Interbrand: Tesla Is The Fastest Growing Brand Of 2021

Interbrand has published its Best Global Brands 2021 list, and in that it named Tesla as the fastest-growing brand of 2021. In the “Biggest Risers” section, Interbrand noted that this year’s top risers shared strong performance on three brand strength factors:

1. Participation.
2. Agility.
3. Direction.

It noted tech giants Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft continue to shine at the top of the list and that fast risers such as Salesforce and Adobe meant more tech companies in the top ten. Tesla, however, is the winner in terms of improvement.

“But the real champion is Tesla, recording a near-tripling of its brand value resulting in a striking 26-point rise to 14^th place. Tesla’s meteoric rise was achieved with a ubiquitous social media presence that enhanced its brand values, consolidating its position as the world-leading Electric Vehicle manufacturer. Its core purpose, ‘to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy,’ clearly resonates with a growing, loyal consumer base and demonstrates how successful brands woo consumers with a clear, coherent vision. Even with anecdotal reports of reliability issues, Tesla customers score high satisfaction, significantly above peers in this sector.”

A little over a year ago, I wrote about Tesla’s pillars of growth. Today, we can look back and see just how strong those pillars are. That article was inspired by a piece from Tesmanian that covered Credit Suisse raising Tesla’s price target to $400 from $280. Credit Suisse said that for the next two decades, batteries are Tesla’s pillar of growth, and Tesmanian gave a gentle reminder that Tesla had plans for a long-term battery capacity of 2 terawatt-hours (TWh). Batteries, I said, were not the only pillar of growth for Tesla. Tesla still has the same pillars today, and I’ll list them below with a couple of updates on the factories.

• Batteries
• Solar
• In-house services such as insurance
• Autopilot and FSD (Full Self Driving)
• Building factories
  • Giga Shanghai (online and ramping)
  • Giga Berlin (just opened)
  • Giga Texas (almost launching)
  • Fremont Factory
  • Megafactory for Megapacks (just had groundbreaking)
• Elon Musk’s Twitter interactions with customers.

I’ll add one more pillar and this actually is integrated with Autopilot and FSD. That pillar is artificial intelligence. One thing I learned from attending Tesla’s AI Day in person was that Tesla’s very identity as a brand is continually evolving while on its mission for sustainability. When Tesla unveiled the Dojo supercomputer plans and shared the details of how it is solving computer vision problems, Tesla built another pillar for its growth.

With all of these pillars in mind, it’s easy to see why Interbrand named Tesla the fastest growing brand of 2021.