Investor's Corner

Welcome to Tesla, Inc.: We’re more than just electric cars

By Carolyn F

Posted on February 1, 2017

Tesla Motors, Inc., has officially changed its name to Tesla, Inc. The change reflects the company’s expanded business reach, which includes electric vehicles, solar roofs, and energy storage, as well as other products and services. A financial filing on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission formalized the name change.

The move reflects goals included in CEO Elon Musk’s blog post last year, in which he continued the company’s original 2006 Master Plan (i.e “just between me and you”) for a new decade: Master Plan, Part Deux. In the latter, Musk described Tesla’s overarching mission as much more that building cars. All along, it had planned on “accelerating the advent of sustainable energy, so that we can imagine far into the future and life is still good.”

In order to create a sustainable energy conglomerate, Tesla had to at least move from manufacturing an all-electric vehicle to producing the lithium ion batteries that generate electricity for those vehicles.

The Tesla expansion didn’t stop there.

It now offers the Powerwall 2 home-energy storage system.
Its Powerpack was just announced as integral to a Southern California Edison substation’s need to support grid operation during peak hours and improve the integration of renewable energy resources.
Due to the acquisition of SolarCity last year, Tesla now offers solar-paneled roofs.
Reportedly upcoming are heavy-duty electric trucks and self-driving buses which may alleviate traffic and congestion.
Recent Elon Musk Tweets have described other measures to avoid traffic snarls, such as a tunnel boring system.
A Tesla ride-sharing network, “a Tesla shared fleet,” like Uber but much more upscale and desirable, was included in the Master Plan Deux, too.

The name change move is consistent with other technology manufacturers that evolved with an expanding product line, such as Apple, which dropped the word “computer” from its title soon after the release of its iPhone. Tesla first hinted at the move by taking the “Motors” out of its website name. Its Twitter handle remains @TeslaMotors, at least for the time being, while its Facebook page simply reads “Tesla.”

As it does continue an emphasis on manufacturing electric vehicles, Tesla satisfies worried stock market analysts who continually express concern about Tesla’s energy divisions and their meager financial returns at the moment. Nonetheless, the Tesla brand has become known for far more than its electric vehicles, so the new name better reflects its far-reaching vision.