The innovation brand elevating sustainability to luxury status, one devoted driver at a time.
Sustainability + Design + Tech + Auto
Tesla has done the seemingly impossible: they’ve created a product that literally markets itself. How? By combining a lust-worthy product, an iconic figurehead and a message that speaks to early tech adopters. Tesla has proven the value of an elite club both online and in real life, to the tune of 80% of Tesla drivers saying they can’t see themselves driving another car.
Similar to Apple’s strategy of offering a beautiful tech platform to a small user base that identifies as being “different,” Tesla offers drivers a premium badge of honor that showcases the value they place on technology, performance and design.
Tesla owners rally around their shared love. There are more than 60 Tesla clubs in the U.S., a Reddit community with 788,000 subscribers, and even a Tesla owner dating app (ok, it's a joke, but very few brands inspire that level of devotion). Customers also experience a personal and empowered relationship with the face of the brand, Elon Musk, such as when two customers submitted an open letter via a full-page ad in the Palo Alto Daily News. They received a personal response on Twitter and a promise from the iconic leader to implement some of their suggested changes.
The average Tesla buyer represents a small, narrow demographic of rich, young males working in tech-related industries. They also share the values that Tesla embodies: future-focused and emissions-free, with the leading technology in the electric-vehicle market for the price.
Tesla aficionados love the brand and want it to succeed, with many investing in the stock, including non-owners. Their behavior inflated Tesla’s stock price beyond analyst predictions, and it continues to hold steady against the odds. Scores of Tesla drivers have also expressed their loyalty to Tesla by showing up in person at state capitols to protest dealer lawsuits against the EV maker. They also show love with their wallets. Tesla received 650,000 pre-orders for the Cybertruck, which is scheduled to hit the roads in late 2021.
Increase in Tesla’s YTD stock price