When Tesla started production of the Model S saloon in 2012, the start-up had fewer than 3,000 employees. Chief executive Elon Musk had the luxury of beginning with a blank page, to hire just the specialists he needed and to even risk complete failure in his quest to launch the first successful electric-only car brand.
One former Tesla executive compares Mr Musk’s approach to risk with Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador. “When he came to Mexico and quite of few of his men said they should go back home, he destroyed his ships. There was no way back,” the former executive says. “There’s only one way, and it’s forward. Success or die . . . That’s the strength, but it’s also a risky strategy.”
Incumbent carmakers are hardly drawn to this “bet the company” approach. The risks are simply too high. In Germany alone some 800,000 people work in the automotive industry and the Ifo Institute last year estimated that up to 600,000 of these jobs would be at risk if the internal combustion engine died.
Read the story from the Financial Times by Patrick McGee - “Electric switch poses existential challenge to carmakers.”
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