Tesla has humiliated established carmakers with its brilliant vision. But Detroit, Turin, Stuttgart, and so on have understood scale as well as capital allocation for decades. Such gargantuan tasks could yet humiliate Tesla.
Adam Lashinsky
The rap against Tesla has always been of the 'yes, but' variety. Yes, it's a fine artisanal designer and manufacturer of electric cars, and its CEO is one of the few business leaders alive for whom the label 'visionary' isn't hyperbolic.
If you are planning to save the planet, it will not be Tesla that will do it, since only a finite number of people can afford to buy one, even a $35,000 Model 3.
Anand Mahindra
I think Tesla doesn't sound like it has a very collaborative culture.
Branding in electric mobility is critical, but I think what Tesla has also demonstrated is that you can build new brands.
Early traction of Tesla is tracking very closely to Apple.
Chamath Palihapitiya
I have one of the self-driving Teslas; it drives itself periodically. It's a marvel of science, but it's still frightening. I think we've got a while before regulators and the general public wrap their heads around the path that will lead to the ubiquity of driverless cars. There's no doubt Uber will be a leader in that space.
Chris Sacca
The enthusiasm for Tesla and other bubble-basket stocks is reminiscent of the March 2000 dot-com bubble. As was the case then, the bulls rejected conventional valuation methods for a handful of stocks that seemingly could only go up. While we don't know exactly when the bubble will pop, it eventually will.
David Einhorn
I don't like Thomas Edison. I'm a fan of Nicolai Tesla.
David Lynch
One of the reasons I'm excited by what visionary Elon Musk has done with the Tesla is to show that you can reduce global warming and drive a powerful, fun car. A cool car helps make a cooler planet.
Dean Ornish
Hard rock for me is AC/DC, Def Leppard, Tesla, Kiss. Metal tends to be louder, ruder, darker, like Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maiden.
Eddie Trunk
If you don't have sustainable energy, you have unsustainable energy. The fundamental value of a company like Tesla is the degree to which it accelerates the advent of sustainable energy faster than it would otherwise occur.
Elon Musk
Tesla is here to stay and keep fighting for the electric car revolution.
Yeah, well I think anyone who likes fast cars will love the Tesla. And it has fantastic handling by the way. I mean this car will crush a Porsche on the track, just crush it. So if you like fast cars, you'll love this car. And then oh, by the way, it happens to be electric and it's twice the efficiency of a Prius.
The goal of Tesla is to accelerate sustainable energy, so we're going to take a step back and think about what's most likely to achieve that goal.
Tesla is becoming a real car company.
For all the supporters of Tesla over the years, and it's been several years now and there have been some very tough times, I'd just like to say thank you very much. I deeply appreciate the support, particularly through the darkest times.
I think long term you can see Tesla establishing factories in Europe, in other parts of the U.S. and in Asia.
I wish we could be private with Tesla. It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company.
Obviously Tesla is about helping solve the consumption of energy in a sustainable manner, but you need the production of energy in a sustainable manner.
I care very deeply about the people at Tesla. I feel like I have a great debt to the people of Tesla who are making the company successful.
I think Tesla will most likely develop its own autopilot system for the car, as I think it should be camera-based, not Lidar-based. However, it is also possible that we do something jointly with Google.
We polled Tesla owners, do you want autopilot disabled or not. Not one person wanted it disabled. That's pretty telling.
Tesla is changing the paradigm. We're going to turn the world on its ear and create high demand through design.
There is a new hunger in the air for automotive design and looking to where automobiles are going in the future. Tesla will capture this through good design and engineering.
I had a Tesla. I was one of the first cats with a Tesla. But I'm telling you, I've been on the side of the road a while in that thing.
On paper, I am a Tesla guy. I've got money, I'm a nerd, and for years I professionally ran a blog advocating for technology that helps decrease our impact on the environment. I love what Tesla does.
When I'm in L.A., I see Teslas like they're Hondas.
Tesla has defied everyone's predictions again and again. It has such a unique position in the market, and so far, whatever people think about Tesla and its business model, there is one fact that nobody can dispute: It pretty much has the market to itself.
If we arrive at a saner world in which the maximum human potential is cultivated in every person, our descendants will not understand why our world produced only one Louis Pasteur, one Edison, one Tesla, or one Salk, and why great achievements in our age were the products of a relative few.
For every Tesla or Uber, there's a Valeant Pharmaceuticals or Theranos - two story stocks that seduced an astounding array of prominent investors and supporters based on stories that did turn out to be too good to be true.
The reason I bought the Tesla was to help fund the Model S - and because I like things that are fast, sexy and high-tech.
I drive a Prius, but I dream of the Tesla.
From NASA putting a man on the moon to DARPA developing what later became the Internet, the U.S. government, through a host of different public agencies, has provided direct financing not only of basic research but also public venture capital; both Apple and Tesla have received direct public funding.
A poor person in my community doesn't see a person driving a Tesla and say, 'That benefits me.'
Silicon Valley's definition of luxury is a Tesla in every garage.
Tesla Motor's original business plan had a copy of a letter from Nikola Tesla from the late 19th century talking about the challenges inherent in gasoline engines and the promise of the electric engine.
Nikola Tesla, one of Colorado's famous residents, always believed that the gasoline engine made no sense.
Nikola Tesla spent one of his most productive years in Colorado Springs.
At Tesla, we don't go into a community and think we're going to sell one or two cars.
Invention is not enough. Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people.
We drive a Tesla.
Sometimes people are looking for, 'What's the next Tesla car? What's this really cool, super-specific thing that people are going to want?' But I try to be just like a Ford truck. They sell a lot more Ford trucks than they do Tesla cars.
It's a pipe dream, but for me, I've always wanted a Tesla. I would never have to go to a gas station.
But, I think I first got into cars because of an electric car - it was the Tesla. And then, just the fact that they are such high-tech products. There's automated driving. There's battery technology, all the other stuff that goes into it.
After reading the Elon Musk book and getting a Tesla - he is at the top of my list of inspiring founders.
We have teams of people working on electric cars. So you never know - you may find Virgin competing with the Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business.
If I look into my past, I was definitely into inventors. I was into stories of Edison and Tesla and da Vinci and all these guys making stuff in their garage.
The problem with a lot of marketing advice is that the examples they use are not exactly typical. It's hard for businesses, particularly smaller businesses, to relate to the bold innovations of companies like Apple or Tesla.
The biggest fear that I see is that we will be left behind. We are a very slow industry; for us to make a decision takes forever. Take Tesla: Elon moves at the speed of a rocket.
