Tesla Birth Watch 16: Martin Eberhard Says… FU

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

Martin Eberhard is the dot commer who founded Tesla Motors– and singularly failed to bring his vision to fruition. When Tesla's Bored of Directors gave Eberhard the old heave-ho, the man was pissed. Still is. In fact, Eberhard's newly-launched Tesla Founders Blog is laced with more venom than that Egyptian tomb where Indiana Jones freaked. "Okay, I said this blog is not going to be about criticizing Tesla," Eberhard writes. "But I just have to say something about the bloodbath going on over there right now, because it seems to be going largely unreported in the press." It's a highly ironic media dig, given that the press has reported his[former] company's vaporware with wide-eyed obsequiousness, and that Eberhard's blog is destroying that good will. Anyway, the list of 26 fired employees (roughly 10 percent of Tesla's payroll) must mean Tesla's new new production goal is toast. Could this be a total abortion? Nah. But according to Eberhard "axing nearly the entire executive staff, letting the world’s foremost EV motor engineer go, trimming down the service organization before the job of opening the first service center is done, ripping through the firmware team – and doing it by random firings on a daily basis – are all hard to explain." Well, how about this: they were all shit-canned because they failed to produce a car. In fact, it's a sign of Eberhard's arrogance that he can't draw any connection between his own incompetence and the employees fired in his wake. [thanks to everyone who sent the link]

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Ralph ShpoilShport Ralph ShpoilShport on Jan 13, 2008

    Hey, guys, don't worry! I'm sure they'll get that transmission problem worked out.

  • Bfg9k Bfg9k on Jan 13, 2008

    If the AFS Trinity system works as advertised, why bother with an EV car at all? You'd get your cake (all-electric operation for a long-enough range) and get to eat it too (make long trips when you want).

  • Chuckgoolsbee Chuckgoolsbee on Jan 13, 2008

    Steven Lang, you can find me via email by using my initials @ that domain name you see for my website. --cg http://chuck.goolsbee.org

  • D.Smithee D.Smithee on Jan 14, 2008

    I guess it's hard to suppress a huge ego. Next time produce a damn car!

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