Elon Musk’s electric car company makes its share of headlines and technology news in any given quarter.
Today, tech journalists are talking about Tesla’s ambitious plan to scale up its collection of service centers across America, building one each week in the year 2021.
Despite big setbacks to climate change initiatives in the U.S., it seems that drivers are still enthusiastic about electric vehicles, and Tesla is banking on that interest.
But instead of being an assertively brainstormed plan to scale the business, Tesla’s building plan may have been put together under duress.
A brokerage noted in Reuters coverage says Tesla has to expand this way in order to support sales.
“Last week, analysts at Brokerage RBC noted that Tesla’s investment in service and quality has not been enough to keep up with its increasing sales and has the potential to damage the brand,” reports Reuters today, quoting RBC staff this way:
“Service could be particularly important as Tesla continues to try to expand outside its core market.”
Other Tesla initiatives also signal strong potential for the brand in the years to come. Last month, we wrote about Tesla’s new battery strategy of reengineering the lithium ion cell, and currently news is coming out about a Panasonic 4680 battery that could provide change.
One area where the Palo Alto company is not handing it to the competition is in autopilot technologies. Contemporary reports show that Tesla’s technology came in a distant second to GM’s Super Cruise when it comes to building toward self-driving vehicles.
“The key … was the Cadillac’s infrared camera to ensure your eyes are focused on the road — it’ll deliver multiple warnings if you appear to be distracted,” writes Jon Fingas at Engadget, relying on Consumer Reports data. “(CR) also found that Super Cruise was better at notifying drivers when it was about to disengage. GM’s tech not only provides a clear visual alert, but uses pre-mapped road info to notify commuters in advance that they’ll have to resume control. Tesla’s approach delivers either a loud alert or a subtle icon change when Autopilot disengages, and it’s frequently an abrupt cutoff.”
However, Tesla’s stock continues to be in a study in outsized success. After having doubled twice within a year, the Tesla equity was subject to a 5/1 stock split in August. Since then, the stock is down about 12%, but many traders are buying on the dip, looking at scaling, battery changes and more as indicators that Tesla’s growth will be with us for some time.
