Tesla Death Watch 24: Tesla Founder Their Own Worst Enemy

by Robert Farago

October 15th, 2008 8:49 AM

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tesla death watch 24 tesla founder their own worst enemy

Note to Silicon Valley automotive start-ups: include a “shut the Hell up for the rest of your life” clause in your employment contracts and hire a couple of razor-toothed lawyers to enforce it. To wit: diss-missed Tesla Motors’ founder Martin Eberhard has been blabbing on his “ Founder’s Blog” recently, and you couldn’t ask for a worse “champion” for the company’s 100 grand-plus Roadster. “Soon after I got my car, I noticed a funny thing: the ESS coolant pump seems to run all the time. Even when the car is off. Even if it has been off for a long time. Even when the car is plenty cool. You can hear it run, and many people have commented about the noise of the pump and the noise of coolant gurgling into the overflow reservoir. The Tesla people tell me that when the battery is half-way discharged, and the car is off, and the ESS is cool, then the pump will shut off. Fine. But my average daily drive is less than 60 miles, and I have only driven far enough to drain half the battery 4 times since I got my car three months ago. So, except a few hours on these four occasions, this poor pump has been running 24 hours per day, 7 days a week for three months solid… Here is the kicker: 22 percent of the energy consumed by my car happens while my car is parked! Twenty two percent. Imagine that.” Easy enough. And I get the implications for battery and pump life. We’ve long maintained that Tesla is long on hype, short on engineering. What I don’t understand is why anyone would put Gulf racing colors on an EV. Post-modern irony?

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Wolven on Oct 15, 2008

Campisi: "Flaming", in case you hadn't noticed, is what Farago does for a living. (Just ask the auto makers) And I, (just one of many) happen to really appreciate what he does and the skill and art with which he does it... and he knows that. Furthermore, Farago is a big boy. Big enough to take my less than politically correct comments. He's also perfectly capable of removing and blocking my posts if I get too far out of line. In spite of my question, I actually agree with Farago 80% of the time. But his dislike of the only auto company actually making an electric vehicle while at the same time supporting the enviromentalista's on most every other issue I find confusing.

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Campisi on Oct 15, 2008
“Flaming”, in case you hadn’t noticed, is what Farago does for a living. I'm very much aware of that; hell, technically I'm one of his employees. Furthermore, Farago is a big boy. Big enough to take my less than politically correct comments. He’s also perfectly capable of removing and blocking my posts if I get too far out of line. I couldn't care less about whether or not you upset Farago. :p I'm just trying to help you out before you inadvertently step over a ledge you weren't quite expecting. But his dislike of the only auto company actually making an electric vehicle while at the same time supporting the enviromentalista’s on most every other issue I find confusing. There are plenty of other companies that build electric cars. In fact, reviews for two such cars are in the hopper. He's just sticking to the guns he loaded back when the Tesla Roadster was just vapourware.

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Wolven on Oct 15, 2008
I hate the hype perpetuated by the people who produce it. eeaaauuuhhh... well... maybe. But, just to be fair, how else are you going to get people to give you a few (O.K., more than a few) million dollars to actually build something. Plus remember, these are silicon valley brats where "hype" is what sells everything. While I have serious doubts as to the validity of hooking a billion pacemaker batteries together to produce an automotive heartbeat, hey, I gotta admit, they at least got it to work long enough to film a few promo videos and sell one to Leno. More importantly, they gave it some style and are aiming at real performance as well. So in my opinion, they are going in the right direction. Unlike the used prophilactic styling and performance of the Pri(ck)us and the (re)Volt. What do you mean by an "independent expert"?

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Steronz on Oct 16, 2008

Wolven -- Tesla has, from day 1, made grandiose claims about range, recharge time, and performance. None of these claims have been sufficiently tested by an independent 3rd party, and the limited media exposure that test cars have received has indicated that these grandiose claims have no basis in reality. Furthermore, their claims don't jive well with physics, or with the performance numbers for existing EVs. And on top of that, this is a brand new company with 0 experience building cars prior to this one, hell, with 0 experience engineering anything, and there's no real reason to trust their claims. So it's frustrating for the media and fanboys to tout this car's numbers over and over and over again, when all indications are that they're make believe. I think the editors of TTAC would agree with me when I say that I'd love to see this car meet all the expectations Tesla have built up for it and change the world. But at the same time, I just wish they'd come out and say that the 220 mile range is bogus, that it's more like 75 miles when you're driving it with spirit, etc.

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