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Zusammenfassung von Power Play

Name: Power Play
Rating: 4.3 (267 reviews)
Author: Tim Higgins

Tim Higgins

Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century

4.3 (267 Bewertungen)

20 Min.

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'Power Play' by Tim Higgins is a non-fiction book that explores the rise of Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk. It delves into the company's controversies, successes, and the key players who made Tesla what it is today.

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What’s in it for me? Discover how the start-up Tesla changed the world’s perspective on electric cars.

In the early 2000s, electric cars still seemed hopelessly futuristic. For more than a century, the biggest names in the automotive industry had failed to introduce commercially viable electric alternatives to their gas-guzzling sports models, despite their best efforts. But in Silicon Valley, a small group of engineers was ready to take on the challenge.

This group of young engineers and entrepreneurs founded Tesla Motors with a singular vision: they would produce a car that was electric, but also fast, sexy, and cost-effective. In the following blinks, we’ll look at how their seemingly idealistic start-up became the most valuable player in the global auto industry within just fifteen years.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how Tesla’s decision to use laptop batteries transformed the electric car game;
how a tech start-up became the only US car company aside from Ford not to go bankrupt; and
how Elon Musk almost single-handedly saved Tesla from financial ruin.

Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.

In 2002, global warming was just beginning to enter mainstream conversation, but one Silicon Valley engineer named Martin Eberhard was paying attention. As a sports car aficionado, he recognized that his favorite rides were sucking up huge amounts of gasoline and contributing to global climate change.

He wondered whether he could design an electric car that would match the design and technology of beloved models like the Porsche 911. To make his dream a reality, he founded AC Propulsion to create an electric car known as the tzero, and invited another engineer, named Marc Tarpenning, to further its development.

Shortly after, in 2004, a budding investor named Elon Musk entered the picture.

Here's the key message: Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.

Musk was the young millionaire founder of Internet start-up PayPal, who had recently been ousted as CEO of that company. A devoted futurist, he had also recently founded the space transportation company SpaceX, and was chairman of the solar company SolarX. Critically, Musk had what Eberhard and Tarpenning needed: a daring vision that aligned with theirs – and a lot more money to back it.

Eberhart and Tarpenning pitched to Musk a company called Tesla Motors. Their pitch went like this: Tesla would make an entirely electric sports car with a two-speed transmission and slick interior – in other words, an electric car that could compete with the best sports cars in the world. They called it the Roadster.

Eberhard and Tarpenning planned to start by raising about $7 million, money they’d use to hire more engineers and fund the production of a handmade prototype. Over the next four years, they would seek more millions in investment to produce the car. In that time, they would build 565 Roadsters, selling each for $79,900. Not only would they make a tidy profit, they would also change the world.

Although Musk was skeptical about the overly simplistic calculations, he agreed that the Roadster could be the start of something monumental. He was so convinced, in fact, that he decided to gamble everything he had, ultimately providing $6.35 million of the $6.5 million initial investment. Eberhard and other small investors contributed the rest.

In exchange for this stake, Musk would become chairman. Eberhard became CEO, and Tarpenning president. But as it turned out, it was the principal funder who would lead the company forward.

Tesla was plagued by money problems, but Musk managed to steer the company away from ruin.

The idea of the electric car is as old as the car itself. Automakers have been attempting to create battery-run vehicles since the mid-1800s. Although this was technically possible, producing batteries powerful enough to keep a lightweight, high-speed electric car on the road for long periods of time consistently proved too difficult.

But with the Roadster, Tesla managed to achieve what no other company ever had. Led by a man named J. B. Straubel, Tesla’s engineers produced a fully electric sports car using lithium-ion batteries – the same lightweight batteries that were used to charge laptops. This groundbreaking technology would set the Roadster apart from any other electric vehicle.

As Musk raised more funds for Tesla, he increased his control over the firm.

At the end of 2006, Eberhard sat in his office with his head in his hands. He had received a call from Musk who, after a weekend of test-driving the Roadster prototype, had a host of complaints and requests for changes. His long list of woes included everything from uncomfortable seats to lack of mechanical buttons for the doors, all of which would cost the firm millions more to address.

This was an increasingly familiar pattern at Tesla. Musk was pushing all of his ideas. It wouldn’t be long before he would take over Eberhard’s role as CEO.

Tesla encountered serious operational problems during its rise, and overlooked customer experience.

For even the most experienced automaker, setting up a new factory is an enormous challenge. But institutional experience does make the process a lot easier, as lessons get passed down through generations and integrated into a playbook of processes. Toyota, for example, established a long-running method for solving maintenance problems, in which any worker is encouraged to stop the line of production until the problem is solved.

But Musk was not interested in learning from other carmakers. Unlike Toyota, he preferred to keep Tesla’s assembly line running even as issues were being resolved. This translated into chaos on the factory floor. Under Musk’s leadership, everyone raced to beat the clock.

The Model 3 marked Tesla’s first real foray into the mainstream auto industry.

The auto industry is notoriously hard on start-ups. Of all the carmakers selling today in the US, for instance, the last automaker to emerge that was still producing cars was Chrysler, founded way back in 1925.

At the core of Tesla’s vision was the central question of whether the start-up could really make it in one of the most entrenched businesses around. Even Musk questioned whether his company would be able to join the ranks of GM, Ford, Toyota, and BMW – iconic global brands that sold tens of millions of vehicles every year. But even though the odds were stacked against Tesla, Musk was set on the quest.

At a valuation of over $700 billion, Tesla is currently the world's most valuable automaker.

On a cold day in January 2019, Elon Musk stood in a field on the outskirts of Shanghai with the city’s mayor, Ying Yong, smiling for a photograph. The occasion was a ceremonial ribbon-cutting to celebrate Tesla’s first attempt to manufacture cars outside of the US. The duo posed in front of the company’s brick-and-mortar factory, six thousand miles away from the assembly line tent back in California. Photos of the smiling duo immediately landed on news screens around the world.

The key message here? At a valuation of over $700 billion, Tesla is currently the world's most valuable automaker.

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Worum geht es in Power Play?

Power Play (2021) tells the story of Tesla’s rise from overambitious start-up to one of the most valuable players in the global auto industry. It charts the company’s rapid rise, its operational and financial struggles, and the leadership of its volatile CEO, Elon Musk.

Wer Power Play lesen sollte

People interested in tech start-up history
Auto industry and car aficionados
Entrepreneurs interested in tech innovation

Über den Autor

Tim Higgins is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he covers Apple, Tesla, and other tech companies. He also regularly appears on CNBC as an on-air contributor to the tech and auto industries. Power Play is his first book.

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