Tesla

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

Tesla Motors is a company that was founded in 2003. It is not just an automaker, but also a design and technology company. The main idea behind the foundation of this company was to prove that electric cars could be better than gasoline-powered cars. The founders of Tesla Motors wanted to increase the speed in which the world switches to sustainable transport.
From 2003 onwards, Tesla designed several models by which it proved to be innovative and environmentally aware. Today, they have more than 50.000 vehicles on the roads everywhere in the world and they are expanding its manufacturing activities.
People who own a product of Tesla never have to visit a gas station. They neither have to spend money on gasoline. They can charge their cars at public charging stations, and since recently also at home. Tesla produces a Supercharger network, which provides high speed charging, that is being observed as very convenient by the customers.
On April 30th 2015, Tesla revealed Powerwall. Powerwall is a home battery that uses electricity from solar panels. It can also store electricity it generates during the sun peak of the day in order to provide people’s homes with electricity during the evening or in the cse of electricity disruptions. This gives people the opportunity to save costs, since power companies generally charge higher prices during the evening and lower prices when demand is low during the night. Powerwall can store the electricity when prices are low and power people’s houses when prices are high. In general, Tesla Energy solutions are designed for long life, and the Powerwall has a guarantee of ten years.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

By launching the Powerwall, Tesla offers customers to opportunity to save the cost of utility electricity in areas where the prices of electricity are very elastic. Powerwall also offers a cost effective way of storing power from solar panels.
On their website, Tesla’s states its main goal: ‘to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible.’ In accordance with Tesla’s long-term vision, Powerwall also provides the opportunity to establish quick charge stations in order to be able to charge your car in less than 20 minutes at home. By this means, electric cars become practical for many more customers. This opportunity will definitely stimulate more people to make use of electric cars instead of gasoline-power cars, building on a healthier environment and a better world.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

The reason why we believe that this company is really ethical is because they are aspiring to make the world a cleaner place with less pollution. They are showing their commitment by their continuous innovations that would encourage people to change to sustainable energy sources in order to stop the destructive pollution we are engaging in today. During their entire process of being innovative, from 2003 until now, they have been increasing the quality of their products. Their main activities focus on energy innovation, something that clearly shows their social responsibility. By launching the Powerwall, they emphasize that they want to increase the range of customers that are using electric cars. This clearly shows that they build on a better world. This is also why we trust Tesla: since their motivation to establish this company is to prove that electric cars could be better than gasoline-powered cars. Their motivation to establish the company is directly related to their ethical goal, and they keep working on improving their offerings and changing the world.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

One of the challenges faced by Tesla is the electricity network. For Powerwall to work, one needs solar panels, which are quite expensive to purchase, as the solar panel market is not yet mature. This challenge will be overcome when solar panels become a more used source of energy. In a sense Tesla’s Powerwall and the solar panel market are reinforcing themselves, therefore with Powerwall on the market, this process should speed itself up.
Another challenge for Tesla is of monetary nature. The company, which has been operating for 12 years, has still not reached the break-even point. Tesla’s current long-term debt equals $1,954 million. This is a current struggle the company is facing, but we believe that this problem will solve itself in the next few years, with people starting to appreciate the impact they can make by using Tesla’s products.
The final challenge we see is that in order to use Powerwall, the electrical appliances that are powered by Powerwall have to be of maximum energy efficiency, otherwise Powerwall does not generate enough energy to meet the needs of an average household. In the United States this is not a big issue, as most electrical appliances are highly energy efficient, in contrast to Spain, where most house-held appliances are not of high-energy efficiency.