In the first two parts of our discussion, Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk described how he came to be a part of Tesla Motors and how he influenced the development of the Roadster. It's important to note that he never described himself as the designer or creator of the Roadster. Rather he considers himself the co-architect of the sports car.

With production of the Roadster now sort of underway and the updated drivetrain hopefully coming soon, it's time to look forward. As the self-declared Product Architect, Musk is playing perhaps an even bigger role with the next product, a sedan that we've known for some time by the code name WhiteStar. We had hoped to see WhiteStar this spring but that obviously hasn't happened yet. In the conclusion of our discussion, Musk gives out some hints about what to expect and what Tesla has learned over the past five years. Read on to learn more about what's coming next.

Make sure you read Part 1 and Part 2.

As we continue the tale of Elon and Martin, we pick up from the initial involvement of Elon Musk in Tesla Motors. Musk has put in the single largest chunk of money that has allowed Tesla to develop and now start building an electric car. Here we delve into the subject of his role in design decisions. As some in the mainstream media have taken to referring to Musk as the "creator" of the Tesla Roadster, this is a particularly contentious subject.

The whole issue of the choice of transmission suppliers is a particularly thorny one. Musk was insistent that Tesla should build a car worthy of the price tag. Anyone who has ever worked in the auto industry knows that is almost always a lot harder than it looks. The friction that clearly existed between Eberhard and Musk from very early on in their relationship definitely didn't help matters. (Note:If you missed Part 1 check it out first).

ABG: So, how did you get to the first stage, of the Roadster, the specs that debuted in 2006 with the first prototypes? How did that come about?

Read on after the jump.

Among the readers of this site, one of the cars that elicits a lot of passion is the Tesla Roadster. The battery-powered Roadster and its provenance have elicited a great deal of discussion over the past nine months, in particular since the demotion and ultimately the departure of co-founder Martin Eberhard. This is a complex tale involving passionate entrepreneurs with that all-too-common but in many ways necessary human frailty known as ego. When humans interact, they often see the same results through their own mental filters.

People can see exactly the same thing and interpret it in many different ways. Unfortunately in today's media landscape, particularly on television, but also in blogs we often see a very cut-down sound-bite version of things. Sound-bites by definition are taken out of context. In and of themselves they often lead to incorrect or at least inaccurate conclusions.

With all of that in mind I was recently contacted by Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk. Musk wanted to discuss his role at Tesla, and hopefully fill in some of the gaps in the story. What follows after the jump is the phone conversion that I had with Musk recently as well as some comments from Martin Eberhard via e-mail exchanges. Eberhard's version of events is italicized.

Update: Just to be clear Elon Musk contacted me immediately after a previous article where I called into question his role in the development of the Roadster. He wanted to clear up what he felt were misconceptions of his role rather than to pitch a story idea about him.

The erstwhile and undisputed co-founder of Weblogs Inc. (parent of this here site), Jason Calacanis, revealed some time ago that he had placed an order for a Tesla Roadster. At the time he had missed out on the opportunity to purchase one of the first 100 Signature series cars. Those are the cars that come after the 25 Founders series cars. The buyers of the Signature series cars had to pay up in full in advance. Following Jason's recent opportunity to borrow Chairman Elon Musk's #1 Roadster, Jason evidently decided he couldn't wait until 2009. Fortunately for Jason, venture capitalist Ray Lane gave up his spot in the sequence since Lane's firm, Kleiner Perkins, is an investor in rival start up Fisker Automotive. Tesla offered Lane's slot to Calacanis, who obviously grabbed the opportunity. According to Tesla VP Darryl Siry, a couple of other signature series slots have changed hands including one that was recently snapped up by Matt Damon.

Calacanis is scheduled to get car #16 in the signature series which is #41 overall. According to Siry, the switchover to the new powertrain is now scheduled to occur at around car #38, so Jason's car should come properly equipped and shouldn't require an upgrade. Since departing from Weblogs Inc. Jason has also done some venture capital work with Sequioa Capital and started another new company called Mahalo. Mahalo is described as a human powered search engine that uses an editorial staff to create a directory of what they consider the best of the web. Once he does get his Roadster, Jason is considering actually giving it away on Mahalo as a promotion for the site. Stay tuned for more info on that.

[Source: Jason Calacanis]

For the last couple of months there has been an ongoing discussion on various sites (including our own) about the status of Martin Eberhard's Tesla Roadster. For those just now tuning in to this little saga, Eberhard was the co-Founder of Tesla Motors, and was supposed to get production car #2 but at least three other cars have now been delivered ahead of his car. Since we last discussed the topic several weeks ago, things have been pretty quiet on this front, but we now have some new information.

During a recent call with Tesla Marketing VP Darryl Siry, I asked about the status of Eberhard's car, given that at least two and perhaps three other cars have now been delivered. It turns out that the car is here in the U.S. and was due to be delivered to Eberhard several weeks ago. Unfortunately, on the appointed day while a technician was doing a final checkout drive to make sure everything was working properly, there was an accident and the back front end of the car sustained significant damage. Continue after the jump for more.

Over at the Tesla Motors Club, one of the posters put a couple of photos of a silver Tesla Roadster on the back of a flatbed truck in the Windy City. I checked with Tesla and they confirmed that this car is in fact P4, the fourth production model. This is the same car that had been temporarily used as a marketing car in Europe and was seen in Monaco and Cannes. It has now arrived in the States and is on its way to its owner who happens to be a Tesla board member that lives in Chicago. You might now be saying to yourself: "that's at least three cars that have been delivered and still no car for Martin Eberhard. What gives?" Stay tuned for news on that front. We'll have something for you very soon.


[Source: TeslaMotorsClub, thanks to Doug for the tip]

While Tesla Chairman Elon Musk is taking credit for other people's work, the sales team is off continuing its European tour with a visit to Le Mans. While the diesel Audis and Peugeots were out tearing up the track and shattering track records, Tesla's Aaron Platshon was spotted tooling around the driver's parade in the silent, battery-powered Roadster. Hopefully, there is as much effort going into completing cars for delivery to customers as there is in lining up new deposits for more cars. Thanks to Jonny for the tip!

[Source: AutoFiends]

When you hang out at coffee shops in sunny Southern California, you never know who's going to swing by for a morning caffeine jolt. This past Sunday morning, a scribe for the new site AutoFiends.com was waiting on a friend when a pale blue two seater silently pulled in and grabbed his attention. What he at first thought was a Lotus Elise turned out to be a prototype from our pals in San Carlos. Wordsmith Steve grabbed his camera and stepped outside to talk to the driver of the electron propelled Roadster and realized it was none other than Jason Bourne, aka Matt Damon. Turns out Damon was test driving the Tesla with an eye toward purchasing one. As with most of the people who have had the still rare opportunity to get behind the wheel of the fabled Roadster, Mr. Damon was impressed. The example in question still had the two speed transmission with the lower gear disabled so the off the line acceleration was not all it could be. However, once in motion, the electric motor torque provided velocity increases "Like nothing else." Looks like Tesla has hooked another star. Now they just need to crank up the line speed and deliver some more cars.

[Source: AutoFiends, thanks to Jonny and Steve for the tips]

JB Straubel, Chief Technical Officer at Tesla Motors has just put up a new post at the Tesla Blog with an extensive update on the Roadster drivetrain updates that are coming later this year. As we reported at Tesla's recent schedule update, the Silicon Valley start up is currently planning a running change to the upgraded powertrain beginning with car #41 which should happen sometime in late summer. There aren't any huge surprises in Straubel's post, but there are some interesting details. When Tesla first told us about their plans for the 1.5 back in January, the plan was to modify the power electronics module to be able to supply more current to the motor thus increasing the output to a level that would allow meeting the vehicle performance targets without having to use a two speed gearbox.

Generally, pumping more current through an electrical circuit has the negative side effect of generating a lot more heat as the resistance increases. The indication we were given at the time was that the cooling capability of the motor would be increased to help dissipate that heat. Based on Straubel's description of the changes, it looks like they took a different approach instead, one that is all too uncommon in the auto industry. Instead of applying a band-aid and treating the heat symptom by adding cooling capacity, they chose to attack the disease itself. In electrical circuits heat is caused by resistance to current flow. Resistance is the electrical analog of mechanical friction. The more electrons you try to push against resistance in circuits the more heat you generate. Continue reading after the jump.

The philosophy of Lotus founder Colin Chapman was always to make his cars as light as possible. He is reported to have said at various times "to add speed, add lightness" and "simplicate, than add lightness." Over the years, Lotus cars have often been among the lightest of their kind and innovations in weight reduction continue to this day. The work that Lotus has done in developing low mass vehicle structures for cars like the Lotus Elise and the Tesla Roadster is set to expand with the acquisition of Holden Lightweight Structures Limited. Worcester, UK-based Holden has been assembling the aluminum chassis for the Elise and other Lotus models and will now be renamed Lotus Lightweight Structures as it becomes part of Group Louts plc. As mass reduction becomes increasingly important to reducing fuel consumption and emissions in the coming years, Lotus is hoping the acquisition helps them better serve its engineering client base. The Hethel-based company can provide its design expertise as well as manufacturing capabiity. The Lotus press release is after the jump.

Just as TTAC has finally put down their Tesla Birthwatch series and the first actual customer car has been delivered, the EV manufacturer has seen fit to update their customers on plans for the rest of the year. Although the car with serial number 2 destined for company founder Martin Eberhard started down the assembly line on March 17 of this year, only cars 3 and 4 have actually left the factory to date. According to the update letter from Marketing VP Darryl Siry, the factory is preparing to start assembly on cars 6 and 7. Tesla announced earlier in the year that initial production would be very slow as they stamp out bugs in the process. According to the schedule in the letter, the first couple of dozen Founders Series cars should be done by the end of June. After that the Signature 100 cars will be built for those customers that paid full price up front with that batch done by October. After that production really ramps up with the 600 2008 models expected to be complete by about April 2009.

Perhaps more important is the update on the new powertrain. Apparently the new power electronics module is going through durability testing right now. With the 850A current level the motor is putting out about 280lb-ft of torque and pushing the Roadster to 60mph in the original 3.9sec. A running change to the new hardware should take place sometime in September with vehicle 40 or so. The cars built prior to that will get free upgrades to the new hardware. The letter also clarifies the warranty at 3 years/36,000 miles although a 4 year/50,000 mile will be available at extra cost. Tesla had planned to charge an upfront fee of $8,000 that would cover the cost of shipping vehicles to a service center if the customer lived more than 100 miles from a Tesla Store. That has now been dropped in favor of a pay as you go scheme. As for those stores, the LA outlet is now open with a Menlo Park store opening this summer and New York in the fall. In the first quarter of '09 Chicago, Miami and Seattle outlets should debut. In addition Tesla plans to open satellite service centers in major cities over the next two years. If you aren't already on the list a 2009 Roadster will now set you back a minimum of $109,000 while a fully loaded example will run $120,200.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

Creating big things is generally the province of visionaries. All too often, big visions go hand in hand with big egos. Big egos are generally like electrons. Anyone who has studied sub-atomic particles knows that similarly charged particles repel each other. You can force them into the same space for a period of time but eventually they push each other apart. Such is often the case with startup companies.

Let's start with a little background. When Tesla Motors was first getting launched a few years back, as part of their initial investment in the company, the first two dozen or so people involved agreed to buy what became known as Founders Series cars. Initially, company founder Martin Eberhard who had the vision that became the Tesla Roadster intended to keep the first production unit for himself. When Paypal founder and seriously rich guy Elon Musk got involved as a major investor in Tesla Motors the situation changed. As Eberhard tells the tale (and I have no reason to doubt him on this) since Musk was putting up the bulk of the cash, he asked to get the first Roadster. After some back and forth Eberhard ultimately relented and took car #2. According to Martin:

During the entire time I was at Tesla, staff discussions about the early production cars rarely referred to the first two cars as "P1" and "P2." They were simply called "Elon's car" and "Martin's car." Everyone at Tesla knew this, and everyone knew how important these cars and their production sequence meant to both of us.

Continue reading the tale after the jump.

There has long been an interesting paradox in the realm of cars. For some peculiar reason, people who buy really expensive cars are willing to make more compromises to the foibles of the car and cut them more slack. How else to explain grief that owners of Italian exotics withstood for decades in terms of reliability, ergonomics and build quality. Buyers of mainstream cars that often have far fewer problems as a percentage of the number of vehicles built have a fit at every little thing that goes wrong. That same paradox exists today. The Tesla Roadster by virtue of its price and performance falls into entry level of exotic cars. Despite numerous delays in getting the car into production, and obvious compromised in terms of its functionality, most people have been willing to cut the car and the company a lot of slack, myself included. In my case my experience in the auto industry allows me to understand the difficulty of the task Tesla had. I never actually expected them to meet their aggressive timing targets and I've written on numerous occasions about the potential problems they might have. Nonetheless most people believed in the company.

General Motors on the other hand faces an entirely different standard with the Volt. In spite having a much more complex vehicle to develop with a much greater level of functionality and a shorter time frame than Tesla, GM seems to be being held to a higher standard than Tesla. At the slightest hint of time slips or cost increases, so many people jump on GM thinking that the car will never happen. Admittedly, we have yet to see a running prototype of the Volt (although they do apparently now exist) but that doesn't mean the company isn't fully committed to making the car happen. GM's task of creating a car that will be an affordable mainstream sedan for four passengers that meets modern standards will strangely mean that customers actually expect it to work all of the time. That's a situation that the much more expensive Tesla won't face to nearly the same degree.

[Source: Motor Trend]

That's Jason at the wheel - Photos by CK Sample III

Our old buddy Jason Calacanis is at again with Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster. He borrowed the Tesla Chairman's car for the weekend and Friday he took a bunch of his employees from Mahalo out for rides. Later he and someone named Conrad went out for a drive with Jason's Nokia N95 streaming the event live over a service called Qik. Needless to say, Jason and Conrad were mighty impressed with the ability of the electric sports car to pick up velocity. After driving it, Jason doesn't seem to have any second thoughts about ordering one.

Like Tesla founder Martin Eberhard, Calacanis is installing solar panels on his house to charge the Roadster and he seems completely committed to the idea of getting his transportation needs free of the grid and imported oil. While Jason is correct in his comments about the the vast majority of car trips being less than the the 220-mile range of the Roadster, he is a little off the mark when he describes the car as being free of compromises. The Roadster is an outstanding performer but as I said in my driving impressions back in January, it is most definitely not for everyone. Anyone with more than one passenger to haul around can forget it, as could anyone of more than modest stature. This is definitely not a car for everyone. The battery technology still has a way to go as well. Even in this little car, it takes a 1,000lb battery to get 220 miles. In a car that can take your family to dinner it would take up a lot of space and it will be interesting to see how WhiteStar is packaged. Check out the video after the jump.

That's Jason at the wheel - Photos by CK Sample III

For those unfamiliar with the history of this site, a little background. AutoblogGreen and our elder sibling Autoblog are both part of the Weblogs Inc. network of blogs. Weblogs Inc. also includes sites like Engadget and its off-shoots, Joystiq, TUAW, Cinematical and many more. Weblogs Inc. was founded by a gentleman named Jason Calacanis and his business partner Brian Alvey in 2004 and in late 2005 they sold the company to AOL who own it to this day. Jason eventually went on to some other endeavors and most recently launched a human generated search site/directory called Mahalo.com. Along the way he also decided to plunk down some of the cash that he accumulated from building and selling his various enterprises on a Tesla Roadster. Jason wasn't one of the earliest customers and unlike everyone but Tesla Chairman Elon Musk has yet to receive his new battery-propelled speed machine. Fortunately for Jason, Elon apparently took his kindergarten lessons in sharing to heart and decided to loan production Roadster #1 to Jason for a bit and Jason shared his good fortune with his own staff at Mahalo. Check out the Flickr photo set here and Mahalo's Roadster page here. And for the record, yes, it is a slow news day.

[Source: Jason Calacanis, CK Sample III - Flickr]