Tesla Motors is now Tesla Inc., according to the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The name change comes about a year after CEO Elon Musk announced he had acquired the Tesla domain and changed the company’s website from TeslaMotors.com to the much more functional Tesla.com.
It seems like a trivial change, but it may be one with serious implications. Back in 2007, Apple dropped the word “Computer” from its name as it positioned its brand for the wider range of consumer electronics it would end up producing.
The rest is history.
Tesla is in a similar situation with its expansion into new industries. Back in June, the company completed the purchase of SolarCity, one of the largest solar energy companies in the world. This transformed Tesla from an electric car manufacturer to a vertically integrated energy company.
Musk then unveiled the aptly named Solar Roof, a roof made of solar tiles that turns sunlight into electricity for immediate use or storage in the company’s beautiful Powerwall battery.
All of these ventures show Tesla is up to much more than just automobiles, and the new name is simply a reintroduction of the company to the much larger ecosystem it hopes to spark back to life.