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.

As we saw with the Bono pic, Tesla Motors representatives took the Roadster to Europe for a little PR&R recently. Well, as Darryl Siry, Tesla's VP of sales, marketing, and service, writes in a new post about the company trip on the "feel" blog over on the Tesla Motors website, there wasn't as much R as he might have liked. So, for those of use who don't mind that Mr. Siry worked more than played on the old continent, let's see what he has to say (oh, and we thank him for his service, of course).

First up, pricing. The 2009 U.S. version of the Roadster will cost $109,000, up from $98,000 for the base 2008 model. A lot of the increase can be attributed to the weakening dollar, Siry writes, because Tesla pays for much of the Roadster in Euros and Pounds. The limited edition 2009 Euro-spec Roadster will cost 99,000 Euros, and is comparable to the fully-loaded 2009 Roadster. For more on the Euro-spec Roadster, look here.

Siry also gets into production of the current Roadsters, and says that Job 3 has been delivered (Martin Eberhard is still waiting for some custom paint work to be done on Job 2) and that production will be ramping up this summer and fall. Siry's got more for you here.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

It appears that our faithful readers from the old country will soon have a reason to bust out that sack full of euros stashed under their beds. Because of the falling value of the Yankee greenback in relation to the euro, Tesla has decided to move up their plans to sell its amazing electric sports car in Europe. Although the factory in England has started cranking them out, the entire production scheduled for this year has already been sold, so orders taken will be for the 2009 model.

Launching the car in Europe will mean that a whole different set of rules and regulations will need to be adhered to. Tesla's sales and marketing guy, Darryl Siry, is quoted by Innovation Beat, from whence I garnered this information, as saying, "Emissions regulations we have no problem meeting." I expect the other red tape to take a bit of time and effort.

Because they are seen to be particularly friendly to electric vehicles, Sweden and Norway (the Danes are going to be pissed!) have been selected as the initial markets where efforts will be concentrated. Tax incentives for more environmentally-sensitive cars will help defray the costs there though the chilly temperatures may make a small dent in the vehicle's overall range.

The exact date for the European introduction is expected to be announced in a couple of months though if it were me sitting on that sack of euros, I'd contact them soon to try and ensure a place in line.


*Update: Darryl Siry of Tesla left a comment to correct the article saying that while Norway and Northern Europe have been discussed as "attractive markets", they have not been chosen as "initial" markets and Tesla should be available in Europe more broadly. Good news.


[Source: Innovation Beat]

More information has come out about Tesla Motors' plans for financing their future expansion. We already knew from statements by Chairman Elon Musk that the company was planning to go after an initial public offering within the next year or so. The Financial Times is now reporting that the company plans to raise a total of $250 million over the next two years to fund the final development of the WhiteStar and establish a manufacturing plant to turn out 10-20,000 of the electric sedans.

Why so much money? Tesla had been considering entering into a partnership with another company for the production of WhiteStar. According to Tesla's Darryl Siry, "we looked very hard at a partnership with an OEM but it didn't make sense at the end of the day." The complexities of such a partnership would slow down the project and Tesla wants to keep control of more of their intellectual property. Once WhiteStar is underway, Tesla will be revisiting the idea of a partnership of some kind to produce a third, higher-volume model. That lower-cost car is targeted to sell at the rate of up to 100,000 annually.

Of the $250 million, about one third to one half is expected to be borrowed with the rest coming from the IPO. Tesla has applied for a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy to help raise the cash. The current plan is still to build the WhiteStar assembly plant in Albuquerque NM, but that may also change. A shift to the East Bay area, closer to the company's San Carlos CA headquarters is still a possibility.

As for the here and now, series production of the Roadster is still set to begin at Lotus' Hethel UK factory on March 17. The first car off the line that day (production unit #2) will be delivered to now departed company founder Martin Eberhard soon afterward.

[Sources: Financial Times, Tesla Motors]

When Tesla founder Martin Eberhard left the company recently, he announced he would soon be starting a blog where he would talk about what's going on. Well TeslaFounders.com went live earlier this week and if the latest post from Martin is any indication there are some very unhappy people who were formerly employed at the Silicon Valley start-up. At the blog and also over at the TeslaMotorsClub discussion forums there is plenty of discussion and stories from some of the people who have been let go recently. A lot of idealistic people joined Eberhard at the company and many of them feel betrayed now. They feel the company has abandoned the vision and it's all about getting the money out now.

Contacted for comment, Tesla VP Darryl Siry explained that the team was not organized effectively and there weren't clear lines of responsibility. As a result, targets were missed and as we all know now the company failed to meet it's goal of customer deliveries in 2007. One example given was the engineering group that had four different areas with overlapping responsibilities. As a result, things fell through the cracks. The entire engineering staff has now been consolidated under Chief Technical Officer JB Straubel. The new management team went through an appraisal and ranking of all employees in the company. Those that were found not to be meeting the requirements of the jobs that needed to be done were let go.

Continuing reading about what's going on at Tesla after the jump.

[Sources: TeslaFoundersBlog, Tesla Motors]

Tesla Marketing VP Darryl Siry and the Tesla Roadster

When I went for a ride with Darryl Siry in the Tesla Roadster following the Los Angeles Auto Show, we discussed a wide array of topics relating to the car. One of those areas was the use of the Roadster as track car. Given the heritage of the chassis being derived from the Lotus Elise and the frequent use of the that car on the track, it would seem to be an obvious application. Unfortunately for buyers of the Roadster, that won't be a viable option. The power electronics module (PEM) monitors a variety of the sensors in and around the battery pack and the air-cooled AC motor. If anything starts to get too hot, the PEM will automatically start limiting the power flow from the battery until things cool down. The result is that after a only a couple of laps of all-out track running, the motor will start to heat up and performance will be limited. On the road in real world conditions this won't be a problem, because conditions generally won't allow that sort of sustained extreme driving.

At some future point after the Roadster is well-established in production, Darryl would like to consider producing a dedicated track car similar to what Lotus does with the 2-Eleven. Tesla could potentially offer a chassis and power-train combination with a higher power battery pack and liquid cooled motor. They could also sponsor a single make racing series along the lines of the Porsche Cup or Ferrari Challenge. If any of that does happen though it will be off in the future after Tesla has resolved their current issues. You can listen to Darryl and I discussing the subject here.

[Source: Tesla Motors, Darryl Siry]

Tesla Marketing VP Darryl Siry has penned an article for VentureBeat on the topic of investing in alternative fuel car manufacturers. Investing in this field is no simple matter. As anyone watching Tesla over the past year can see, it's tough to launch a car company even if you've got a decent amount of funding behind you. Small investors will have a tough time finding a place to put some money since many of the independent companies in the field aren't public. Those involved in the venture capital arena need to try and find companies that have some really innovative technology. Check out Darryl's article for more.

[Source: VentureBeat, via HorselessAge]

Click on the Tesla for a high-res gallery

Warning! The following report will likely sound to many readers as though it comes from a fanboy. Perhaps I am, although I have tried to report on the problems and realities that Tesla faces as well as all the company's bold claims. Whatever the case, this car is one amazing ride, and one can't come away from it without a big s**t-eating grin. Onward...

One of the bright spots of the old GM EV1 was that it had good acceleration thanks to the immediately available torque characteristics of an electric motor and its light weight construction. Unfortunately, when it came to stopping and changing directions, the EV1 was more like a classic American muscle car thanks to its high pressure, low rolling resistance tires.

The Tesla Roadster that we have all heard so much about does not suffer this malady. On the contrary, if the old Dr. Ferdinand Porsche and Colin Chapman were around today they might create something very much like this car. As circumstances would have it, I was in Santa Monica, California for another event (that you can read about elsewhere on this site) at the same time as the Tesla Roadster validation prototype #10 (VP10). It was also the case that the car's schedule and mine happened to have equal open time slots in our schedules. With the entrance ramp to the Pacific Coast Highway only a couple of hundred feet away, how could we not take advantage of the opportunity? (continue after the jump)


All photos ©2007 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.

You might expect the Marketing VP of the best-known electric vehicle company in recent times to be promoting pure battery electrics as the only answer to our transportation problems. However, Darryl Siry is much more realistic and pragmatic than that. While he sees a growing market for electric cars in the coming years, Darryl acknowledges that both gasoline and diesel internal combustion will be with us for some time to come. More importantly the argument of parallel vs series vs plug-in hybrids is pointless because all have their place. Different tools for different jobs. On the topic of whether the Chevy Volt architecture is a hybrid or electric vehicle, you might be surprised to learn that Darryl agrees with GM that the Volt is an electric vehicle. Check out the rest of Darryl's thoughts over at the Tesla Blog.

[Source: Tesla Motors]