For a guy who allegedly wants a lot of the credit for creating Tesla Motors, Elon Musk certainly doesn't seem to like the job of being its CEO. As part of Daimler's investment deal with Tesla, Musk needed to commit to staying on as Tesla's CEO at least until the Model S launches in 2011. Musk told Reuters:

I didn't really have a choice. This was a requirement of Daimler that I remain CEO of Tesla through the Model S launch and then continue to be part of Tesla in a chairman role beyond that. It's flattering, but at the same time it's golden handcuffs.

Well, that sure makes it sound like fun, doesn't it? It's clear that Musk has always been interested in projects other than EVs (e.g.: electric planes and SpaceX), but does he have to make running one of the hippest electric car companies around sound like a drag?

Another nugget from the article: one of the reasons the price on the Roadster was raised was to help qualify Tesla Motors for the DOE loan it later received. Musk said, "We did the minimum we needed to do to make the business work."


[Source: Reuters]

And the battle goes on. Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and his company are fighting back in court against ex-CEO Martin Eberhard. Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad sent us copies of two motions filed on June 29 in California Superior Court in San Mateo. In short, the defendants are claiming that Eberhard's claims are utterly baseless. Tesla is proclaiming that Eberhard's action is a SLAPP suit (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) and is an attempt to intimidate and silence a critic by burdening him with a costly, time-consuming legal defense.

Konrad goes on to explain:

"Please note that this isn't a "counter claim." Rather, Tesla is seeking an "anti-SLAPP motion" to get Eberhard's meritless lawsuit dismissed because:

• Eberhard's lawsuit is a personal attack full of false statements, and it paints a fictitious picture of Tesla's history that is sharply at odds with the truth.
• Eberhard's lawsuit seeks to stifle robust debate and create a "chilling effect" on the right to free speech. As the filing states, "His lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to curb open discourse on matters of importance to the public and to extract money from Tesla in the bargain. He also takes the extraordinary (and hypocritical) step of seeking an injunction that would prevent Musk from exercising his free speech rights in public or private."

Interestingly, the motions were filed and copies were sent to ABG before Eberhard had received them or they had been posted on the court web-site. You can read the two Tesla motions here and here.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

While things have been quiet on the official legal front in the battle for recognition between Martin Eberhard and Elon Musk, some of the bystanders in the saga are continuing to come forward with their takes of the story. Earlier this week we heard from Tesla's former SVP for marketing Darryl Siry in a piece that ran on Wired. Now, former communications director David Vespremi is responding with a counterpoint to Siry's article.

The heart of the legal argument revolves around who did what in the very earliest days of Tesla's existence in 2003-4 and then what happened in 2006-7 as Tesla approached Job 1 for the Roadster. The two men have their own versions of those events and how that relates to what has been said by and about Musk over the past 18 months.

Keep in mind that neither Vespremi or Siry were there in the earliest days of Tesla. Instead Siry's piece looks at the Roadster's evolution from the AC Propulsion tZero. Vespremi's response goes way beyond that and places Tesla in some historical context in the progression from the EVs of a century ago as they "cross the chasm" to mainstream acceptability. You can find Vespremi's entire response after the jump and it's a worthwhile read.


[Source: David Vespremi]

As the legal battle between Elon Musk and Martin Eberhard continues to percolate, a new/old voice has chimed in publicly on the controversy for the first time. Current Peppercom clean-tech analyst and ex-Tesla SVP of Marketing Darryl Siry has penned a piece for Wired that gives a different spin on the story. Rather than come down on the side either of the adversaries in this mess, he calls out both for the mistakes made along the way, and looks elsewhere for the real inspiration for the creation of Tesla.

Along the way over the last several years, both men have highlighted AC Propulsion and its tZero (above) as the inspiration for the creation of the Tesla Roadster. Here at ABG, we've written about the company and its projects including the eBox and its involvement in BMW's MINI E program. Siry also points to Tom Gage and Alan Cocconi of AC Propulsion as the ones who really gave birth to the idea. Unfortunately, (or not) Gage and Cocconi had other plans beyond building a production tZero and as a result we now have this battle of egos. In some respects Gage and Cocconi may end up being the EV equivalent of Gary Kildall, brilliant innovators, largely forgotten by those with a more business-oriented agenda.

Of course, being business-oriented doesn't necessarily mean that Musk will be as successful as Bill Gates. As Siry points out, winning this battle is unlikely to have any beneficial impact for Tesla, regardless of who triumphs.


[Source: Wired]

Following the announcement that Tesla had been approved for $465 million in loans from the Department of Energy, CEO Elon Musk held a conference call. Most of what was said wasn't especially newsworthy and he didn't discuss the legal proceedings that have been going on around him and the company recently. He did however, discuss some issues relating to batteries and the Roadster.

On the battery front, Musk was pretty adamant about sticking with the current arrangement of several thousand laptop cells for the Model S. While larger format cells hold promise and Tesla is investigating them, Musk doesn't believe they have the economies of scale or energy density to make them worthwhile for the Model S. Of course with every other automaker and battery supplier going that direction, large packs will have the economies of scale before long. Musk expects to make the change for the third, higher volume, lower price car that's coming after the Model S.

The other, more worrying news was about Roadster sales, or rather the lack of them. For about a year, now Roadster sales have been stuck at about 1,300. Musk was asked what the current backlog of Roadsters was and he responded with "about 700-800." Added to the 500 delivered so far, that implies that even with new sales from Europe and Canada, cancellations are keeping pace with orders. That's going to make it awfully difficult to hit the 1,000 Roadsters-a-year target Musk talked about. Hopefully, revenues from powertrain sales like the Smart batteries will pick up the slack until the Model S arrives.


[Source: Green Fuels Forecast]
Photos copyright ©2009 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.

Shortly after Tesla Motors co-founder Martin Eberhard filed a lawsuit against Tesla Motors and its Chairman, Product Architect and CEO Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley automaker had this to say:

This lawsuit is a fictionalized, inaccurate account of Tesla's early years -- it's twisted and wrong, and we welcome the opportunity to set the record straight. Incidentally, Tesla will also be filing counterclaims and in the process present an accurate account of the company's history.

The first bit of record resetting has shown up on the official Tesla blog. Not surprisingly, Elon Musk has lots to say in regards to the early years of the Roadster's development, and he seeks to offer his side of the story, along with a number of emails to back up his claims.

What does Musk say? Well, his initial response is a long, informative and extremely interesting read. Here are some choice lines:

• The facts are that when I requested through AC Propulsion to meet Eberhard, he had no technology of his own, he did not have a prototype car and he owned no intellectual property relating to electric cars.
• At the time [early 2004], "Tesla Motors, Inc." consisted of Eberhard, Tarpenning and Wright, plus an unfunded business plan and they were looking for an initial round of funding to create a more advanced prototype than the AC Propulsion Tzero. While there was a basic corporation in place, Tesla hadn't even registered or obtained the trademark to its name and had no formal offices or assets.

There's more after the jump.


[Source: Elon Musk / Tesla Motors]

One thing we can now say about Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, is that he's not taking the lawsuit from Martin Eberhard as a sign to tone down his language. The man who called the NYT writer a "douchebag" appeared at WIRED's business conference, Disruptive by Design, in Manhattan yesterday and said the following while declaring that he'd like a chance to run Detroit:

It's not out of the question to have unions, but if there's going to be a union, they'd better understand that they're on the same side as the company. I'm against having a two-class system where you've got the workers and then the managers, sort of like nobles and peasants [...] Most of our experienced factory workers come from unionized environments, and we asked them what benefit did they see in unions. They said, 'Well, if their boss was an asshole, they had recourse.' "I said, 'Let's make a rule: There will be no assholes.' I fired someone for being an asshole. And I only had to do that once, actually.

Note he didn't mention Eberhard by name, but who else has Musk fired that the crowd would care about? Musk also called the Prius "not a true hybrid" and said electric cars were "an inevitable thing."

Oh, and WIRED might be giving Eberhard's lawsuit more ammunition. One of Eberhard's charges is that Musk falsely claims that he is the founder or creator of Tesla Motors. WIRED's headline: "Tesla Motors Founder: Let Me Run Detroit." Whoops.

UPDATE: WIRED has changed their headline. Just for the record, there are screen grabs of the two headlines after the jump.


[Source: WIRED]

Speaking at the Wired Business Conference that's currently taking place in New York, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk had some rather interesting things to say. For instance, Musk believes that gasoline "should probably be $10" per gallon. While that doesn't sound like a popular sentiment for those Americans struggling with the thought of paying just $3 per gallon, but Musk offers an environmental reason to promote higher fuel prices:

I'm not paying for the true cost of gasoline at the pump...since nobody's explicitly paying for the CO₂ capacity of the oceans and atmospheres, it's getting consumed. We will pay for it down the road, but we are sort of ignoring it for now.

Naturally, Tesla Motors stands to benefit from the high cost of gasoline though the sale of its electric cars – possibly at the expense of the current crop of automakers – but Musk doesn't have all bad things to say about the Detroit-based competitors:

I think it'll probably be a healthier place... I think this will be a cathartic experience. I think GM and Ford, maybe not Chrysler, but GM and Ford will come out of this healthier... and more competitive.

Further, Musk says he'd "like to take up some of the manufacturing plants. When the mess gets sorted out I'd like to have a conversation with whoever's in charge."

And what of the current crop of environmentally-friendly automobiles? Musk's not a big fan, saying, "A Prius is not a true hybrid, really. The current Prius is like, 2 percent electric. It's a gasoline car with slightly better mileage."

[Source: CNET]

If you are sick of hearing about the lawsuit filed by Tesla Motors co-founder Martin Eberhard against the company and current CEO Elon Musk, we're sorry. There's a lot to know about the case (like what's in the complaint), and we're going to dig as deep as is reasonable as things move forward. For now, the company is dismissing Eberhard's lawsuit as wrong and, basically, a mere nuisance. AutoblogGreen got the following from Tesla spokesperson Rachel Konrad:

This lawsuit is an unfair personal attack and, more importantly, paints an inaccurate picture of Tesla's history. It's a fictionalized account of Tesla's early years. To that extent, why not let Tesla's verifiable track record speak for itself? Since the new management team came on board last year, Tesla has achieved unprecedented success, right up to the delivery of the 500th vehicle earlier this month and the opening of a retail network spanning two continents. We spearheaded a strategic partnership with Germany's Daimler AG, an unquestionable validation of Tesla's business strategy and the strongest endorsement yet of the current management team's many achievements. We spent the past year relentlessly driving down Roadster unit costs and increasing supply chain efficiencies - to such success that Tesla is now widely considered the leanest automaker worldwide. We launched the Model S sedan and have received more reservations than even our own bullish internal estimates. These are all astounding triumphs for such a young company - and it shows just how much Tesla has grown in the past year alone.

Finally, it goes without saying that this lawsuit will not have any effect on Tesla's considerable momentum or business strategy going forward.

We''re not entirely sure what Tesla's recent "unprecedented success" has to do with Eberhard's accusations of libel and slander against Musk, but hopefully someone else will be able to connect the dots for us. In either case, stay tuned.


[Source: Tesla]

There are 146 pages in the complaint filed by Tesla Motors co-founder Martin Eberhard against the company and current CEO Elon Musk (download the PDF here and read more background on the story here). It'll take a while to go through and understand the whole thing (we're not lawyers) and there will be reams more documents released as the case moves forward, but for now, here are some of the things that jumped out at us in the first skim through (all of these statements are alleged):



There's more after the jump.