How Does Tesla Motors Achieve Competitive Advantage in the Global Automobile Industry?

Abstract

This study analyzed the growth background of Tesla Motors regarded as a new leader in the global automobile industry while deriving its environment and core competencies based on the resource-based view (RBV), which are widely used as the tool in building theoretical frameworks in management research. First of all, Tesla Motors has a lot of threats such as the threats of rivalry, buyers, suppliers, and substitutes. Also, Tesla Motors has abundant resources based on Elon musk's specific leadership, contributing to gaining dynamic capabilities and ultimately achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In addition, Tesla Motors pursued differentiated strategies such as direct sales, service, charger's network simultaneously achieving creative innovation and quantitative efficiency. Tesla Motors successfully overcame and sublimated these threats and weaknesses, it could create more differentiated and sustainable competitive advantages. This study offers useful implications to multinational firms by systematically investigating the specific features and growth strategies of Tesla Motors as a benchmark.