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I am very proud to be joining Tesla at this exciting time in the company’s growth curve. We are preparing for the delivery of our 100th customer car in the next week or two, and 2009 promises to be a fantastic year for the company.
Having been a “car nut” all my life, I have a great passion and enthusiasm about what Tesla can bring to both the driver (enjoyable yet responsible car ownership) and the car industry (a new way of doing things, not burdened by the past).
I have a bit of a history in cars. Early in my career, I worked for Nissan, Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Over the years I’ve also owned more cars than I care to remember, including a fair few Italian classics. I’ve dabbled at car racing (badly), and I consider myself very fortunate to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time behind the wheel of a Tesla in the near future.
For the last twelve years I worked at Harley-Davidson, most recently as head of European operations. If there’s one thing I’ve learned at Harley-Davidson, it is the knowledge that great brands are only created when there is a real and lasting emotional connection between the company and its customers. That is what my team and I are here to deliver: We want to continue to understand what customers want in their Tesla, and then we plan to exceed their expectations and deliver a great ownership experience.
In the Roadster, we have a car that is way ahead of any other electric production car on the market. In our customers, we have advocates and enthusiasts who want Tesla to succeed in a challenging economic environment. That support is much appreciated. I know that innovation is never easy — but it’s also exciting and necessary.
In addition to the continued focus on Roadster deliveries in the United States, I will focus in the short term on the establishment of more U.S. service centers (particularly on the East Coast), and preparations for the first European customer deliveries in May 2009.
I very much appreciate your support and enthusiasm for Tesla, and look forward to meeting many of you in person at a Tesla event or showroom, or exchanging ideas in the blogosphere. This is a thrilling time to be joining Tesla, and I’m looking forward to the ride.
Michael van der Sande
Senior Vice President
Global Sales, Marketing and Service
congratulations and welcome, Michael. i am sure the next several months will be exciting and challenging. recently tesla has been taking some criticism in the press for being the electric car for rich people. but i have to say that the world is rooting for you, not just because the electric car is necessary for our environment but because tesla represents the little guy as well (the little car that could). i too have spent my career around and in some fabulous cars. i have helped create the brands for volvo, infiniti and was even involved with the launch of ev1. my advice to you (if you allow me to offer it) is to never forget that human connection to the brand. as cool as the technology gets, as sexy as the design becomes, the place your brand can occupy in the hearts and dreams of your audience (and to a certain extent America and the world) will be the most valuable. i envy you in your current position and look for great things in the future. Good luck!
Hello Michael,
great to here that you joined the company and be aware off the European market. I ordered already a Roadster (#59 of the European 2009 edition) and hope the communication to us European customers will be improved.
Regards, Geert
Great to see more PetrolHeads in the mix.
According to the Top Gear definition of ‘Car Nut’ or PetrolHead, you will have to have owned an Alfa. You claim to have had a few Italian classics so we ask, has an Alfa Romeo ever graced your driveway?
MPT
PlanetTesla.com
I’m curious to know what “more U.S. service centers” means. Is that service centers in the areas we already know are coming (New York, Chicago, Miami and Seattle) or additional locations? If the former, does that mean that Chicago and/or Seattle have been moved to the back burner in favor of New York and Miami?
Tom Saxton
Welcome! Tesla is a great company that I admire deeply. I have no doubt you’ll do great things there, considering your passion and enthusiasm for the brand.
Hello and welcome.
You wrote:” I very much appreciate your support and enthusiasm for Tesla, and look forward to meeting many of you in person at a Tesla event or showroom, or exchanging ideas in the blogosphere”
Here is one idea: in order to expand potential Roadster range could you build/rent/negotiate/maintain some lightweight charging stations near and between Roadster owners so that they could charge their cars in longer trips? Some hotel/restaurant chain could be interested about those if they get some money from those. Some boosted home charging unit would be enough. Then rent them to Roadster users that would want to use them. I don’t care if charging takes three hours, I would just drive 11 hours instead of 8.
Too bad I can’t meet you or anybody else unless I get to go US for some work-related trip and that happens to be close of one of those events. I don’t need a toy car, so I wouldn’t buy Roadster even if it would cost half what it does, but I’m certainly interested about model S. If it has same range as Roadster I would need one of those charging stations between my home and my parents and sister homes. And I would be using it nearly weekly if I had model S.
Michael - Welcome to Tesla. There’s a whole heap of people, especially technogeeks and green/sustainability enthusiasts counting on Tesla, and you, to bring electric cars to the mainstream. The changes over the last year at Tesla have been a bit eye-opening and left some people scratching their heads… but at the end of the day - We Want Electric Cars! So there is still as big a following as ever watching, waiting, hoping, and supporting Tesla in its mission. When you need help, come back to us in the blog. Good luck in all your efforts!
Hi Michael,
Ik probeer het even in het Nederlands - Gefeliciteerd met je aanstelling.
Ik ben een believer van het eerste uur en reserveerde dan ook zeer vroeg mijn exemplaar.
Ik was zeer verheugd te horen dat de Tesla ook in Europa zou gehomologeerd worden.
Ik hoop dat ik in de lente een van de eerste in Belgie zal zij die electrisch kan ’scheuren’.
mjw
Goede Morgen Michael,
Good to see a Nijenrode University Alumnus at Tesla and congratulations on your new and exciting position. I believe I was in the IMBA class the year after you. I look forward to meeting you again, as I am the first Tesla owner in Holland. Let’s see what we can do to promote Tesla in The Netherlands. All the best and lots of success. Bob
I’ve always thought Harley-Davidson would be a great company to get into the electric car business. They have the resources, they wouldn’t be competing with their own existing products, they have experience in turning profit on small/mid scale production runs. Additionally they have a brand name. And while it would be a fair departure from their traditional product, it would be in keeping with the pioneering direction that the compnay founded on (they were among the first makers of commercially viable motorcycles).
I would be interesting if your connections were to produce that kind of synergy, that would be a partnership that would propel Tesla and Harley-Davidson quickly in terms of American automobile manufacturers. Given the weakness shown by the big 3 in leading electric conversion of the transportation mechanics the opportunity exists to supplant them from the top.
I have just read in the December 3 - 9 issue of Auto Express UK (page 22) that “Porsche’s engineers have shelled out £100,000 on their very own Tesla Roadster for ‘research purposes’.”
So it seems Porsche think the Roadster is an electric sports car worthy of their attention and thus consider Tesla a serious competitor in their market niche.
The Tesla roadster seems well ahead in electric vehicle development.
I feel that I may be able to make a significant contribution in the area of charging the battery.
After a lifetime in motor industry research in Europe and the UK, I have developed a traffic control system with the aid of a DTI grant and help from Imperial College London.
It is a spin-off from that which I firmly believe can be developed into a non-contact charging battery charging system.
I’m glad Tesla is adding an accomplished man to the team.
Something Siry did, extremely rare for companies, was how accessible he was. He had a twitter, he blogged, he commented. It would be great to see you be doing that also. Congratulations on the job and good luck.
Isn’t Porsche owned by VW? That would mean that one of the big Europeans (that has made Bugatti Veyron) is also waking up in electric future. VW is actually third largest of all car manufacturers, so if they make EV then Tesla has a big competitor.
….hmmm…. wiki says that it’s pretty much other way around, Porsche owns nearly majority of VW stocks. Anyway, if Porsche is interested in making EV I would be interested in result. Especially since I probably can actually get one then. Or that Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MIEV. It would be fun to make my friends look for engines in that
Another 10x nanobattery:
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/w-csi112008.php
www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121520011/PDFSTART
This is nano silicon “sponge”, not nanowire, so now there is two ways to produce 10x capacity anode. And this one is even better than silicon nanowire, and it seems that production methods have been developed as well.
Re: Tesla leads the way
A very interesting piece from the BBC.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7691807.stm
Peter J Hedge
Victoria, BC
Welcome Sir: I hope you can help make TMC a going concern. I worry about the company’s ability to sustain it sedan development effort during this recession. I have a technical question: What is the front to rear weight ratio of the roadster chassis?
Michael, welcome onboard and good luck continuing the great work Darryl did in establishing the brand.
I would like to welcome you as the new face of Tesla as well. I hope we will see some news on Tesla’s stores and service centers in Europe soon as well. Personally I’m curious when you will be coming to Norway. I would also second Josephs comment that Siry was very approchable, and I especially liked the fact that he was using Twitter actively.
Sindre
I just saw the Tesla featured in a tv documentary, and im very impressed.
Visiting the website I suddenly see a (former?) Dutch just joined the company. Nice !
I wish you alot of fun and succes in the new position.
Personally, I cannot wait to see the other models, as i think there will be a great future for this kind of transportation also for the average joe’s in this world.
As for extra products, i would suggest also making some sort of charging station with solar cells.
Unfortunatly Im not yet in a financial position to order me a Tesla, if you need any European test drivers, get in touch !
Jarno Hoogland
Austria / Holland
I just checked if there is a Top Gear TV episode with Tesla Roadster. Apparently there isn’t, but there was a lot of very good comments about it.
What made me drool was mental image of “electric Furai”. There was a one part which said that Type S design is nearly complete. And that there might be SUV, hatchback, race etc. versions based on Type S.
So: Is there anything you (or someone else in Tesla team) can reveal us of the Type S? Goal range? Performance? Anything?
NO CATALYTIC CONVERTER
I would like to see Tesla add “No catalytic converter” to its home page credits - 100% electric, 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, etc.
Some background is necessary here. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s-70s and clearly remember the low ground level pollution that pre-catalytic converter vehicles produced. I remember riding in the family station wagon(!) on freeways around the bay area and when pollution was bad you could not see beyond a quarter mile, if that, because of gas and diesel vehicle produced ground-level pollution. While catalytic converters have since “burned off” that low-level pollution, it is at an equal if not higher price. I understand that gasoline combustion takes place at about 193 degrees. Exhaust gas heat from the engine warms up the catalytic converter and by design it raises to its operating temperature in the 600 to 700 hundred degree range. Even if you use the low end temperature of 600 degrees, while we have reduced low level atmospheric vehicle pollution we are also raising the temperature of the volume of the air used by a given vehicle from roughly 200 degrees pre-catalytic to 600+ degrees post-catalytic! Exhaust at 200 degrees is global atmospheric warming. Exhaust at 600+ degrees is global atmospheric burning.
I also think it would make for an excellent study - university or corporate (Stanford/Tesla?) - to estimate the total volume of atmosphere heated to 600 degrees by traffic produced in a given locale or worldwide by motor vehicles.
Please add “No catalytic converter” to your list of opening credits! I hope someday to be able to afford a Tesla!
Paul
What is the smallest version of the electric motor that could be put into the Tesla and still get the car around well? Don’t need 200+ horsepower, only need 30-40hp at most since the vehicle is so light. This might bring the battery pack down to
Engine size doesn’t really matter much. What matters is its efficiency, and Tesla engine is very efficient. Unlike gasoline engines large electric engine is actually more efficient than a small one. If you drive at constant speed you are using only tiny fraction of the full capacity of the engine, so range isn’t affected by engine potential power, just its efficiency. 240 miles at 60mph with 53kWh battery means 240/60=4hours 53kWh/4=13.25kW or about 18hp.
This high efficiency/low weight thing creates a strange phenomenon: in order to have large operating radius you need high power engine, and not the other way around. That means that _all_ EV:s will be high performance cars if battery allows high currents to be used. There is no point in making small engines.
Two thoughts:
1. Raise capital for Tesla’s new production facility from the grassroots. I think thousands, if not millions, of people would pay money (as a donation/investment or prepaid car) to see a practical electric car on the road sooner than later.
2. In road charging. Why replicate the fueling stations that exist now? There is no need. Rest stops to go to the bathroom, grab a snack and simply rest make sense. But, you will charge your car at home, you will charge your car at work, you will charge your car at friends and family members’ houses.
You will not need to charge your car much while in route, unless you are going on an extended trip (lets say over 120 miles). In this case, you will probably be on a major highway. Thus, in road charging makes the most sense. You simply charge while you drive. The details can be flushed out by engineers but here is a simple set up.
The federal and/or state government funds a series of in road charging stations after working out standards with car manufactures. Some system for monitoring use, billing, supplying electricity, etc is established.
Simple and direct.
Why don’t you guys contact the upcoming ‘car czar’ and work out a way for GM (or Chrysler) to use some production capacity to get more Tesla models on the road more quickly.
I think that the Big 3 is weakest in product marketing and planning. A car like the upcoming Tesla sedan (a pluggable hybrid, I believe) could be the new ‘People’s Car’ of the 21st century.
I second James’ comment about raising capital from donations. I’m a broke 20-something and have never been able to afford any new car, let alone a new electric car, but would be more than willing to donate 10 bucks to see the ‘regular folks’ car hit the street sooner. I bet a lot of people feel the same way, and I bet a lot of other people could give more than me. It couldn’t possibly hurt to set up an internet donation site… it worked for Obama, why not for you?
The home page for the Tesla Roadster states the following:
“Burns No Oil*”
This is patently false, and you should know it.
Although from a marketing perspective, I see why you might not want
your prospective buyers to know it.
Pray, where does the electrical energy come from?
Overwhelmingly, petroleum.
Where doe the energy come from to manufacture the battery?
Once again, petroleum.
How much petroleum does the entire manufacturing chain consume?
I’m guessing more than that for conventional car in the same class.
What would Nikola Tesla say?
I’m intrugued by the idea of the electric car, In fact I own a Prius,
one of the frumpy predecessors to the Tesla.
Maybe your first duty as global sales manager ought to be to
distinguish your company’s advertising from the traditional car rmarketing flim flam,
by removing fasle and misleading claims from your advertising.
Thanks,
- Dave Fischer
No, Dave, saying that car does not burn oil is not false. Tesla Roadster does not burn oil. Creating electricity that runs it and manufacturing it does, but car itself does not.
Manufacturing requires energy and that energy is mainly produced by burning fossil fuels on the global scale, but burning fossil fuels is not necessary. Electricity can be produced by solar, geothermal and other renewable energy sources. Solar and geothermal both can give couple of thousand times more electricity than world uses right now, those are just not used.
My guess is that you use less fossil fuels manufacturing Roadster than conventional car of the same class because electric car is less complex to produce than ordinary car and also because Tesla Roadster is so small car.
You save environment even if all gasoline now burned by cars is instead burned in power plants to produce electricity because ICE car is so inefficient.
Hi,
well, I just got a comment: why not consider to implement a battery replacement in services station?
in this situation, the constumer just need to go to a gas station (as usual) and an automatic equiment will replace the battery for other full charged.
The advantages of this approach are:
1.- Simplicity for changing the battery.
2.- Better energy efficiency, because the chargers are in the station with maybe specialized equipments.
3.- Lower costs, because the gas station can make deals with energy resealers.
4.- Automatic replace of malfunction batteries, if a battery is at its end life, a special replacement progam can be launched to replace the battery with hidden cost to the customers.
I think you are really pushing it Dave Fischer. The Tesla Roadster burns no oil, they didn’t say no oil was consumed in manufacturing. However I had my own pet peeve about them using the government’s official but blatantly skewed equivalent mileage in gas formula, and they removed it from the web page! They do listen to other opinions. Just to clarify the government figures are designed to allow car manufacturers to advertise unrealistic mileage equivalency to promote alternate technology. I think this is the wrong way for the government to go about it.
Hi Tesla, GREAT , HOTTTT looking Roadster!!…You guys might want to look at a topic I just posted over at yahoo finance message board for GM……GM vs Tesla..interesting comments are posted. If more americans knew about what incredible things Tesla is doing,,,I…well they would give thumbs up to Tesla. Electric cars are not for the future, but for the present. .
Wishing you guys great success.
Paul
New Orleans
Here’s the link
messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_G/threadview?m=tm&bn=7869&tid=698082&mid=698082&tof=-1&rt=2&frt=2&off=1
If an ordinary car battery gets charged when you drive, why can’t you make the battery that powers the tesla charge up when you drive, there for all you will have to do is charge the car up once and every time you drive it will get recharged. If this was to work there would be no emissions and you wouldn’t run out of electricity while you are driving. You wouldn’t have to recharge it for 16 hours every night, and it wouldn’t cost anything to fill it because as long as it has been driving then the power should be fully charged anyway.
Tesla is missing a real niche market for the “black cars” in Manhattan. Mayor Bloomberg is mandating the move to higher mileage cars to replace all the Black car fleets that Wall Street uses. See the New York Times website video:
video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/automobiles/1194811622349/index.html#
Look for the video titled:
“See Black cars go Green”
Telsa has a sedan in the works, they have a window to get a version of that product out to the fleet owners by creating a version that could be used to replace the Lincolns. The city is a perfect place for a Tesla Limo. Think “Triple Black”.
I’m guessing after last night’s Top Gear you have your work cut out…
Can anyone say why a track-based (as opposed to road-based) review was allowed? This really did not show the car in a good light at all. Tesla has always said the car is not intended for the track and this just proved it.
To then present the Tesla as “not quite there” and then the FCX Clarity as the real answer was just the final straw.
kray clark :Read the section Something for Nothing www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=24
So Agassi sold you on replaceable batteries for the Model S. Personally I don’t think it is a workable scheme.
* Everybody will use the battery swap feature as a last resort, because it will be much more expensive than charging.
* It will cost a lot of money to build a battery swap station, and have charged batteries on hand. There will be practically no customers and no profit from this end of the business.
* The scheme will make money from the lease arrangement where the lease holder will subsidize the swap station he will not use.
* You as a company loose control of picking the best technology for your car, and will suffer range. Yea I know, Who cares about range with swap stations?
* Will swap stations actually be convenient or will you have to drive many miles to find one? Charging stations on the other hand will be available at shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, camp sites, amusement parks… and be far more cost effective.
* Although the lease arrangement reduces capital outlay, the final cost will be much higher. Because you are not just leasing a battery but a high cost swap system.
* You will actually lose customers that think like I do.
First Love the company. Just one quick question
Why not secure a Gov. contract where they give Tesla X amount of dollars in funding and Tesla give them Y number of Sedans for the aging expensive gov fleet of cars once they are in production?
There has to be some equation involving X and Y that = Win Win.
I have seen Rachel Konrad’s comments on Dvorak and if you feel that the BBC deliberately misrepresented your product, you should in the very least contact the UK communications regulator Ofcom - www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/
Roy, you already said nearly everything I wanted to say about battery swapping.
In addition to that consider this:
You need for battery swapping:
1) Expensive car batteries
2) Chargers for car batteries
3) Big enough connection to grid to charge all batteries that will be swapped during a day.
For battery to battery charging where you can use as big voltage and amps you want you need.
1) Cheap low maintenance batteries
2) Chargers for car batteries which are slightly more expensive.
3) Big enough connection to grid to charge all batteries that will be charged during a day.
Starting cost difference between those is something like 2-4 times more for battery swapping station depending of how many customers you will have during a day. This is based on cost difference between cheap non-mobile low energy density battery capacity needed compared to how many full battery packs you need to purchase for battery swapping station.
AND I have already seen in scientific papers a _full battery_ with over 450Wh/kg energy density with materials that don’t have fire risk (LiFePO4 cathode-Silicon nanostructured thin film anode prototype). If your older cars (model S) uses current tech and some other car uses newer tech you would need to have all those techs in battery swapping station. That would potentially multiply batteries needed at the station. That would lead to “Tesla battery swapping station” and “Fisker battery swapping station” and “Th!nk battery swapping station” etc. Not profitable. Could be done only in perfect world where all techs are already mature and can’t be developed further.
Timo:
I think your last point is the most important. Battery swapping will be made obsolete in 5 to 10 years as battery technology improves. Who is going to swap batteries when they start off every morning with a full charge good for 500+ miles? Investors to-day may make some money, but in 5 years the battery swapping business will begin declining and investors at that time will loose their shirts as the business goes to zero.
Can you provide a link for this 450Wh/kg battery. High energy to weight is required, but even more for cars, is high energy to volume. Extra weight can be compensated by bigger tires and stronger springs, but extra space is a real premium.
Roy, it was some journal from sciencedirect journal of power sources, can’t remember which one. Here is the latest: www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03787753.
Volumetric density for that is even higher. Silicon is denser than usually used graphite anode and you need it less because it has much, much higher energy density than LiFePO4 cathode has. If I recall correctly volumetric density was somewhere in 800Wh/liter region, so 53kWh for Tesla Battery would be size of moderate sized fuel tank.
Hello Guys, greeting from Baltics!
Once I tried to sit in a Tesla when I was in British car show, and to tell you frankly - on pictures it looks more spacious than in reality. We, europeans , especially in Baltics are not tall guys, but even for me it was bit uncomfty to sit in this car. All respect to the technology, this is without comments. However I think there is still much to do in Tesla as far as ergonomics is concerned. I like dynamic driving, but I like also to feel comfortable in the car. As far as any EvVis concerned, most of them have really focused on technology applied but have a bit forgot about comfort, aesthetics and quality of materials used. All the best to Michael with his position. I can imagine how he feels. I recommend to make some more surveys involving simple guys ,not technological freaks, but some casual guys , especially women, they will be frank and tell you exactly to the point what they dont like about theis or that car, believe me, my wife does:)))) Once again I wish you lots of success in the year 2009.
Latvia
It is unlikely that I will be fortunate enough to own a Roadster for quite a while. But believe me, you have a lot of advocates outside your customer base. The symbolism of Tesla as the next generation of American automakers is something that I think more people need to rally behind. I only wish that there was a way for small-timers like me to invest in the development of your mission-critical infrastructure to grow production to achieve market share. Although here in Indiana, a lot of jobs are invested in the old technology and its logistics and supply chains, I would like for companies like Tesla who are the innovators to have a chance to establish themselves nationwide. Eventually, the jobs will follow.
Why not consider opening a Tesla showroom and service center in downtown Denver right on the 16th Street Mall at one of the busiest corners in Denver and just two blocks from the Denver Convention Center? The Virgin Megastore is closing there and that big box space would be, in my opinion, an ideal location for a Tesla Motors showroom. The 16th Street Mall gets a huge amount of foot traffic including thousands upon thousands of conventioneers, tourists and locals every year. Here’s a few links worth checking:
www.denverpost.com/business/ci_11830064
www.livedowntowndenver.com/blog/?p=1244