In April 2024, Elon Musk announced on social platforms:
"Tesla will invest about $10 billion in artificial intelligence this year."
Tesla has evolved into an artificial intelligence and robotics company.
Back in 2008, Leslie Starr, the host of the famous American talk show "60 Minutes", asked Musk: "Do you think Tesla will become the next General Motors in the future?" ”
At the time, Tesla was just a startup with just 500 employees in Northern California, and the industry was just beginning to talk about the future of American cars in Detroit or Silicon Valley. Musk has already spent twice as much as the company budgeted for the Roadster, an electric supercar that he has even paid $55 million out of his own pocket to keep the company running.
Musk's answer to Leslie was:
"Let's just put it this way, Tesla's goal is to accelerate the arrival of the electric car era."
Ten years later, in 2018, when Leslie interviewed Musk again, Tesla already had 50,000 employees, and had just climbed out of the "production hell" of Model 3 the week before, and Musk's goal remained the same:
"Tesla's goal is to accelerate the arrival of the electric vehicle era and accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy."
Tesla has always been based on the vision of the future development of mankind. Since its inception in 2003, Tesla has grown from a Silicon Valley start-up to a leading global presence in key areas of exploration, including electric vehicles, sustainable energy, and artificial intelligence.
In the process of development, Tesla not only entrusted Musk to the position of the world's richest man, but also achieved innovative changes in business, technology, manufacturing and other fields.
Over the past 20 years, more and more car companies have chosen the electric vehicle track, which has jointly promoted the development of transportation electrification. According to data from a number of market research institutions, global NEV sales will increase by more than 29% in 2023 to 13.7 million units, with a penetration rate of 17%, of which 9.5 million pure electric vehicles will be sold. One out of every five BEVs sold worldwide is a Tesla.
Roadster, "S3XY" series, Semi, Cybertruck...... Tesla has poured disruptive design concepts, innovative technologies, and manufacturing processes and processes into these products, proving that electric vehicles are not only environmentally friendly, but also have performance, efficiency, and cost advantages.
Tesla's product strength is rooted in manufacturing capabilities, and Musk sees the Gigafactory as a product as important as electric vehicles.
In the Fremont factory, Shanghai Gigafactory, Texas Gigafactory and Berlin Gigafactory, Tesla jumped out of the inherent experience of building cars for hundreds of years, redefined the design, architecture, core components, software and hardware and manufacturing, and once again deeply changed the automotive industry after Ford and Toyota.
Electric vehicles are just one piece of the puzzle that makes up Tesla's vision, along with energy generation and storage, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
In recent years, Tesla has built a global charging network, and has made significant progress in the field of solar photovoltaic panels and household and commercial energy storage devices.
The Nevada Gigafactory, the New York Gigafactory, the Kato Factory, and the Rathrop Energy Storage Gigafactory are the main development and production bases for Tesla's on-board batteries, home energy storage system Powerwall, and ultra-large commercial energy storage system Megapack, and the Shanghai Energy Storage Gigafactory will also start construction in 2024.
In addition, Musk has repeatedly emphasized that Tesla is also an artificial intelligence and robotics company, and Tesla has made a lot of forward-looking investment in the field of artificial intelligence - on March 18, 2024, Tesla began to fully push the full self-driving capability FSD V12.3 version in North America, and in early April, the cumulative global mileage of FSD full self-driving has exceeded 1 billion miles.
Tesla has also set up engineering headquarters and R&D centers in California, Shanghai and other places, enabling it to maintain long-term advantages in the fields of vehicles, energy and artificial intelligence.
Tesla's technology and products to the world are driven by a mission to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.
Musk made clear the company's important goals at the beginning of Tesla's founding:
"In order for humanity to have a sustainable future, it is necessary to electrify transportation."
After that, he clearly depicted three important chapters of Tesla's grand vision, which constitute Tesla's "secret ambition" that guides Tesla to pursue higher goals.
Tesla has also fallen into the darkest hour many times. Michael Moritz, the owner of Sequoia Capital, explicitly rejected Musk when Tesla sought a new round of funding in 2006, and admitted years later: "I don't appreciate the power of Elon's ambition." ”
Eric Nobel, founder of The Car Lab, an automotive industry consultancy, has publicly stated: "Electric cars don't work in many ways, and faith in electric cars will come to an end." ”
Wall Street has also listed Tesla as "the least likely company to succeed."
In the financial crisis of late 2008, Tesla's capital chain was nearly broken, but just 18 months later, in June 2010, Tesla became the first American car company to go public since Ford in 1956.
From 2017 to 2018, Tesla fell into Model 3 "production hell", in order to achieve the goal of producing 5,000 vehicles per week, Musk spent Thanksgiving Day in 2017 at the Nevada Gigafactory, and spent his 47th birthday at the Fremont factory, he slept on the roof of the factory, under the conference table, until the early morning of the promised deadline, when the 5,000th Model 3 rolled off the assembly line that week.
"It's like gazing into the abyss while swallowing broken glass." Musk recalls those days like this.
Tesla people have always been inspired by Musk's words:
"If you can't help but give up, think about what drove you on this journey in the first place."
From the perspective of the capital market, Tesla now ranks first among global automotive companies by market capitalization due to its dominant position in electric vehicles, sustainable energy and artificial intelligence.
In 2013, Tesla opened its first experience store in Parkview Green, Beijing, thus opening a new stage of growth with the Chinese market and Made in China. In the "reckless period" of electric vehicle development, Tesla was known as a catfish, and it was a win-win situation with China's new energy industry and automobile industry.
In 2019, Tesla built the Shanghai Gigafactory, realizing "start construction in the same year, put into production in the same year, and deliver in the same year".
In 2021, the Shanghai R&D and innovation center and data center will be built.
Tesla's R&D in China is becoming increasingly important to Tesla's global community: more and more R&D designs appreciated by users around the world come from the Shanghai R&D and Innovation Center.
There are many questions from the outside world, what leads Tesla to continue to create value?
The answer is Tesla's unique values and approach to work. At Tesla, the most important value is first principles, which is the essential reason why Tesla has been able to make so many disruptive innovations.
The five-step work method proposed by Musk also runs through every link of Tesla's product development, production and manufacturing to sales and delivery, and has long guided the work practice of Tesla people.
The book "Tesla's Secret Ambition" shows the picture and path of sustainable human development planned by Musk, as well as the complete path to embrace innovation and realize innovation.
It shows the design philosophy and innovative R&D story behind Tesla's products, as well as the company's "secret ambition" to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.
At the same time, we will also have a comprehensive understanding of Tesla's business wisdom, such as Tesla's direct sales model, the origin of the patent opening strategy, and Tesla's values and working methods.
Reading this book not only understands the context of the sustainable energy economy, but also injects new and efficient methodologies into our entrepreneurship, work and life paths, and better understands and responds to many important issues in the context of rapid technological change.
For the first time, Musk's "secret grand plan" strategy was fully documented
Unveiling Tesla's 20-year traversal cycle
The underlying logic of continuous growth