Electric Car Company Tesla IPOs to $2+ Billion Market Cap

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-06-30 16:00:00 UTC
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Tesla is one of the most visible companies pursuing a future of greener transportation, and one of the few electric car projects to actual try to design vehicles with an aesthetic that conveys power and sleekness. Yesterday the company made it's initial public offering, achieving a market capitalization of more than $2 billion.

Tesla is in the news pretty often. It is led by Elon Musk, one of the co-founders of PayPal whose other company SpaceX just successful put a rocket that will eventually carry people for private space travel into orbit. Recently, the company made news when it signed a big deal with Toyota to help fund the manufacture of it's first general consumer sedan.

I think the company is worth tracking from the social entrepreneurship vantage for a number of reasons. First, it's a major, major for-profit play (they raised $200+ million from their IPO yesterday) to lead the emerging alternative energy car generation. Second, I think in general, Elon Musk-sized ambition is worth keeping track of for young entrepreneurs.

I've written before that I worry that social entrepreneurship has something of an ambition problem. Too many of the young entrepreneurs I see don't feel like the big, game-changing play is something that's possible. I don't think at all that everyone needs to aim for an enterprise that impacts a billion people, but I think that every new entrepreneur has to believe deep in their guts that that is a plausible path should it be right for them and their business.

Tesla is just at the beginning. It has yet to create a mass market auto. It has immense financial and infrastructure hurdles to overcome. But there is something immensely exciting about it. It's the first American auto company to go public since Ford in 1956. If we're optimistic, it could herald the beginning of the new era of more sustainable transport.

Photo credit: jurvetson

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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