Tesla might be a music service operator soon, in addition to a maker of electric cars and solar energy products. That’s according to a new report from Recode, which says that Tesla has been talking to music labels to make this happen.
The planned offering could start with a free, Pandora-like streaming radio option, which theoretically would be tied to Tesla vehicle ownership, one imagines. This sounds like a bizarre road for Tesla to take, but founder and CEO Elon Musk hinted that the company was exploring music products at the most recent Tesla shareholder meeting in early June.
Musk’s comments including noting that at present, it’s “very hard to find good playlists or good matching algorithms” for music you want to hear while driving, and that Tesla would make an announcement about how it could address that later this year.
Musk’s sly comments sounded like the teasing of someone who has a juicy secret and can’t help but reveal just a bit of what they know, so it’s likely this is another project inspired by personal experience, much like The Boring Company, which was borne from Musk’s exasperation with LA traffic.
As to why Tesla feels the need to go it alone here, instead of just working closely with another partner, that remains to be seen – it’s also possible this could still end up taking the form of a partnership, depending on how label talks proceed.
And even though it seems weird, if Tesla is thinking ahead to a future in which cars operate autonomously for much of the time, services will be a key business for Tesla to have a hand in, especially those that make the most sense for use in-car during trips.
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