preview

The Development Of Electric Cars

Better Essays

Geographic regions have had great influences on the determinants of innovative activities and technological changes. It is bound together by a network of shared advantages which has created regional innovation clusters as well systems of connection globally that brought about long-term economic prosperity, productivity, and growth. These geographic innovation has had profound effects on our society with the invention of the automobile undeniably a standout. However, there are over one billion vehicles in the world today (Plumer, 2011), releasing potentially catastrophic amount of greenhouse gas. Hence the interest in a cleaner alternative has continually increased with electric cars at the forefront of research and development. Federal …show more content…

In a market with hundreds of players globally, Tesla had to compete in one of the most mature and challenging industries in the world. Rather than being influenced by Detroit – Motor City, home of the Big Three American auto titans, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, Tesla decided to start its company elsewhere. Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by a few engineers in Silicon Valley, who “wanted to prove that electric cars could be better than gasoline-powered vehicles” (Tesla, 2016)
Favorable Access to local universities
One of the most outstanding characteristics of the innovation powerhouse Silicon Valley that helped Tesla as a startup is the intrinsic network of facilities infusing the entire environment. Some of the most prestigious research universities in the world (e.g. University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco; Stanford University) are authorities of new technologies and inventions. As a startup, Silicon Valley’s top researchers provided Tesla the opportunity of exploiting these growing pool of talent by collaborating with them. In fact, Tesla and Berkeley teamed up to research on solar storage technologies (SolarCity, 2010) that would later on help Tesla to start building solar-powered charging stations for their electric cars (Parrott, 2015). Tesla had access to a deep reservoir of top technical talent and knowledge that would help to conduct innovative

Get Access