Sorry, I guess my post really sounded like a rant. I am a software developer, so a can imagine the amount of work and time you are pouring into these forums. But as hard as it sounds, a great amount of work does not necessary result in a great and successful site or forum. One other big thing is focus. Without it unfortunately, great amount of work will only go to waste.
The original site had focus. It wasn't about electric cars. It was about Tesla and Tesla Roadster like there are BMW forums, Lotus forums, Honda forums etc. It was a place where people fascinated by what Tesla had done and is doing could easily met, speculate and inform each other. It is fine to have sections about other more general topics as long those sections do not prevail over the main sections. The original configuration of Tesla Motors Club was generally ok. Anyone coming there anew could easily figure out what it was all about and how and where to navigate.
Then there was the other forum - Electric performance, that wasn't about any particular company or car, it was about technology. Joining both of them together made the club disappear because the technology is a higher concept then one particular product or company. It became just another section amongst many.
My (constructive?) suggestions are thus:
1. The club
Decide wether or not you will keep this "club thing". If yes, then it needs - no, demands - its own domain.
www.teslamotorsclub.com was great. Three subfolders deep into electricperformance.com makes it look unimportant, an afterthought. Try to come up with distinctive graphics. Again, original graphics was great. The current graphics is generic - doesn't mean anything, no soul, just "yet another forum". If you won't do it, sooner or later someone else will and all Tesla affectionados will go there.
2. The Sections
Keep them to minimum and not more than 2 or 3 levels deep. Do not try too hard to envision what sections will be needed. Start with a few and add them when necessity is evident.
3. The Users
I understand you saw same people being registered twice and tried to ease the usage of the forums for them. But not all users have same interests and passions. Try to understand this: Cars trigger emotional response and Tesla Roadster triggered a very strong one. A club of enthusiast was about to form this or the other way. Your original site came in just about the right time and in the right form. It had potential to grow around Tesla Motors enthusiasts that are not necessarily technically oriented. I suspect users coming from Electric Performance were a bit different. They were a technology people that also found interest in the Roadster. Those two groups are not to be seen as one.
4. The Forum
I would try to organize it like a forum made out of two subforums:
- Tesla Motors Club
- Electric Performance
There would be three domains:
- one for the top forum containing the topmost sections from both subforums
- one for tesla motors club
- one for electric performance
I would give them distinctive graphics. The Club would only have sections directed toward Tesla Motors, lets say:
- The Company
- The Roadster
- The Future (WhiteStar, BlueStar, ...)
Anything not about Tesla would go to Electric Performance forum (other companies, future technologies, offtopic, etc).
Why I hadn't complained before? I usually do not speak on first thing that bothers me. I give time to see where things are really going. I enjoyed the old forum, but here I feel lost. I feel like I lost a great place to share ideas and excitement.
Dean