Tesla has been making a lot of headway lately, and they haven’t been coy about letting people know about their intentions to become the next titans of the tech industry. Their most recent line of cars is nothing short of spectacular as they seem to be the embodiment of both style and functionality. They captivated consumers to the point that their Model 3 received over 350,000 preorders in the first week. Their rise in popularity has caused experts to dub them “the next Apple” with their current cap of $50 billion to increase to $700 billion in the next few years.
Tesla has always been compared to Apple with their sleek tech-savvy products, forward thinking approach, Silicon Valley roots and visionary leader, Elon Musk, who has always been on par with Steve Jobs and is even considered to be greater than him by some. Musk is the real life Tony Stark who has more spark, innovation, and imagination in one fingernail than most ordinary men do in their entire bodies. In addition to Tesla, he has also founded PayPal which has forever changed people’s online purchasing capabilities, making transactions over the internet a piece of cake. He also founded SpaceX which revolutionized space technology with the ultimate goal of making other planets inhabitable for earthlings. Musk with SpaceX is working to make Mars the next destination for human evolution. So you see, Musk’s ambition knows no limits. Take nothing away from Jobs though; the man was no stranger to ambition and vision. In fact, his ideas are still being implemented today, and it is his legacy that is carrying Apple forward. But this is not about Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Space X or PayPal; this is about Tesla going head to head against Apple as an entity and as much as we admire Tesla’s recent success, here is why we think Tesla is not the next Apple.
– ELON MUSK
-STEVE JOBS
MARKETING TO THE MASSES
Tesla is not a consumer electronics company. At the end of the day, Tesla is an automobile manufacturing company and is not a consumer electronics oriented company like Apple. True, they have received a much deserved and much-needed boost over the last couple of months but do their products have what it takes for mass marketing? The underlying principle that draws comparisons between Tesla and Apple is mostly their innovative thinking and visionary leadership, but there is no denying that Apple has a much more diversified product line than Tesla. Think of it in Bangladesh’s context. If Apple cannot penetrate the computer market with their Macbook, they can always try their luck in the cell phone market with their iPhones, right? (Which they have, the number of iPhone users has drastically increased in recent times). What about Tesla? If they can’t make it into the car market of Bangladesh, where will they go? Truth be told, companies like Tesla would find it hard to get a foothold in developing countries as a lot of them already have companies dominating the car markets with their affordable vehicles, such as Toyota. If Tesla can sell 500,000 units of their Model 3 across America, Apple can sell 5 million units of their iPhone. And that is just one item; Apple has a huge market for nearly all of their products. Tesla has very little or no scope at all for mass marketing.
AT THE END OF THE DAY, TESLA IS AN AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURING COMPANY AND IS NOT A CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ORIENTED COMPANY LIKE APPLE.
UNPREDICTABLE FUTURE
Another huge factor is that Tesla’s success is just a mere prediction. No one can say for certain whether their popularity can be sustained. Furthermore, their $35,000 price tag may be able to attract new customers from various price ranges, but how first-time luxury car owners will react or the extent of their satisfaction is unknown. Sustainability is a major, major doubt. Tesla’s ideas revolve around innovations which have not been implemented by other car companies, but in truth, other automobile companies can quickly start using them if they wanted to, but they are just unsure about how consumers will react. So basically, right now what sets Tesla apart from the rest is their will to take risks, but that can all end in a flash if giants like Ford or Toyota decide to join the party.
So, as you can see, Tesla might have their heads in cloud 9 at the moment, but they are on a fragile rope which may break at any time. Apple has been in the picture for a long time and is in a very stable position which is almost impossible for Tesla to reach at the moment with their shallow product line. However, there is no saying what Elon Musk will do next, he has achieved so much success in all of his ventures and he is perfectly capable of surprising everyone by introducing technology that we can’t even dream of. But based on the facts we have on hand at the moment, it is safe to say that we don’t see Tesla becoming the next Apple anytime soon but we would like to wish them all the best in their quest.
