Investigators and industry spectators have contrasted Tesla and Elon Musk with Apple and Steve Jobs. But the similarities between Tesla and Apple lie on the surface. On paper, Apple and Tesla share a great deal practically speaking. Apple didn’t invent the smartphone, and Tesla didn’t invent the electric car, but each has followed their CEO’s particular vision to come from behind and become integral to their respective markets.
Over the years Wall Street experts like Gene Munster of Loop Ventures and Morgan Stanley have called Tesla the apple of the auto industry; Some analysts have also asked whether Tesla will be earned more than Apple by 2030. Be that as it may, as of late, the examinations have begun to crash and burn. Musk’s obtaining of Twitter and his conduct on the web-based entertainment stage have scared Tesla financial backers as its stock plunged 65% in 2022.
What should be of more concern to investors is that it’s becoming less clear by the day how Tesla itself can stay competitive in an EV market that’s growing rapidly and threatens to leave the company behind. That is to say, where Steve Jobs led Apple with a steady, consistent (if decidedly imperfect) hand, Musk’s erratic leadership style and extremely public persona suggest the two tech legends have little in common. And it’s a huge risk to Tesla’s auto business, which has signaled it may not have the staying power of the iPhone.
Tesla is not the next Apple
Apple and Tesla both had first-mover benefits, another justification for why such countless experts like to draw matches between the two brands. However, there are significant contrasts between them. At the point when Tesla delivered its most memorable model, the Roadster, in 2008, it was perhaps the earliest Ev available, however it actually needed to manage creation damnation and a few serious monetary burdens.
At the point when Tesla arose with top of the line electric vehicles, the Tesla Model Y and Tesla Model 3 accomplished a directing piece of the pie in North America. Yet, that lead is rapidly finished. In 2020, Tesla caught 80% of the US market in EVs. Starting around 2021, Tesla has 71% possession. In 2022, the offer psychologists to 64%. As the US market at last begins to see genuine contenders against Tesla, S&P Worldwide Portability predicts that its piece of the pie will drop to 20% by 2025.
A shrinking market share isn’t disastrous for Tesla the reason Tesla’s market share is shrinking is because every auto maker will be selling more EVs. But many investors invested in Tesla stock because they see an EV market where a company like Tesla could control most of the market. Apple, which presented the primary mass-market cell phone, had the option to keep up with its directing piece of the pie in the US even as less expensive contenders started flooding the market. It isn’t exceptionally evident regardless of whether Tesla will actually want to do this.
For one’s purposes, the car business is divided beyond EVs. Toyota, the world’s greatest automaker, had a piece of the pie of only 10.5% in 2021 not even close to the 55% piece of the pie that Apple has in the US.
Car cannot be iphone
As Paul Krugman called attention to in his New York Times section last month, one explanation the iPhone opposes contest is to profit from network impacts: “Everybody utilizes their items on the grounds that everyone else uses their products.” ” In his paper, economist Noah Smith gives an example of Apple’s network effect: Developers create apps for iOS because there are a large number of app users. Customers buy the iPhone because it has a large and dynamic ecosystem of apps.
It’s hard to see where Tesla will be able to achieve a similar symbiotic network effect with its cars. According to Smith, Tesla tried to build a nationwide network of Supercharger stations offering very fast recharging, but only for Tesla owners. However, the danger of government mediation (and the commitment of administrative subsidizing) was sufficient to convince Musk to open Tesla’s supercharging stations to all EV proprietors.
And while Tesla’s infotainment system has some unique apps, and it offers over-the-air firmware updates, its software offering is unlikely to lock consumers in the way iPhone owners switch to Android Hesitation to do so.
Elon isn’t Steve Jobs
But what about Tesla’s transformational CEO? Elon was compared to Jobs because the media needed a new white male middle-aged tech-prophet CEO following the death of Steve Jobs. Musk appeared to possess all the necessary qualities until he didn’t. Musk is more erratic, more distracted, and less willing to submit to anyone than before. Jobs made decisions that protected its core product, the iPhone, which generated most of its revenue, even as competitors sought to replace it as the dominant flagship phone.
At a time when Musk should be doing just that, he’s instead engaging in a never-ending debacle on Twitter, with a growing chorus of analysts shouting that Elon Musk’s Twitter obsession is hurting Tesla. Tesla has missed production targets, is being forced to heavily discount cars to move, and is watching competitors introduce newer models with better pricing and better reviews.
Perhaps Tesla didn’t develop the iPhone, however rather designed the Blackberry: a strong development that essentially changed the field and made an enthusiastic fan base, just to see its piece of the pie usurped by contenders be diminished.