Tesla Before Elon: The Untold Story
Today the mere mention of Tesla instantly evokes the image of one man, Elon Musk, the closest real-life equivalent to Tony Stark. You may have heard of him from his plans to take humans to Mars to colonize the planet, or from his boring company, which plans to build a hyperloop between New York and Washington, DC., but for almost everyone, Elon Musk is synonymous with Tesla.
Today’s story, however, isn’t about Elon. Instead, it’s about a man you’ve probably never heard of before, despite the fact that he was the true driving force behind the company. His name, Martin Eberhard. Despite what the mainstream media would have you believe, it was Martin who originally founded Tesla, and this post is dedicated to his story.
Tesla as a By-product of Martin’s Midlife Crisis
The year is 1997. Martin had spent a decade working as an electrical engineer when he met his future business partner, Marc Tarpenning. Several sessions of Magic The Gathering later, the pair were already planning their first business venture, an ebook reader. In just three short years, Nuvomedia, the company they created had sold 20,000 e-readers, and they sold off their stake in it for a comfortable $187 million.
With a bright future ahead of them, the two entrepreneurs decided to shift their focus to electric sports cars. But how does one make the leap from ebook readers to electric sports cars? In one word, divorce. You see, Martin had gotten divorced in 2000, and befitting of any rich 40 year old stuck in a midlife crisis, he wanted to buy himself a sports car.
However, he couldn’t bring himself to buy one of those uncivilized gas guzzlers running wild on the streets. This conundrum got him thinking and eventually, he approached his own buddy Marc with an elegant proposition: building an electric sports car.
The Origins of Tesla
Together in 2003, Martin and Marc began work on what would eventually be the Roadster, the new car of their new company, Tesla. Instead of relying on the traditional engine, Martin and Marc had the groundbreaking idea to utilize lithium-ion batteries, a technology they had discovered in their ebook days, but, of course, building everything from the ground up wasn’t a realistic prospect.
Instead, they’d partnered up with two companies, AC Propulsion, a motor company from California, and Lotus, a British car manufacturer. AC Propulsion had built a small electric car called the tzero, which was fully electric and could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in four seconds, a feat that no other electric car at the time could accomplish. Martin struck a deal with AC Propulsion to use their motor technology, but he still needed an actual car to place the motor in.
This is where Lotus came in. One of their models, the Lotus Elise, ticked all the right boxes: it was small, speedy, and sporty. So Martin and Marc made their way to the Los Angeles auto show, where they kept pestering Lotus until a very polite British man finally gave them the time of day.
Yes, with a car to work on and cutting edge technology to implement, Tesla Motors began development in earnest. By mid 2004 however, the company’s coffers were running dry. Martin and Marc had been able to bootstrap the company for its first year, and they were even able to get some modest investments from a few venture capitalists. But to get the Roadster into production, Tesla needed some serious funds.
Musk Joins Tesla
And I know what you’re thinking, “A car company having trouble getting started; how ironic!”
But that’s where the man, the myth, the legend, Elon Musk comes into play. Musk had just sold PayPal to eBay and was sitting on a nice big pile of money, $7.5 million, which he invested into Tesla after meeting with Martin and Marc. Musk would go on to invest 70 million into Tesla by 2008, but it was still the iconic duo who were at the helm. Thanks to Musk’s initial capital injection, Tesla successfully made a great leap forward in November 2004, when it built its first prototype, a Lotus Elise outfitted with AC Propulsion technology.
The mule, as they called it, ran like a charm and floored the engineers with its performance. Tesla continued its R&D, taking another two years to officially debut the Roadster. Finally, on July 19th, 2006 the product of all that hard work was unveiled in Santa Monica.
The Roadster cost a whopping $100,000, but people were lining up to throw money at Tesla. Within two weeks of the Roadster’s debut, 127 cars had been sold. While Roadsters didn’t actually roll off the production lines until 2008, Tesla was a massive success and the first successful car startup in decades. Internally, however, not all was fine and dandy.
There Can Be Only One
Tensions were building up between Elon and Martin for reasons we will likely never know. All we do know is that in August 2007, Martin got a call from a very nervous sounding Musk. On that call, Martin learned that the Tesla board had met without him and had decided to oust him as CEO. He had been essentially kicked out of his own company. Technically, he’d been demoted to president of technology, but he knew what that really meant.
He later told Business Insider, “I didn’t get to hear what they said. I didn’t get to defend myself. I felt totally stranded.”
He eventually resigned, of course, and so did Marc. In 2009 Martin sued Tesla for attempting to rewrite history, arguing that Musk was trying to take credit for what Martin and Marc had done. The suit also noted that the company was purposely and inaccurately portraying Elon as the founder, which, as we know today, is something almost everyone believes.
Elon, not one to lie down without a fight, filed a countersuit, and later that year Martin dropped the charges.
It appears that he and Musk settled out of court, and that’s probably why the whole affair remains shrouded in mystery. Needless to say, the two no longer speak. Of course, there’s no doubt that both men contributed heavily to Tesla becoming what it is today, but it does seem a bit unfair that Martin has been completely eclipsed by the enigmatic Musk. Perhaps this is the inevitable fate of any company with a charismatic co-founder.
Still, the fact remains that Tesla wouldn’t be the automotive superstar it is today without the brilliance and perseverance of Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, the real heroes of Tesla. Without the partnership of these two men, Tesla wouldn’t exist today, and Elon Musk wouldn’t have had a car to send to Mars.
Today, people barely mention Marc and Martin when they mention Tesla, but you’re not one of those people. So please, give these smart gentlemen 50 claps for their contribution to Tesla! 👏👏
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