7 ms·

Tesla Motors' history, according to Elon Musk

32 points by johnrob 17y ago

ph0rque 17y ago
Very interesting... despite his best effort, Elon does come off as a passive-agressive, controlling guy IMO.
- jmtame 17y ago
  Disagree. I think he wrote this and stayed professional. He was very understanding of Martin's situation, he never made personal attacks, and stayed factual.
- tptacek 17y ago
  When you buy 98% of a company, you aren't "a controlling guy". You are the controlling guy.
randallsquared 17y ago
"To save legal fees, we just copied the SpaceX articles of incorporation" What?! Such fees must be, at most, a few thousand dollars; it seems really weird that someone worth what Musk is would do this just to save (what is for him) pocket change.
- jdrock 17y ago
  A penny saved is a penny earned, no?
- dbrush 17y ago
  Reusing great paperwork just makes sense.
- bullseye 17y ago
  When Musk was interviewed in Wharton's podcast, one of the key points he pushed was the ability of a startup to keep burn rate low. It appears that his philosophy on spending is genuine, and not just lip service, which I find pretty refreshing.
ckinnan 17y ago
Tesla has taken a $350 million loan from the U.S. government -- that's more than a million bucks from Uncle Sam for every car they have ever sold. The taxpayer gets absolutely no upside on the deal, except the hope that we get our money back, but the millionaire equity owners and the foreign automaker Daimler get unlimited upside. It is another "heads we win, tails you lose" deal from Congress and their cronies.
- vaksel 17y ago
  the least they can do is use that money to make an affordalbe electric car for people. Something with a $25K price tag. It's not like it is impossible to do. Tesla S is $50K...you can probably slash 5-10K by having them use a smaller base vehicle, instead of the Jaguar XF. Smaller base vehicle means you need less batteries. The S weighs 4,000 lbs. so by using something the size of a Civic for the base vehicle, you can probably slash the weight down to 2,500 lbs. Which means you can probably get away with using 4,000 battery cells instead of 8,000. So if they pay $5 per battery cell that's another $20K saved. Bam electric civic sized vehicle, for $25K.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Maybe Tesla should have done a mass-market product, or maybe not, but your argument is exceptionally weak. Iff you're right, and Tesla could get their unit cost down to $25k (a final BMW sticker price, FWIW), they'd still be left with the challenge of bringing a mass-market product to market. They'd have to build a sales and delivery channel, create a supply chain that could sustain the volumes required to run a lower-margin business, and, after all that, be competing in a segment that services value-conscious buyers, many of whom are already confused about the difference between hybrid and PEV. That's iff you're right. But you probably aren't. Because you're swagging materials costs out of thin air when talking about a product that went from $140k in materials alone to $80k in a span of months. That was apparently a harrowing crisis for a product with a six-figure sticker. For a car that would go up against a BMW 3-Series, they'd have no such margin of error. In the end, you have to ask yourself what the world should be getting from Tesla. If it's technology, then who cares who they sell it to first? Why would you ask them to pursue a business model that increases the chances that they'll go out of business before they ship rev2, rev3, and rev4? Why does the final product even need Tesla's badge on it? Maybe, like many other luxury manufacturers, Tesla's badge will always be prohibitively expensive, but their components will OEM to much more cost-effective platforms from Daimler.
jmtame 17y ago
Impressive! And kudos to Elon for coming out in the public to talk about this, even though he didn't need to. Read it start to finish. It's well written, well cited, stays professional and doesn't make personal attacks. If it's true, I have no sympathy for the former CEO, as he really screwed things up. Tesla seems to be in better hands with Musk, who I've always admired personally (which could make me biased, but reading this has confirmed by feeling about it). EDIT: I don't think of myself as too biased. I admire Musk, but Martin Eberhard graduated from Illinois, which is where I go to school. I would see both as innovators, but Martin seems to have stepped way out of line on this one. There is a huge rivalry with UPenn, so I can't claim too much admiration towards Musk ;)
- tjmc 17y ago
  Agreed. It's interesting to compare the tenor of Musk's post with Eberhard's posts on his blog http://www.teslafounders.com http://www.teslafounders.com which IMHO are didactic and often petty.
johnyzee 17y ago
The piece on AutoblogGreen was a somewhat different (and more neutral) account. In case you missed it: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/23/autobloggreen-qanda-tesla-motors-chairman-elon-musk-pt-1-in-th/ http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/23/autobloggreen-qanda-... I have an impression of Elon Musk as a self-aggrandizing money guy, but I admit that it may just be my prejudice showing.

32 points by johnrob 17y ago

ph0rque 17y ago

Very interesting... despite his best effort, Elon does come off as a passive-agressive, controlling guy IMO.

jmtame 17y ago
Disagree. I think he wrote this and stayed professional. He was very understanding of Martin's situation, he never made personal attacks, and stayed factual.
tptacek 17y ago
When you buy 98% of a company, you aren't "a controlling guy". You are the controlling guy.

randallsquared 17y ago

"To save legal fees, we just copied the SpaceX articles of incorporation" What?! Such fees must be, at most, a few thousand dollars; it seems really weird that someone worth what Musk is would do this just to save (what is for him) pocket change.

jdrock 17y ago
A penny saved is a penny earned, no?
dbrush 17y ago
Reusing great paperwork just makes sense.
bullseye 17y ago
When Musk was interviewed in Wharton's podcast, one of the key points he pushed was the ability of a startup to keep burn rate low. It appears that his philosophy on spending is genuine, and not just lip service, which I find pretty refreshing.

ckinnan 17y ago

Tesla has taken a $350 million loan from the U.S. government -- that's more than a million bucks from Uncle Sam for every car they have ever sold. The taxpayer gets absolutely no upside on the deal, except the hope that we get our money back, but the millionaire equity owners and the foreign automaker Daimler get unlimited upside. It is another "heads we win, tails you lose" deal from Congress and their cronies.

vaksel 17y ago
the least they can do is use that money to make an affordalbe electric car for people. Something with a $25K price tag. It's not like it is impossible to do. Tesla S is $50K...you can probably slash 5-10K by having them use a smaller base vehicle, instead of the Jaguar XF. Smaller base vehicle means you need less batteries. The S weighs 4,000 lbs. so by using something the size of a Civic for the base vehicle, you can probably slash the weight down to 2,500 lbs. Which means you can probably get away with using 4,000 battery cells instead of 8,000. So if they pay $5 per battery cell that's another $20K saved. Bam electric civic sized vehicle, for $25K.
- tptacek 17y ago
  Maybe Tesla should have done a mass-market product, or maybe not, but your argument is exceptionally weak. Iff you're right, and Tesla could get their unit cost down to $25k (a final BMW sticker price, FWIW), they'd still be left with the challenge of bringing a mass-market product to market. They'd have to build a sales and delivery channel, create a supply chain that could sustain the volumes required to run a lower-margin business, and, after all that, be competing in a segment that services value-conscious buyers, many of whom are already confused about the difference between hybrid and PEV. That's iff you're right. But you probably aren't. Because you're swagging materials costs out of thin air when talking about a product that went from $140k in materials alone to $80k in a span of months. That was apparently a harrowing crisis for a product with a six-figure sticker. For a car that would go up against a BMW 3-Series, they'd have no such margin of error. In the end, you have to ask yourself what the world should be getting from Tesla. If it's technology, then who cares who they sell it to first? Why would you ask them to pursue a business model that increases the chances that they'll go out of business before they ship rev2, rev3, and rev4? Why does the final product even need Tesla's badge on it? Maybe, like many other luxury manufacturers, Tesla's badge will always be prohibitively expensive, but their components will OEM to much more cost-effective platforms from Daimler.

jmtame 17y ago

Impressive! And kudos to Elon for coming out in the public to talk about this, even though he didn't need to. Read it start to finish. It's well written, well cited, stays professional and doesn't make personal attacks. If it's true, I have no sympathy for the former CEO, as he really screwed things up. Tesla seems to be in better hands with Musk, who I've always admired personally (which could make me biased, but reading this has confirmed by feeling about it). EDIT: I don't think of myself as too biased. I admire Musk, but Martin Eberhard graduated from Illinois, which is where I go to school. I would see both as innovators, but Martin seems to have stepped way out of line on this one. There is a huge rivalry with UPenn, so I can't claim too much admiration towards Musk ;)

tjmc 17y ago
Agreed. It's interesting to compare the tenor of Musk's post with Eberhard's posts on his blog http://www.teslafounders.com http://www.teslafounders.com which IMHO are didactic and often petty.

johnyzee 17y ago

The piece on AutoblogGreen was a somewhat different (and more neutral) account. In case you missed it: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/23/autobloggreen-qanda-tesla-motors-chairman-elon-musk-pt-1-in-th/ http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/23/autobloggreen-qanda-... I have an impression of Elon Musk as a self-aggrandizing money guy, but I admit that it may just be my prejudice showing.