Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is one of the most talked about automakers on the market. The company is credited with finally popularizing the idea of an electric car as something that ordinary people can use. Today on Businessweek Ashlee Vance attempted to diagnose the love surrounding the company while taking a look at its growth opportunities.
The most interesting part of the entire piece, however, was a video that showed the creation of a Model S in the Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) factory in Fremont California. Whatever one might think about the electric car market or Tesla as a company, the Model S is an impressive car. The engineering precision behind the vehicle is impressive, and after watching the video it’s clear that the manufacturing process is impressive as well.
Tesla’s entire production line is in Silicon Valley
One of the unusual characteristics of the Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) manufacturing process is that the entirety is located in Silicon Valley. Most industrial producers shy away from that particular part of California because the price for labor and space are much higher than in most other parts of the country. Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has very specific needs, and that makes Silicon Valley one of the best places for the company to build its cars.
You wouldn’t know by the company’s market value, but Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is a very small car company. It still needs to integrate a large amount of its business in order to keep costs low and keep the business manageable. The company also needs access to huge pools of very specialized staff, computer experts, engineers, scientists and so on. Silicon Valley is still, like it or not, the most cost effective place in America to do that.
Tesla’s solid reality belies Oz-like stock market image
Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) as a company divorced from the stock market is doing excellently, but the pressures on it from the stock market side may become unbearable. After a Goldman Sachs report earlier this week the firm’s stock jumped more than 14%. Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) on the stock market has become a separate entity from the brick and mortar, aluminum and silicon, Tesla. The resulting dissonance may be enough to hurt the company.
Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is an incredible company, and it’s doing things nobody else is. If you don’t believe it, have a look at the video again.
Video via Bloomberg:
