It can sometimes feel like 21st century history is being written by a handful of entrepreneurs and their organizations: chances are that generations to come will talk of Elon Musk in the same way that we rememberHenry Ford, who famously said “The remains of the old must be decently laid away; the path of the new prepared. That is the different between revolution and progress”. Both are visionaries who have changed the way we think about vehicle manufacture and performance, and each has embraced the spirit of their time and applied it to their business and engineering strategies. But while Ford is by now an established historical figure, Musk is still living out his story.
The entrepreneursdual background in economics and physics, combined with a canny eye for the zeitgeist, has provided the right chemistry to cook up his $12.1 billion fortune. And while Paypal is long behind him and space tourism plays a big part in his future plans, Musks Tesla Motors concern remains very much in the present. The manufacturers first half-decade ended in failure, with thescrapping of their flagship Roadster vehicle but Musk and his organization have never lost faith in the inevitability of the dominance of electric cars. With a staff of 14,000 and a market value of $33.5 billion from which Musk draws a salary of just a dollar a year Teslas wedge of the industry has grown to reflect the vision of its iconic boss.
Of course, bubbles have burst before, and weve seen many a hubristic entrepreneur wade too deep into a river of their own hype; but like Ford before him, Musks success and his potential rests on his informed vision of not just how the world will look tomorrow or next year, but in ten, twenty, fifty years time. Teslas lithium-ion battery Gigafactory, for example, will be powered by 100% renewable energy remarkable, considering it will be the second largest building in the world. Such scale, vision and conscientiousness is why Tesla is a major, major company to keep an eye on and you can begin by checking out some of the startling facts and figures in this smart new infographic.
This post originally appeared on Jennings Motor Group.
Photo Credit: Herman Caroan/Flickr
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