Archive for the 'Performance' Category

Flying the Glider: Roadster Owner Ken Jacobs Tours Assembly Plant and Test Track Published on Friday, July 18th, 2008 in Performance, Company, On the Road.

Ken Jacobs was one of the first employees at the relational database pioneer Oracle Corporation. He and his wife Margaret are thrilled to be early adopters and advocates for the pioneering Tesla, the car and the company.

Handing Over the Keys II Published on Monday, September 24th, 2007 in Uncategorized, Performance, On the Road.

A critical part of the sales, marketing, and service function at Tesla Motors is to help inform product development and engineering decisions based on a customer perspective, a part of what we call “product marketing.” When validation prototype 10 (VP10) was built, one of the things we planned to use it for was to put a lot of miles on the car and provide marketing feedback to engineering teams for final refinements or validation. We recently scheduled rides with some of our customers to expand the feedback loop and asked them to share their driving experiences publicly on this blog. The write-ups are unedited, save for my commentary in [brackets]. The first three can be found here. Read on for two new perspectives. Read more…

Handing Over the Keys Published on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 in Performance, On the Road.

A critical part of the sales, marketing, and service function at Tesla Motors is to help inform product development and engineering decisions based on a customer perspective, a part of what we call “product marketing.” Read more…

The EV Experience Published on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 in Performance, First Post, Batteries, Vehicle Engineering.

Stephen Casner spent 25 years working on protocols and systems for transmission of audio and video over packet networks, starting before the Internet existed and continuing through the Internet Multicast Backbone (MBONE). He was recruited to the Silicon Valley to work with startup Precept Software and its IP/TV product, which was later acquired by Cisco. He is currently a Fellow at Packet Design, working on route analytics, and waiting patiently for his Signature One Hundred number to be called.

I’ve been driving production electric vehicles since November, 1998, when I took delivery of a General Motors EV1. I lost that first-generation EV1 when it was recalled in March 2000, but two months later I was able to lease a Gen 2 EV1 with NiMH batteries. GM pried that one out of my fingers when the three-year lease was up. I managed to continue driving electric by leasing a Ford Ranger EV pickup, but again that was only for a year before it was taken back. Luckily, I was given the opportunity to lease or buy one of the last few 2003 Toyota RAV4-EVs. Given the EV1 lease experience, the choice to purchase was obvious! Read more…

Energy Published on Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 in Performance, First Post, Energy Efficiency, Company, Solar, Vehicle Engineering, Motor.

Jon Mittelhauser is one of the early developers of the World Wide Web. As a Master’s student at the University of Illinois, he co-wrote the first widely used web browser, NCSA Mosaic, and helped to define many of the earliest web protocols. Upon earning his Master’s degree for the work on Mosaic, he left the university and became one of the founders of Netscape Communications. Since Netscape he has worked for various startups (some successful and some not!). He currently spends his time as a dad, angel investor, and consultant for early stage companies. He also admits to spending a fair amount of time daydreaming about the Tesla Roadster, which he already has on order… Read more…

The Perfect Car, Enemy of the Good Car Published on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 in Performance, First Post, Environment, Energy Efficiency, Solar.

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. patents in nucleic acid detection technology. He serves on the board of several privately-held startup businesses and has produced two documentary films. Dr. Kayyem reserved one of the first 100 Tesla Roadsters and in this week’s blog explains why he will never buy another gasoline-powered vehicle.

“The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Voltaire said something like that, and I think about it often when making “think” versus “act” decisions. For example, should I buy a 60-inch plasma screen or wait and see what comes next?

But how about the bigger question that has bugged me for a while: Should I switch to alternatively-fueled vehicles or wait and see what comes next? I was definitely in waiting mode until one day in 2004 when I saw Al Gore give his Inconvenient Truth slide show. I left the presentation vowing not to buy another gasoline-powered car, a vow that now has me owning a biodiesel Volkswagen and on the list to receive one of the first 100 Tesla Roadsters. Read more…

How I Fell in Love with the Tesla Roadster Published on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 in Performance, Environment, Batteries, Motor.

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 and sits on technical advisory boards of many others. In this week’s blog entry, Don explains why he wanted to be among the first customers to receive a Tesla Roadster. (Don, pictured above with his wife, Mary, checks out the Tesla Roadster.)

My wife, Mary, and I were invited to be a “guest blogger” on the Tesla Motors website. This is a big honor for us. It is an easy task because of our high regard for the Tesla Roadster and the people at Tesla Motors.

We have had a long-standing interest in electric cars because of their potential both to help reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil and to save our environment from pollution emitted by cars that use internal combustion engines. We thought you might be interested in our experiences and investigations in becoming Signature One Hundred members, the group that has reserved the first Tesla Roadsters to come off the production line. Our story might be called, “How we fell in love with the Tesla Roadster and Tesla Motors.” Read more…

Battery Powered Cars – They’re Not Just for Kids Anymore Published on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 in Performance, Environment, Energy Efficiency, Batteries.

Bob Bressler is a customer of Tesla Motors and owner of Bressler Vineyards, a small producer of super-premium Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. An expert in the Internet and networking technologies, Bob’s career prior to becoming a full-time vintner spanned executive positions at Sun Microsystems, 3Com and BBN. We asked Bob to share his perspective on electric cars and the Tesla Roadster.

Why did I order a Tesla Roadster? Believe me, my wife has asked me that question many times. I guess there is no single reason – but a long list of them. Read more…