By Edward Niedermeyer
November 25, 2008
Inside Line recently got a friendly call from a Tesla spokesperson who was positively bursting with the good news: Porsche had purchased a Tesla Roadster. And though its always nice to make a sale, the Tesla flack was clearly more interested in the PR benefits of Porsche engineers studying the $120k roadster. “A Porsche senior engineer actually came over a few weeks back, and he was seriously analyzing the car in every detail,” dishes the Tesla source. Separately, a “German source” tells Inside Line that Porsche is “none too pleased” with the recently-released eRuf, a lithium-ion-powered electric Carrera. So what does this all add up to? Porsche’s building a lithium-ion sportscar. After all, they’re not buying a Tesla to study their customer service. According to the Tesla spokesperson, Porsche’s order is “pretty far down on the list of current orders.” Chances are we’ll see an EV Porsche on the Nordschleife before Tesla makes its way down that notoriously interminable waiting list.
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POWERED
November 25th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Are corporations usually so blatant about their attempts to reverse engineer a product?
And is the victim company usually so pleased?
November 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am
well this certainly is interesting. Maybe tesla wants to get bought.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
@toxicroach:
Yes they are so blatant about it. As a matter of fact, the different car companies usually just send out their cars to every competitor free of charge as soon as it comes out.
Different topic: Why are the comments on the other Porsche story closed?
November 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Heh.. For a second I actually thought the headline was “Porsche Buys Tesla, Waits”. Silly me and my eyes that move too fast..
November 25th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
In defense of Tesla, they are being open about the car’s problems and slowly releasing the cars to make sure that everything is right.
The alternative choice would be to quickly roll out the cars even though though they have a number of problems and then cover up those problems: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wild-ass-rumor-of-the-day-porsche-boxster-engine-failures/
November 25th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I have a Cayman S as my daily car and when I first heard of the Tesla, I wanted one. I hope that Porsche is looking strongly in the direction of producing an E Porsche. It would make lots of sense as I imagine most Porsches are driven short distances and not doing much cross country touring.
BTW, I just got this email about the upcoming plug-in E Mini Cooper.
http://www.miniusa.com/?#/learn/minimalism/MINIE-m
November 25th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Porsche can engineering and manufacture rings around Tesla any day it chooses to do so.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Porsche can engineering and manufacture rings around Tesla any day it chooses to do so.
Pity, then, that they’ve been choosing not to do so.
No, seriously. Between hamstringing the Cayman, subcontracting the Cayenne and, well, we’ll see about the Panamera, Porsche is getting closer and closer to phoning it in.
November 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
@tom: Mistake. Damn server acting up. Fixed. Open for ur comments
November 26th, 2008 at 4:11 am
This and the “Ferrari checking out Corvette ZR1″ news must be crushing the balls of those flooded with “foreign superiority” hogwash.