Erik Nordeus - The Engineer

Armed with two engineering degrees from Stanford University, Straubel joined Rosen Motors where he met Harold Rosen who was one of the founders. Rosen had previously worked within the space industry and he’s considered to be the father of the geosynchronous satellite. Straubel and Rosen left Rosen Motors and founded Volacom where they helped the company Scaled Composites – the same company that won the Ansari X Prize. 39

Straubel and Rosen sat now at the lunch table together with Elon. The topic of the day was space, but they also talked about general topics. Elon mentioned how he came to California to work on a new battery technology for electric vehicles, and how he became interested in them before global warming became a hot topic. Maybe they laughed when Elon said he talked about cars with girls he dated. “And we talked about lithium-ion and what that meant for electric vehicle range.” Elon said. “The EV1 had a range of about 120 miles [190 km] or so with nickel metal hydride and so if you did a direct substitution of lithium-ion for nickel metal hydride, which has directly two times the energy density you get to around a 240–250 mile range, which would be acceptable to people.” 199It’s true because nearly eighty percent of all Americans drive less than 40 miles [64 km] a day. 59

They began talking about AC Propulsion. Straubel, who had friends working at AC Propulsion, mentioned that the company developed early prototypes of electric sports cars, and the performance of these cars was good. After Elon told him he wanted to learn more, Straubel arranged a meeting with AC Propulsion so Elon could drive the tzero.

Despite the car’s disadvantages, Elon liked the ideas behind the tzero. He said it was a really awesome vehicle. For several months, Elon tried to convince AC Propulsion to accept funding from him to commercialize the tzero by creating an electric sports car for the mass market. But AC Propulsion was a small company. They wanted to tinker and experiment with their vehicles before they commercialized it, so they declined the offer. AC Propulsion also declined to sell a tzero to Elon and convert his Porsche to electric drive. 199

What Elon could do was to buy an eBox. While Hanks liked the car, Elon didn’t like the idea to convert the Toyota Scion xB. The basic vehicle cost $20 000, the electric conversion cost $45 000, so you had to pay $65 000 for the final vehicle. “Who wants to take an ugly $20 000 car and buy it for $65 000?” Elon asked. “That’s not a very viable strategy. I wouldn’t want to drive it. My wife certainly wouldn’t want to drive it. I said, ‘Look, I wouldn’t even drive an electric Scion if it was free.’ I mean, it’s OK as a car, but come on.” 4,209

Elon told AC Propulsion that if they didn’t want to manufacture an electric vehicle for the mass market, then he would do it on his own. “Do you want to meet Martin, Marc, and Ian?” AC Propulsion asked Elon. 199

Martin Eberhard was born in 1960 in California and at age thirteen, he drove his first car. With a degree in computer and electric engineering from the University of Illinois, he had founded several companies. 209

In 1996, Eberhard co-founded NuvoMedia together with Marc Tarpenning. He was born in 1964 in California and earned a degree in computer science from the University of California. After graduating, he spent the next five years in the oil-rich nation of Saudi Arabia where he worked at Textron – an American company involved in a wide range of products, including electric golf carts.

It was when he was working in Saudi Arabia that Tarpenning discovered the oil industry’s darker sides. “The amount of treasure that is sent to the Middle East to supply our oil addiction is astonishing,” he said. “And it doesn’t necessarily do good things there and it doesn’t do good things for us, and that got me thinking that oil is not so great.” 453

In 2000, Eberhard and Tarpenning sold their company to Gemstar for $187 million. 71Now they wanted to create a new company. “We knew we wanted to solve a real problem,” Tarpenning said. “We just couldn’t do another network widget.” They researched a wide range of major problems, including water scarcity and income inequality. “So we looked at these big problems, and there are a lot of big problems out there, but the one that we took was oil,” Tarpenning said. 453

The reason why they thought oil was the major problem is because oil causes several other problems, including global warming, political problems, and economical problems. “If you can reduce your dependency on oil everything gets easier,” Tarpenning said. 453

When US refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, Eberhard was embarrassed, and he was concerned about how US had to import oil from troublesome countries. This was when primarily US troops for the second time in twelve years invaded Iraq. 205“To me, the only way that I can be successful at something is to work at something I actually care about,” Eberhard said. “This time around, the something meaningful I care about was oil consumption. It was clear to me that we had to do something about our oil consumption, both from a global warming perspective and from a national security perspective.” 355

To calm his nerves, he tried to buy an electric car. But he realized he couldn’t find one to buy. “So I was considering some of the electric cars that were on the market,” Eberhard said. “I didn’t particularly like them, but I thought about maybe I would convince myself to get one. And just about when I had talked myself into that, they disappeared from the market.” He realized not a single car company in America tried to design a decent electric car. 200

While not petting his Siamese cat, Eberhard cruised around in California. He saw how wealthy people, including actor Clint Eastwood, drove the environmental friendly Toyota Prius only because they cared about the environment. The gasoline price was in 2003 low, so they didn’t drive it to save money. 196“Every time I get into my Prius, I feel like I’m demonstrating my point of view on national security,” the talent agent, Ari Emanuel, said when he replaced his Ferrari with a Prius. 346

When the Prius drivers returned home, they also had a Porsche or a similar expensive gasoline car parked in their garage. Eberhard realized a market existed for a sports car with the same performance as a Porsche and at the same time was more environmental friendly than the Prius – a Porschius as he called it. 345The average income of the EV1 drivers was above $200 000 per year. Since they couldn’t drive the EV1 anymore, maybe they would buy a Porschius? Or maybe they needed an electric motorcycle? But the market for such as bike wasn’t as interesting as the market for electric cars. 453

The Prius had both a battery and a gasoline engine, but the battery couldn’t charge when the owner parked the car. “Without plug-in capability, a hybrid is just a gasoline powered car with some fancy hardware,” Eberhard said. He nicknamed the Prius dork mobile . Elon had the same ideas. “You could have the entire country driving the Prius and we’d still be addicted to oil,” Elon said. “When you create a hybrid, you’re designing an amphibian – and an amphibian is going to be a worse fish than a fish, and a worse mouse than a mouse or whatever creature you want to pick.” 197Elon nicknamed the Prius gas-guzzling hog .

Eberhard and Tarpenning examined the electric car market, mainly with the help of a Google search and by ordering brochures on eBay. They came to the same conclusions as Elon had when he did a similar market research. Electric power is the future because electricity gives you the highest efficiency and performance compared with other alternatives. 345Hydrogen fuel-cells, natural gas, hybrid technologies, and diesel were all dismissed as competitive alternatives. 196“What surprised me was that electric cars were substantially more efficient than everything else out there,” Eberhard said. 205