Why Tesla Is the Alpha Dog in Today’s Auto Industry

Tesla is blazing its own path, and so its brand is perceived as a combination of high-level mastery of the ancient art of making cars and iconoclastic ferocity about creating state-of-the-art technology to move transporting people into an entirely new era.

At the moment, all the buzz about Tesla concerns how the company helped some of its owners in Florida get more juice out of their cars than they knew was available to whisk them out of harm’s way in the approach of Hurricane Irma. It just took an “over the air” software update from the beneficent Tesla to enable drivers to unlock longer range in powertrains that were more potent than they’d bargained for.

But this is just the latest wrinkle of news involving a company and a brand that has absolutely stolen the spotlight from even the jazziest of the traditional players in the auto industry and whose market capitalization—with only one plant—rivals and exceeds those of competitors with dozens of plants around the world.

That’s the power of the brand, of CEO Elon Musk’s imagination —and of what he’s accomplished.

What he did was simply produce a very expensive, exceedingly high-quality, all-electric sports car whose snob appeal endeared green propulsion to wealthy owners who weren’t going to settle for a car without get-up-and-go. Musk spun his visionary rhetoric around his plans for Tesla and combined that with a reputational boost from his other business successes—which include a space-exploration company and a solar-energy concern—and with a view of the future that has captured the imaginations of many fans.

Even though Tesla has had trouble meeting production and marketing deadlines with subsequent new models, and is much like an internet startup in its ability to generate financial losses in the early going, investors, owners and others are willing to give Musk the benefit of the doubt simply because of the boldness of his schemes. Other automotive CEOs acknowledge that Tesla has become the tail that wags the proverbial dog these days in their industry.

And now, Tesla is just weeks away from volume production of the brand’s most radical initiative yet: making a mainstream priced all-electric vehicle that could, if it succeeds, become a key to gaining acceptance by the general American market of battery-only propulsion of their automobiles  even while gasoline prices are at some historic lows.

While there are rivals for this positioning—such as the Chevrolet Bolt, which already is available at about the same price point in the $30,000s—everyone is waiting to see how Teslas’ Model 3 does. Such is the power of the Tesla brand.

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