We are assuming that Elon Musk knows how to make boring things seem interesting. Thursday morning, he tweeted, “Announcement of new @TeslaMotors strategy tomorrow. Tesla owners will like this.”
Following the Tweet, everyone started speculating on Twitter. People started asking questions like, What would it be? Direct sales over the Internet? Solar cars? Cheaper Teslas? A ton of new, free charging stations? However one person went slightly too far with his speculation saying Tesla and SpaceX would team up to build an all-electric flying car.
Though the rumors may sound interesting but it isn’t actually what Tesla actually announced.
All it ended up being was just a battery warranty program. The further details only matter to the small handful who still owns Teslas. The announcement said that if your battery goes bad, Tesla will give you a free, refurbished battery and reduce the consumer’s inconvenience. Tesla also offered to give its consumers a loaner car, while the car is in workshop for repairs. Also, If you really like the loaner car, you can buy it from Tesla at a discount.
It appears that Musk has well understood for the PR game, possibly better than any other Silicon Valley CEO right now. Investors actively pushed the stock up more than 3 percent within a matter of few hours after his tweet. For those interested in the math of this transaction, Tesla shares opened the day Thursday with a market cap of $5.77 billion and ended the day with a market cap of $5.95 billion. At 80 characters, Musk’s tweet was worth a whopping $2.2 million per character.
Source: Bizjournals, PC Mag, LA Times, Bloomberg
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