There's lots of green-car action taking place at this years British International Motor Show (BIMS) and although we can't be there in person, our vlogger pal Danny is. Today, Danny has a fresh interview with Darryl Siry from Tesla who was at the show to check out the Lightning GT reveal accompany a Roadster while it sits on display for the public to longingly cast their eyes upon. Mr. Siry was forthcoming in answering most of his queries and we were able to glean a few interesting bits of Tesla news.

The most important information was about the state of European Roadster sales. Although he wouldn't give an exact figure, Danny did manage to wrest from the marketing VP that they've sold several dozen, in fact, they are "pretty soon going to close in on a hundred". They expect to sell the entire European allotment of 250 units for 2008 before the end of the year. Another eyebrow raiser was the mention of plans for Euro stores, including one on the outskirts of London, possibly in the direction of Surrey. They go on to discuss other things such as the Model S deployment strategy, batteries and the Roadster drivetrain 1.5. If you're in need of a Tesla fix with a British accent, hit the jump.

[Source: Danny's Contentment]

The round of firings at Tesla Motors that followed the departure of co-founder Martin Eberhard late in 2007 has resulted in yet another lawsuit for the company. This time litigation comes in the form of a class action suit from former employee David Vespremi for breach of contract, libel and slander. During his time with Tesla Vespremi held a number of positions including public relations director. The suit alleges that Tesla violated California labor laws, dealt with him and other employees in bad faith and made disparaging comments about him and other former employees. CEO Ze'ev Drori and Marketing VP Darry Siry about named in suit along with the company. The full filing with San Mateo Superior Court is available on line. Both Siry and Vespremi declined comment when contacted by ABG.

UPDATE: The class action component only refers to the arbitration and solicitation clauses in the employment agreement. The rest of Vespremi's suit only covers his own case.

[Source: San Mateo Court]

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.

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.

Perhaps the most talked about new car to appear in recent years that almost no one has actually driven yet is the Tesla Roadster. The impressive thing about this is that they have managed to pre-sell hundreds of these cars without spending a dime on advertising (aside from whatever was spent on a couple of press introductions). Certainly this site is as guilty as any when it comes to jumping on this bandwagon, although we honestly think that Tesla is onto something really special here and we have reported the bad news as well as the good.

We reported the other day about the Tesla Roadster being one of the featured vehicles in the upcoming Project Gotham Racing 4 for the XBox 360 and now Marketing VP Darryl Siry has picked that up and expanded on the subject of product placement for the Roadster. As might be expected for a car that has gotten so much attention, Darryl has received a lot of offers to the Roadster. Unfortunately product placement can be hit of miss because there is no guarantee of a film's success. Ford did well with the presence of the Aston Martins, Land Rovers and Mondeos in the last Bond film. However Chrysler got burned with for the $3 million they spent to get Jeeps used in the movie Sahara which about three people actually saw.

[Source: Marketing 2.0]

On this Memorial Day weekend in the United States we are supposed to be honoring those who have sacrificed their lives defending this country. Tesla Motors Vice-President of Marketing Darryl Siry takes on sacrifice and leadership in a post his personal blog. In past times of war people have always been asked to pitch in in some way to help the effort.

But not this time. Instead of encouraging people to drive more efficient vehicles our politicians are trying to figure out why gas prices are so high. Politicians figure high gas prices will cost them more votes in the next election than making real progress on moving away from petroleum will buy. Unfortunately they are probably right and American drivers have no one to blame but themselves when it costs them $100 or more to fill the tank of their SUV.

If you really want to support the troops this Memorial Day, consider getting rid of the SUV and getting something more efficient. Before you head out to the mall, think about all the places you need to go and plan your errands to consolidate your trips. Make some changes in your life that will help eliminate our dependence on a part of the world where our troops are getting killed on a daily basis.

[Source: Horseless Age]

When Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard talked to AutoblogGreen recently, he said that Tesla would not be using traditional franchised dealers to sell their electric cars. Instead, they will be establishing company owned customer centers around the country. For established car-makers with dealer networks, opening company owned dealerships is considered unfair competition under most state franchise laws. Since Tesla doesn't have any existing dealership network, having company outlets won't be unfair competition, because there is no one to compete with. Another issue is that no existing dealers are prepared to service and support the Tesla vehicles, so the company would have to provide the training and support.

Since initial sales volumes will be relatively low, and very little maintenance is required with an electric car, they won't need as many stores at first. Initially there will be five customer centers opening up in 2007 in the strongest markets for the Roadster. After that, more will be added over the next two years in preparation for the launch of WhiteStar. Tesla Marketing VP Darryl Siry confirmed that they have selected a location in Los Angeles and are scouting locations in the Bay Area, Chicago and New York. The Miami area is another likely launch location for the Roadster, since it's a natural market for sports cars. After launching the Roadster, they will move into other secondary markets like Seattle, Boston and Atlanta.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

As my fellow blogger Sam pointed out recently, Darryl Siry, Vice President of Marketing for Tesla Motors, recently wrote on their site's blog that "The Media Need to Toughen Up on the Subject of EVs". This is true on many levels, and it could be argued that the media needs to toughen up when it comes to reporting in general. But, this is not the subject of this particular editorial. But, in the spirit of doing exactly what he asked the media to do, let's consider some of the hard questions facing hopeful electric vehicle manufacturers in the coming years.

Darryl mentioned, as did Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard in Sam's interview, that Tesla perceives themselves as different than other new electric vehicle manufacturers. Indeed, they see themselves as more like GM, Ford, Toyota and Nissan. Are they? I am not sure, as they have yet to produce a single vehicle for public consumption, as compared to the almost too numerous to mention vehicles those other companies have sold. This begs the question, is Tesla getting ahead of themselves? Are they really competing directly with GM and Toyota?

Continue reading my thoughts after the break.

I was in contact with new VP of Marketing for Tesla Motors, Darryl Siry over the weekend and found out that he is apparently quite an automotive enthusiast. Darryl documents some of car passion online at his blog called Horseless Age. If you want to keep up with some of the developments at his employer, go check out the corporate blog at the Tesla Motors site. The corporate site has articles discussing some of the companies design decisions and also the progress of testing of the new Tesla Roadster.

[Source: Darryl Siry]