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General Motors in 2009 viewed Tesla as “a bunch of engineers playing with laptop batteries.”
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Nikola CEO Steve Girsky, who served on GM’s board, recalled being told in a recent Q&A.
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Tesla now ranks among the world’s most valuable companies with a market capitalization of $830 billion.
One TeslaElon Musk’s automobile has been outdone by its biggest rivals in less than 15 years. Nicola CEO Steve Girsky recalled during a recent fireside discussion.
Girsky, who took over as Nicola’s CEO in August, served as CEO. General MotorsThe board of directors between 2009 and 2016 raised the subject of Tesla shortly after joining the auto giant, as stated last week in a copy provided by AlfaSense / Centeo.
“I asked about Tesla and was told they were just engineers playing with laptop batteries,” Girsky said.
“That was the common wisdom of the time, and we know how it happened,” he continued. “Tesla gets a 10-year jump start on the entire industry.”
Girsky shared his story to illustrate his belief that Nikola has a similar start to the competition.
“The big guys are writing off the zero-emission shipping industry,” he said. “I know you’re playing with prototypes, but you believe this technology is still a late-decade thing.”
A pioneer in battery technology and electric vehicles, Tesla has exceeded the auto industry’s expectations in recent years.
Revenues rose from $112 million to $81 billion in 2009, and from a loss of $254 million to a net income of $12.6 billion, the company’s annual reports show.
In the year When it joined the stock market in 2010, the automaker’s capitalization was about $2 billion, and today it is about $830 billion. It is now worth $46 billion, dwarfing GM and surpassing Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which is worth $807 billion.
Auto executives have expressed their skepticism about Musk’s EV company on several occasions.
Bob Luz, former GM, Ford and Chrysler executive, said, “It’s either driven by psychology or it’s driven by mass psychosis. announced In February 2020, Tesla stock more than tripled in six months. Shares of Musk’s company have more than quintupled since Lutz made those comments.
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