During the course of our discussion (presented in three parts: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3).Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk described how he came to be a part of Tesla Motors and how he, as "Product Architect," influenced the development of the Roadster as and what will become the WhiteStar sedan. Based on his description of the events, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable title. Even as told by Martin Eberhard, co-architect doesn't seem inaccurate, although Eberhard might have preferred it to be otherwise. One thing that isn't in doubt is that Musk is not a founder.

Some in the mainstream media over-simplify things by referring to Musk as the creator of the Roadster, and if anything Musk's sin here may be more an error of omission. By not speaking up to clarify his role in the process previously, he has at least appeared to passively take credit for more than he should. If nothing else, as with so many successful entrepreneurs, his self-assurance can certainly come across as arrogance. I don't know the man personally so I can't really comment as to what he is like on a personal level. Aside from the financial aspects his role is probably most analogous to that of Bob Lutz at GM where he makes high level decisions about design direction which are then brought to fruition by the engineers, designers and technicians. Read on after the jump for the rest of my conclusions.

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.

Yesterday we told about news from Tesla Chairman Elon Musk that the Silicon Valley EV startup had struck some sort of deal with Daimler. We speculated that it might be an engine supply deal for the range-extended version of the WhiteStar. Tesla Marketing VP and primary spokesman Darryl Siry declined to comment on the deal and Daimler has apparently said nothing. Lucky for us, one of our readers pointed to where Fox Business News had the video up on their site so that we could see exactly what Musk said. Unfortunately, it appears that at least on the topic of the Daimler deal, Musk said nothing beyond what we had already heard and there isn't much to be drawn from his statement beyond our existing conjectures.

However, watching the rest of the clip, it became clear that in typical Fox (and almost all of traditional media fashion) they weren't about to let facts get in the way of a good story. Reporter Liz Claman started off the puff piece by introducing Musk as the creator of the Tesla Roadster. Now whatever you may think of Musk and what has transpired at Tesla over the past 10 months, calling him the creator of this car is blatantly wrong. Martin Eberhard had the vision for Tesla and he and the team of engineers are the ones who created this car. Musk then goes on to describe the Roadster as "the only production electric car for sale in the United States of any kind." This is most definitely not true. It may be the only really desirable EV but there are plenty of others of various descriptions. Obviously all the neighborhood electric cars out there are for sale and are drivable on many roads. They certainly aren't in the same class as the Roadster but they are electric. And of course we must grudgingly acknowledge the Zap Xebra here as well even though it is technically a motorcycle. Nonetheless this is not a promising start to the five-minute interview. And given that we know of only two cars that have been delivered to customers (one of which was Musk himself) calling the Roadster in production is still very much a stretch. We know almost no one watches Fox Business News but this is ridiculous and don't even get me started on this reporter. The video is after the jump.

Tesla Motors has apparently reached some kind of technology deal with German automaker Daimler. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk reportedly told Fox Business news that, "We have a small deal that could potentially lead to a very big deal." While no real information is available at the moment we will be more than happy to don our speculation beanie and ponder what this might mean. There are numerous possibilities here.

It's certainly possible that Tesla may be licensing some of their battery management technology to Daimler for use in their own hybrid and electric vehicle projects. Another possible scenario may be that Daimler will supply engines to Tesla for the WhiteStar sedan. Tesla has said that it will offer a range extended version of the WhiteStar. The 1.0L three cylinder from the Smart ForTwo might make a good driver for the generator (that sounds like a vaguely familiar specification). Supplying the engine to Tesla would help Daimler increase volumes of the Smart engine, allowing them to drive down costs. We're still waiting to hear back from Tesla with a comment and we'll update you when we hear something.

Update: Tesla VP Darryl Siry declined comment on the matter.

[Source: Just-Auto - sub. req'd, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

On Saturday morning, Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk delivered a keynote address to the TIeCon conference in Santa Clara, CA and then sat down to talk about the plans for funding the future operations of Tesla. We've previously heard from both Musk and Marketing VP Darryl Siry about some of the plans, but Musk gave some clarification to the timing. First up for Tesla is a Series E round of venture capital that will sell off about 10 percent of the company. Following that is a Department of Energy loan guarantee program. The company will likely borrow between $100 and $200 million through the DOE program. Following that, Musk wants to launch an initial public offering by the end of the year.

One interesting element of the plans is the possibility of letting early Tesla customers take a piece of the that Series E funding round. That possibility first came up during a Tesla Town Hall meeting for customers last December. At that time, at least one customer asked about the possibility of investing in the meeting and Musk replied that he would like to see it happen. During Saturday's conference, Musk indicated that there are some legal issues that needed to be addressed, but the company was working on making it happen. Perhaps the new presence of Larry Sonsini on the Tesla board will help. The cash will from all this fund raising will be used for the development and production of the WhiteStar sedan hopefully by 2010.

[Source: News.com, thanks to Doug for the tip]

Tesla Motors opened its first retail store the other day and held a party to celebrate the event. Of course we all couldn't attend but thanks to 21st century technology, videos were taken on cell phones and streamed live across the internets for all to see via Qik. In fact, they are still on the internets and we have some after the break. Jason Calacanis of Weblogs fame shot the first featured moving pictures while Jeff Macpherson from Tiki Bar TV shot some clips as well. So go ahead and have some hors d'oeuvres and a cocktail whilst you mingle with the rich and famous and check out some Tesla roadsters. Hear music legend Quincy Jones play the Tesla horn. Watch Elon Musk talk to the camera of Chris Paine about grilled cheese sandwiches. Why are you still here? Go watch!

UPDATE: swanky House Music TV video added.

Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk has a new post up on the company blog about the thinking behind the new Tesla stores. Martin Eberhard touched on the retail plans when we talked recently, and Elon goes more in depth. He describes the goal as a cross between an Apple Store, a Starbucks and a good kitchen.

It's already been reported that all the Tesla Stores will be company owned rather than franchises like most dealerships. And instead of hiding the garage in back or in a separate building, the shop will be right up front so you can watch what's going on. As a Silicon Valley company it looks like they're following the cues of other tech companies and service technicians will be both company employees and stockholders.

It will be interesting to see how the stock option approach works out in the car business. Tesla has an interesting opportunity with their cold start and they appear to want to try a different approach to car retailing. Saturn tried it in the nineties and it took them pretty far until they were ultimately felled by lack of product. Ultimately it always comes back to that and now that Saturn finally has some decent products combined with the marketing they are starting to show signs of life again. Hopefully the product launch will go smoothly enough for Tesla that we get to see if their ideas work. Read the rest of Elon's blog post at the read link.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

One of the worries I have about Tesla Motors and the tremendous hype surrounding the upcoming Tesla Roadster – a legitimately tremendous vehicle – is that the realities of the company's offerings won't be as cool or as dramatic as the visions we've all read about and salivated over for the last five months. In that time, I have heard criticism about the EV start-up that says the guys in charge aren't totally committed to anything beyond the Roadster, even though Elon Musk and Martin Eberhard and others have been repeatedly saying - to AutoblogGreen and other news sources - since the beginning that they are.

This is a long-winded way to say I was a bit worried when I saw the headline to this story from Inside Bay Area: "Musk's next frontier: Space" (Musk is one of the main funders of Tesla Motors and helped design the Roadster but now spends a lot of time with Space X). I have not been a doubter that Tesla would really bring us the amazing $50,000 and $30,000 electric family cars in the next few years, but I did worry when I read that. Of course, I needn't have sweated even the slightest bit. I think the editor just wasn't paying much attention to the story beyond the first three paragraphs.

The article, by Matt Nauman, is really just a feature on Musk and Tesla Motors. There's not a lot that will be new to AutoblogGreen readers (although I had forgotten that the Roadster's code name was Dark Star and the family sedan is code named White Star), but I found it a good read (a lot better than this one, from the Pattaya Daily News, which was also written/updated in late December but has absolutely no new news). In the Inside Bay Area article, Musk confirms that the sales goal for the $30,000 electric sedan will be 100,000-plus units a year once it's released and disses Detroit's ability to build an electric car. "They [Detroit] know about eight-cylinder gasoline engines. They have no idea how to build a high-performance, AC-induction electric motor. Or how to build the very sophisticated drive electronics that are necessary to power that," he said.

The thing I take away from the Inside Bay Area article (and headline) is that I should just continue to trust that Tesla Motors will be delivering on their promises and realize that Musk is capable of bringing great electric cars to market while working on rockets. He's just that kind of guy, as he detailed in this blog post. Oh, and I need to let editors be editors.

[Source: Inside Bay Area]

The San Jose Mercury News did an interview last week with Tesla Motors chairman Elon Musk. Musk made his fortune by founding PayPal and Zip2 and now he wants to change the world. He has personally kicked in $30 million of his own money to the Tesla project and reiterated his intentions to expand the company beyond the Lotus Elise based roadster. By 2010 he wants to have a range of three models including one costing only $30,000 that he expects to eventually reach a sales volume of 100,000 annually.

Apparently the upcoming Tesla Roadster is undergoing crash tests in Germany right now and production is expected to start next summer. The other models won't be coming from Lotus so a new factory will be needed somewhere. Unless those cars are based on some other existing models, Tesla is going to have a very hard time meeting that 2010 target for the lowest-priced model. Of course, there are a "few" plants scattered around the United States right now looking for a product to build.

Related:

• Exclusive Q & A with Elon Musk on the Tesla Roadster and the future of EVs

[Source: SiliconValley.com via Hugg]

Have we been looking in all the wrong places for a solution to our energy crisis? Writer Stan Beer writes a short history of Tesla Motors and the Tesla Roadster (which should be familiar to readers of this site), and sees the benefit the Silicon Valley crowd can give to all of us who drive. Even though the energy industry has been looking for new energy sources using scientific methods for decades, it's Silicon Valley engineers who might be leading the way to a greener future, he says. "Forget gasoline-electric hybrids, forget biofuels, forget experimental hydrogen fuel cells, they say. Just look no further than mobile phones and notebook computers for your answer," is how Beer puts it, and as a bonus to AutoblogGreen, Beer sources some of his information to the Q & A session we did with Tesla Motors chairman Elon Musk back in July.

[Source: IT Wire]

I feel bad I missed this note on the Tesla Motors website last week, but the Signature 100 Tesla Roadsters (i.e., the first 100 that will be produced) have "sold out". The Signature models include upgraded features (a hard top, leather interiors, navigation system, etc.) and all the standard features (PIN-based security, limited-range valet mode, etc.). Tesla says that response for their electric sports car was greater than they anticipated, but I think we can all agree that they did their part in building up demand, can't we?

No matter, the good news is that these 100 cars represent about ten million dollars worth of investment in the company and the brand. Tesla Motors can use the $100,000 from the 100 people who have reserved a Roadster to develop not only the manufacturing process the company will use, but also better technologies (the batteries, for example) that will be used in later models. Some of the folks who will get their hands on a Signature Tesla Roadster are Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, computer executive Ben Rosen, Valor Equity Partners chairman Victor Morgenstern and Jim Marver, who co-founded Vantage Point Venture Partners and sits on the Tesla board.

If you really wanted to get a Tesla Roadster but wanted that recent check to deposit before sending money to Tesla, fear not. The company is currently taking reservations for the next 100 Tesla Roadsters to be built. So get your $75,000 ready and then save up for the rest. The Roadsters should be delivered in the fall of 2007.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

Elon Musk is chairman of Tesla Motors, but his interests do not lie solely on the highway. Musk co-founded SpaceX, which develops launch vehicles, and once planned on setting up greenhouses on Mars. AutoblogGreen is most interested in his clean car technology pursuits, though, and after the unveiling of the Tesla Roadster last week, Musk agreed to sit down (in a remote, email sort of way) with us. In this detailed back and forth, Musk talks about Tesla Motors, the future of electric vehicles and why the Prius is a gas-guzzler.

ABG: How would you describe the initial public reaction to the Roadster?
Musk: Seems to be extremely positive. Most people like the car when they see it, but are still skeptical. That skepticism turns to enthusiasm after they take a ride. The proof is in their willingness to put down hard cash. We have 100 collector's edition cars for sale that require a $100,000 up front deposit for purchase and only a few units are left. The buyers are a who's who of Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Forbes 400 members. Next year's Academy Awards will see a lot of Tesla Roadster's being driven. Compared to the Roadster, the Prius is a gas-guzzling hog!

ABG: When did you first ride in the Roadster? What was your drive like?
Musk: Well, I first rode in an early prototype car called the T-Zero from AC Propulsion over three years ago. Although it was very primitive from an automotive standpoint, the T-Zero convinced me that the technological pieces were in place to make an electric car without compromises. Since then, I've driven various stages of the Roadster development, each one better than the last. I consider the Roadster to be the most exhilarating car I've ever driven and I own a McLaren F1! The torque latency of an electric motor is so much better than an internal combustion that it is hard to appreciate without taking a test drive.

ABG: Does the Roadster live up to your expectations? If not, what will be improved in future versions?
Musk: Actually, the Roadster has exceeded my expectations. The big challenge is making all the little pieces work well, as we want this to have zero bugs when it gets delivered to customers. For example, the car has no external door handles or keyholes and instead uses an electronic touchpad on the inside of an aero feature on the door. It looks really cool, but making sure the latch always opens without sticking is surprisingly tough. At some point, we will probably do a GT version of the Roadster. Making a car with 2.9 second 0-60 mph would be awesome :)