Company type | Public |
---|---|
Industry | Manufacturing |
Founded | 18 January 1921 as Elektra 7 March 1946 as TESLA Strašnice 1 January 1991 as a public company |
Headquarters | , Czech Republic |
Products | Electronics |
Website | www |
TESLA a.s. is a Czech manufacturer and supplier of special radio communication and security electrical engineering for military and commercial use. The name was originally used by a state-owned conglomerate that was the monopoly producer of electronic appliances and components in the former Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. The conglomerate was founded in 1946 and ran until 1991, when it was privatised. [1] The Tesla name is used by its successor company and former subsidiaries in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In 2011, the Czech company Inter-Sat Ltd. acquired the license for the Tesla brand name from TESLA a.s. to sell household appliances and consumer electronics with different logo in Europe, mostly in Central and Southeastern countries. [2] [3]
The company was established as Elektra on 18 January 1921 and renamed Tesla on 7 March 1946. A founding ceremony took place on 10 August 1946 at the Mikrofon Factory in Strašnice attended by government ministers from Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. It was named after the pioneer scientist Nikola Tesla, who briefly studied in Prague, but when the association with a Serbian American became politically inconvenient it was explained as abbreviation from TEchnika SLAboproudá, which means "low-current technology". [4]
Tesla had several production locations, including those at Liptovský Hrádok, Hradec Králové, Pardubice, Žďár nad Sázavou, Bratislava, and Nižná. Some of them became independent state-owned companies.
After the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, Tesla struggled to compete with firms at home and abroad, which resulted in dramatic downsizing and privatization of the majority of its stores and production facilities. Tesla's logo is a rare sight in the present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia, as only a few of its subsidiaries have survived. One of its former subsidiaries, the Slovak JJ Electronic in Čadca is known for its production of vacuum tubes and SEV Litovel produces high-end turntables for the Austrian Pro-Ject company.
The company name survived as Tesla a.s., a private company whose shares trade on the Prague stock exchange. Tesla a.s. manufactures of radio and security equipment for military and commercial use. [5] Tesla a.s. took a series of legal cases against the American company Tesla, Inc. (formerly Tesla Motors, Inc.), resulting in an agreement in October 2010, establishing a coexistence of Tesla trademarks and regulating relationships between the two companies. [6] [7] [8]
After a three year period in which an Irish-owned financial company was the majority shareholder in Tesla a.s. [9] a controlling interest was acquired by Inter-Sat Ltd of Brno in 2011. Tesla a.s. sells set-top boxes, antennas, robotic vacuum cleaners, soundbars, motion detectors and multifunctional pressure cookers. [10] In 2015 the company added batteries for home and industrial use to its product range. [11]
In 2022, the majority shareholder of Tesla a.s. became the international group IC Group, which secured the transaction for The Royal Invest Fund of Kelantan founded by Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan. [12]
The original Tesla concern developed a wide product range including televisions, radio receivers, transistors, integrated circuits, visual display units, loudspeakers, gramophones, cassette decks, Compact Disc players and videocassette recorders. However, the quantity produced was often insufficient for industrial customers and some products became obsolete because they were not updated; e.g. one particular type of diode was manufactured for over 30 years without modification. Some products were comparable with those from international producers e.g. silicon controlled rectifiers (SCRs) or power transistors and Tesla exported them to other countries in Eastern Europe. A few products were exported to western countries, for example, the NC 470 turntable rebranded as the NAD 5120, and the NC 450, NC 452, NC 430 turntables sold under the tradename Lenco.
In 1953, the production of the first Czechoslovak television, the Tesla 4001A, began in Strašnice. The first Czechoslovak color television, the Tesla 4401A, began manufacturing in 1974. [13]
The best-known Tesla products internationally were the 308U Talisman bakelite radio designed by Igor Didov of Tesla Bratislava and made by several Tesla company branches between 1953 and 1958 [14] and the Sonet duo reel-to-reel tape recorder (1959-1965). Tesla was also known for its KRTP-86 Tamara military passive radar (TESLA Pardubice, 1986), which was claimed to be the only one in the world able to detect stealth aircraft. [15]
Pardubice is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 92,000 inhabitants. It is the capital city of the Pardubice Region and lies on the Elbe River. The historic centre is well preserved and is protected as an urban monument reservation.
Bohemians Praha 1905, commonly known as Bohemka, is a professional football club based in Vršovice, Prague, Czech Republic. The club competes in the Fortuna Liga, the top division in the Czech Republic football league system. Founded in 1905 as AFK Vršovice, the club won the 1982–83 Czechoslovak First League, its only league championship. Its colours are green and white.
Lafayette Radio Electronics Corporation was an American radio and electronics manufacturer and retailer from approximately 1931 to 1981, headquartered in Syosset, New York, a Long Island suburb of New York City. The company sold radio sets, Amateur radio (Ham) equipment, citizens band (CB) radios and related communications equipment, electronic components, microphones, public address systems, and tools through their company owned and branded chain of retail outlets and by mail-order.
Olšany Cemeteries is the largest graveyard in Prague, Czech Republic, once laid out for as many as two million burials. The graveyard is particularly noted for its many remarkable Art Nouveau monuments.
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Milada Horáková was a Czech politician and a member of the underground resistance movement during World War II. She was a victim of judicial murder, convicted and executed by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on fabricated charges of conspiracy and treason. Many prominent figures in the West, including Albert Einstein, Vincent Auriol, Eleanor Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, petitioned for her life.
The D1 motorway is the main motorway of the Czech Republic. It routes from Prague to Brno and on to the Polish border, although there is currently a small section still under construction. Once completed its length will be 376.5 km (233.9 mi). It is the busiest motorway in the Czech Republic, with a maximum AADT of 99,000 vehicles per day near Prague.
Litovel is a town in Olomouc District in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 9,700 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.
HC Dynamo Pardubice is a professional ice hockey club that plays in the Czech Extraliga. Its home venue is Enteria arena located in Pardubice. The club was originally named LTC Pardubice, acquiring its current name at the start of the 2015–16 season.
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Tamara was the third generation Czechoslovak electronic support measures (ESM) system that used measurements of time difference of arrival (TDOA) of pulses at three or four sites to accurately detect and track airborne emitters by multilateration. Tamara's designations were KRTP-86 and KRTP-91 and it carried the NATO reporting name of Trash Can. The designation was derived from the Czech phrase "Komplet Radiotechnického Průzkumu" meaning "Radiotechnical Reconnaissance Set". It was claimed to be the only one in the world able to detect military "invisible aircraft".
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Luxman is a brand name of Japanese Luxman Corporation (ラックスマン株式会社) that manufactures luxury audio components. Luxman produces a variety of high-end audio products, including turntables, amplifiers, receivers, tape decks, CD players and speakers.
The Czechoslovak Air Force or the Czechoslovak Army Air Force was the air force branch of the Czechoslovak Army formed in October 1918. The armed forces of Czechoslovakia ceased to exist on 31 December 1992. By the end of the year, all aircraft of the Czechoslovak Air Force were divided between the Czech Air Force and the Slovak Air Force.
The Ministry of National Defense of the Czechoslovak Republic refers to the defence ministry which was responsible for defense of Czechoslovakia during its existence, from 1918 to 1992.
Howard Philip Ladd (1921–2015) was an electrical engineer, inventor, marketer, entrepreneur and bank founder. Ladd was a pioneering giant in American and international consumer audio and video electronics.
Countess Marie Immaculata Brandisová, also known as Lata Brandisová or Lata von Brandis, was a Czech equestrian and the only woman to win the Great Pardubice Steeplechase. Her victory over the Nazi officers at the 1937 race, seen as a symbol of Czech resistance against Nazi Germany, was celebrated with parades attended by thousands of people. She is the subject of Richard Askwith's book Unbreakable: The Woman Who Defied The Nazis In The World's Most Dangerous Horse Race.
Major general Antonín Sochor was a Czechoslovak general who fought for the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.
The Battle for Czechoslovak Radio was a clash between Czechoslovak citizens defending Czechoslovak Radio and soldiers of the Soviet Army during the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. 17 unarmed Czechoslovak citizens were killed defending the Czechoslovak Radio on Vinohradská Street in Prague from occupation troops of the Soviet Army. When the Soviet troops tried to break into the radio building, its defenders threw stones and broke through the external diesel fuel tanks of the tanks with pickaxes, which they set fire to, managing to destroy several tanks. The encounter became a symbol of the resistance of the people of Prague against Warsaw Pact forces during the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
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Former TESLA companies with new name:
Some of the companies now using the brand TESLA: