You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been away from the blog for a while. I’ve been a bit busy lately, but I knew you would enjoy reading other perspectives from the Tesla Motors staff.
Tesla Motors is definitely a cast of characters – passionate about our mission, strong opinions, interesting backgrounds. I have never before worked with […]

Wally Rippel is a long-time proponent of electric vehicles. Prior to joining Tesla Motors, he was an engineer at AeroVironment, where he helped develop the EV1 for General Motors and was featured in the documentary movie, Who Killed the Electric Car? Wally has also worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on electric vehicle battery research, […]

Jon Faiz Kayyem, PhD, is a Managing Partner of Efficacy Capital, which manages a biotech public equities fund. He previously founded Clinical Micro Sensors, now an operating subsidiary of U.K.-based Osmetech. The firm uses advanced electronics and biochemistry to create electronic detectors of specific DNA sequences. Since 1997, Dr. Kayyem has been awarded 31 U.S. […]

Editor’s note: Our last blog, Good Vibrations, chronicled some of the safety and durability tests we’ve been running on the Tesla Roadster. It prompted a number of questions, particularly related to climate control. So we convinced Brian, who is fully booked during regular business hours overseeing the tests, to postpone his holiday shopping a little […]

Imagine yourself strapped into a Tesla Roadster speeding down a rough cobblestone path intended to cause so much agitation that the ride stops being fun and starts becoming more like work. It’s just a typical day at the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), an engineering and testing facility where we are punishing two of our […]

Tesla Motors wasn’t planning to attend an auto show this year. We had a simple marketing plan: viral marketing, public relations, and a great website. But a sequence of extraordinary events changed everything.
It started with an exclusive article in Wired Magazine’s August issue. And it continued with our launch event at Barker Hangar in Santa […]

By now most people know that the Tesla Roadster is powered by Lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries. But here are a few things about our batteries you might not have heard. Our battery system – or Energy Storage System, as we like to call it – is comprised of 6,831 individual Li-ion cells. It’s roughly […]

At its heart, Tesla Motors is an engineering company. We get invited to a variety of events because of our technical expertise as well as a general interest in what we are doing and how we are doing it. I often get asked what it is like to work at Tesla Motors and to describe […]

Don Cox is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and the Harald Trap Friis distinguished chair at Stanford University. He spent 25 years at Bell Laboratories and Bellcore developing revolutionary technology for what is now referred to as “cellular phones.” He has served on the board or as an officer of several Silicon Valley public companies […]

How fast is it? That’s a common question we get at events where the Tesla Roadster is on display. To ensure that the Tesla Roadster is the right car for the prospective customer, we prefer to answer the “how fast” question with two additional questions:

What kind of fast are you looking for?
How skilled are you […]