One fierce debate was whether the Roadster should have headlight covers or not. "My opinion," says Musk, "was that if we had uncovered headlights it would look like a kit car—a little cheesy." Eberhard pointed out that the change would cost half a million dollars. Musk said he'd pay.
Eberhard had no problems with the doorsill, but Musk did. It was difficult to step up into the car, so high and thick was the sill. At Musk's insistence, the engineers redesigned it, narrowing it and lowering it by two inches. It was Musk, too, who refused to use those hard-shell Elise seats. A carbon-fiber body replaced the fiberglass one. "On some of these changes I had to be quite forceful," Musk admits, "because Martin [Eberhard] didn't want to spend the money."
