Tesla Motors History

[Timothy]

Does anyone know if a history of the origin of the Tesla Motors company is available? And how they decided to use the name Tesla?

As an aside, my wife has insisted on watching three movies about Nikola Tesla available on Netflix and has almost finished reading a book about him--an incredible person--a great choice for the name of the car.

Added bonus trivia question: Who was the first president to ride in an electric car?

 

[Bearman]

William McKinley in 1901. An electric ambulance transported him after he was shot by a deranged anarchist.

 

[TEG]

Does anyone know if a history of the origin of the Tesla Motors company is available? And how they decided to use the name Tesla?...

Named after Nikola, of course.
Tesla Motors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

...Tesla Motors is named after electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla. The Tesla Roadster uses an AC motor descended directly from Tesla's original 1882 design...

Tesla Motors

...Tesla Motors was incorporated in Delaware on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning to pursue mass production of AC Propulsion's tzero prototype electric car...

 

[Timothy]

William McKinley in 1901. An electric ambulance transported him after he was shot by a deranged anarchist.

Hmmm... Didn't know about that. This is what I found on Wikipedia about the first president riding in a car 'in public--Teddy Roosevelt (semantics!):

In August 1902, Roosevelt was the first president to be seen riding in an automobile in public.[52] This took place in Hartford, CT. The car was a Columbia Electric Victoria Phaeton, manufactured in Hartford. The police squad rode bicycles alongside the car. (The reference includes a photo of the event.)

Dead Presidents Daily: August 22, 1902:The First Presidential Motorcade

"The car in which Roosevelt rode was a Columbia Electric Victoria Phaeton. At this early stage in the industry’s development, about half of America’s automobiles were electric, with most of the rest running on steam and a small fraction being internal-combustion. (President McKinley’s first auto ride, back in 1899, had been in a steam-driven Locomobile piloted by its inventor, F. O. Stanley, in Washington, D.C.)

 

[Timothy]

Named after Nikola, of course.
Tesla Motors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I guess I was interested in the back room stuff before an official history like great summary you provided on Wikipedia. I mean there were no electric cars after the EV1 was squished. I wonder how a few guys with interest and $$$ got together and what thought processes they went through to even dream they could design and build and electric car and make it succeed?

Tesla of course is a very appropiate name for the car. But what other ideas were tossed out and what thought process did they go through to decide on 'Tesla.'

I went to Edison Elementary School in San Francisco long ago--and, of course, Tesla was never mentioned!

 

[TEG]

Listening to this might give you some background:
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1816

From what I gather/recollect:
#1: Reducing oil consumption was the goal, many options were considered, 100% BEV was found to be the most logical choice.
#2: Plan from the beginning was to make a performance vehicle that showed everyone that EVs can be desirable.

 

[vfx]

Search "History" in thread titles on this site. There are a few attempts to doucment the early days pre 2008. Martin was a fan of Tesla and reserved the URL Teslamotors.com as soon as he and Marc thought of it.

Tesla Rumors has a decent history even it's heavily Elon-centric. The winners write the history.

 

[mlascano]

I found this thread useful: Chronicling Tesla's history

 

[Timothy]

All--

Thanks for the tips. I spent this evening learning about Tesla Motors from all your suggestions. Funny, I bought my roadster a year ago--but certainly as a relatively late adopter having not followed the company from its inception knew very little about the origin compared to the group of you. I'm doing my best to catch up!

 

[KBF]

The official Tesla Motors site was awesome when Martin was still around. He answered people directly on the forums and the transparency was one thing that drew me to the company. The forum there changed a LOT and that's when I came over here. Quite the journey!

 

[dsm363]

When did they start taking orders and when were the first ones delivered? I thought they started taking orders in early 2006 and started deliveries in mid 2008?
Stores aren Tech News and Analysis
Denise here says she waited 5 years for her Roadster.

 

[Bradleybang]

5 year wait- no
tire balancing under warranty- no
Denise Cole is a troll - yes

 

[TEG]

Tesla Roadster unveiled in Santa Monica
(July 20, 2006)

Tonight's unveiling was also an invitation to purchase the Roadster when it is released in mid-2007...

But it got delayed, and deliveries didn't start until 2008...

Driving P1 | Blog | Tesla Motors

On February 1, 2008 Tesla Motors handed over the keys of the first production Roadster (P1) to Elon Musk, Chairman and now a proud Roadster owner...

Initial production was "choppy" and it took them a long time to finally catch up to the pre-orders.

 

[vfx]

5 year wait- no
tire balancing under warranty- no
Denise Cole is a troll - yes

Her post is a crock.
First, the most anyone has ever waited was a bit over two years.
1.5, Tesla cleared the backlog of orders almost 3 years ago.
Second, You can't buy a "Brand New" Roadster as they were discontinued in the US on Jan1st.
Third, The wheels and suspension are stock Lotus parts. You can get an alignment anywhere. The Los Angeles store sends alignments to a local tire shop.
Fourth, Alignments are not covered under warranty.


A store/service in Atlanta would be nice for locals though.

.....

 

[TEG]

Martin Eberhard & Marc Tarpenning, Founders Of Tesla, Talk EVs

 

[Timothy]

Fabulous! Thank you TEG. Well worth the hour and 20 minutes (Well, maybe not for you engineers, but for us mortals anyway!) Learned a lot I didn't know about Tesla and electric cars in general--in spite of owning a Tesla for six years already!