, Tesla is not seen as a mere automaker, but as a tech company.

The company achieves its annual sales increases with only four models. And of those four, basically only two are selling: the Model Y and Model 3. The more expensive Model S and Model X are hard for customers to get.

Musk knows that if the success story is to continue, the product range will have to grow soon. Among new models planned are the Cybertruck pickup, the Semi electric truck and a smaller car.

"Over time we should cover all areas. It would probably make sense to develop a compact car as well as a van or minivan,” Musk said in September 2020 in a – rare – interview with Automotive News' German affiliate Automobilwoche.

In the meantime, the model plans have progressed further, but there is a lack of concrete statements, especially on the compact model.

Breaking conventions

The reasons for the success of the company, which turned 20 years old on July 1, are well known and widely discussed.

Musk broke with industry conventions from the start. All-electric drive, central control architecture, smart production, its own charging stations, direct sales, digital features and autonomous driving – everything was newly conceived, without legacy issues, without copying others.

At some point, it dawned on the competition that Tesla should be taken seriously.

And, of course, Musk himself is a success factor. His fans adore the entrepreneur, self-made billionaire, nerd and richest person on the planet. However, the number of his enemies is no less small. Success fuels envy and resentment. His escapades and verbal outbursts do the rest. No matter what Musk does, he polarizes.

Musk boosts Tesla's desirability in the financial market with his vision of autonomous driving. While electromobility is already becoming the norm and is no longer a unique selling point, the self-driving car will bring the next revolution to the industry. Tesla's so-called Autopilot is advanced compared to competitors, but not the measure of all things.

The big promises have yet to be kept. "We could sell our cars now for no profit and make incredible profits later via autonomy updates,” Musk said at the presentation of the company’s quarterly earnings in April.

Costly tech offensive

Musk sees vehicles becoming smartphones on wheels as the big business model of the future.

However, this requires high investments. Musk pumps between $6 billion and $7 billion into Tesla’s business every year. The money goes into technology and new plants. But to enter the mass market on a large scale, as Tesla is planning, the company would have to significantly increase its investments. CFO Zachary Kirkhorn acknowledged this in March.

In any case, capacities must continue to be increased enormously at the planned pace of growth. The next production plant is being built in Mexico near the city of Monterrey. Plans for the expansion of Tesla’s European gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin were recently submitted.

"The demand for our cars could be infinite,” Musk said in March during an Investor's Day at Tesla’s Texas headquarters. He said he will be able to sell around 20 million cars in 2030. That would be as many as the two world market leaders Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen Group combined sell today.

Musk now wants to fight for market share — profits can wait.

"This is a good time to further extend our lead, and we will continue to invest in our growth as quickly as possible," Musk has said.

In this way, the Tesla boss also justifies Tesla’s immense price reductions, which delight new customers, but not investors and shareholders.

Musk’s confidence may come from the planned compact car, which is expected to cost less than 25,000 dollars and could be built in huge numbers.

There is still a lack of affordable EVs on the market.

Tesla and Musk – the company and its boss are inextricably linked. He has held the position of CEO for 15 years and is also the largest shareholder. At times he was also chairman of the board. But there are more and more voices that see the time has come for broader leadership. In an open letter to the board, investors said Tesla needs a CEO for whom leading the automaker is the absolute priority.

Musk has his finger in many pies. And two of them — Twitter and his rocket company SpaceX — have recently received a lot of attention.

With the appointment of Linda Yaccarino as head of Twitter, he has taken a step forward. And with Zhu, he has also chosen a Tesla crown prince. Zhu now works alongside Musk at the Austin headquarters.

But there have always been crown princes and supporting stars (Jeffrey Straubel, Andrew Baglino), which Musk then dropped. Instead of getting more help, the board got smaller and smaller.

Competition catching up

Tesla will have to keep the growing competition at bay in the coming years. EVs are gaining acceptance in many parts of the world, which is why hundreds of new models from old and new car manufacturers are coming onto the market. And they are not bad either.

Another prerequisite is that Tesla must continue to be a technology leader to successfully fight against the new players. Tesla has to be better, more exclusive. But other companies see themselves as technology leaders.

The Chinese group BYD probably already is, VW would like to be. Tesla is no longer alone at the top.

Musk, however, who has never lacked self-confidence, is certain: "There is no carmaker in the world that is positioned as well as mine."