In an interview with Insider, Martin Eberhard, one of the founders of Tesla, talked about Musk, the brand’s beginnings, and the risk to its future posed by the promise of autonomous driving.
Although Elon Musk tries to appear as the founder of the American car company Tesla, it is known that he became part of the company a little later. The electric vehicle manufacturer was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. It was Eberhard who initially served as the brand’s CEO before being replaced by Elon Musk in late 2007. And it was he who was interviewed by the American Insider.
Elon Musk became Tesla’s main investor in the initial round of investments, and in 2004 he received the post of chairman of the board of directors. But he didn’t even have his own office in the start-up car company and, according to Eberhard, he basically didn’t visit it except for the monthly board meetings. At the same time, the co-founder of Tesla denies that Musk led the development of the original Roadster model.
Musk decided to become more involved only after Tesla began to appear more in the media. At the same time, he was very picky about having his name mentioned in every such article or report. In the opposite case, it is said that Eberhard, who was nicknamed Mr. Tesla, he called and shouted at him. Eventually, Musk ousted Eberhard from Tesla in 2007 and took over from him.
Because Eberhard had an obligation not to compete in his contract with Tesla, he was essentially unemployable and penniless for two years. Nevertheless, he is said to have managed to keep part of his original 5% stake in the brand to this day. Subsequently, he worked everywhere, even leading the development of electric cars at Volkswagen from 2009, but he quit after two years. The concern was said to be too stuck in its tracks and trying to change anything exhausted both parties, so Eberhard left in 2011.
In addition, he worked at the Lucid car company for a few weeks, was a part of or founded other start-ups revolving around electromobility, and basically never left the field, even though he describes himself as a retired entrepreneur. Insider asked Eberhard not only about the company’s beginnings, but also about his opinion on the current form of Tesla and on Elon Musk.
Eberhard did not comment much on Musk. They haven’t spoken since leaving Tesla and the subsequent lawsuit (which ended in a settlement). Musk talks about Eberhard relatively often and rather negatively, but Eberhard avoids news about Musk and usually learns about it only when journalists ask him for his opinion. Eberhard says he is in no position to publicly compete with and oppose Musk.
He has a few things in mind from Tesla’s early days that could have been done better, but overall he’s happy with the Roadster and Tesla’s original mission. The car company founded by Eberhard is said to have helped start the current electromobility boom. When asked if he would have accepted Musk’s investment back then, knowing how things turned out, he said he wouldn’t have much of a choice. Investors simply did not flock at the beginning of the millennium. Eberhard might just not be pushed out so easily.
If he had remained at the helm of Tesla, working conditions at the automaker would have been significantly better, according to Eberhard. He would try to motivate employees with the brand’s vision of a better and more sustainable world instead of being angry and working with fear and layoffs. However, Musk describes his leadership style as honest. Eberhard says Musk is much more involved in his companies today than he was in Tesla’s early days.
Eberhard sees the $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity in 2016 as an unnecessary distraction. The move was dubious even objectively, as the financially troubled solar company was run by Musk’s cousin, Lyndon Rive. Musk was sued by shareholders for pressuring board members to buy Tesla SolarCity, but Musk ultimately won the lawsuit. Insider notes that the solar power generation and storage company — now called Tesla Solar — reported revenue of nearly $3 billion in 2021.
Eberhard is not worried about Tesla’s competition and reminds that even traditional car companies can exist side by side for a long time and satisfy slightly different groups of customers. He is not very enthusiastic about Lucid, because he is said to be trying to follow the same path as Tesla with its Model S. On the contrary, he likes the approach of Rivian, which tried to offer an electric alternative to the American favorite Ford F-150.
The bigger risk for Tesla’s future is said to be its own efforts towards autonomous driving. Eberhard would like to see cars built that people can drive, and thinks that electric cars should not be automatically associated with autonomous driving. Musk sees self-driving capability as a key part of Tesla’s future and overall value.
At the same time, Elon Musk says that software is as important as hardware for Tesla cars. Eberhard told Insider that he thinks it’s a mistake to think of cars as a platform for software. He illustrated his thoughts on the iPhone: “I have an iPhone and with every software update I get errors. For example, these errors mean that my news and news app sometimes crashes. This is annoying on the iPhone, but not a real problem. When a bug like this occurs in the software that controls my brakes or steering, for example, it can kill a person.“
This does not mean that Eberhard would condemn all software in cars, he can appreciate the contribution of safety and assistance systems, he mainly dislikes autonomous driving, especially as presented by Tesla. “I think this technology is too immature to be released on the road. It’s my innate caution, but what I mean by that is that it would be really hard for me to release software that is so full of bugs on the road.“
Musk has been promising the ability to drive fully autonomously for years, telling car owners that bugs are normal in beta software and users should report them. However, a number of American authorities and organizations are also not enthusiastic about Autopilot, i.e. the extension of Full-Self Driving. They are currently investigating the security of the systems, whether their name Tesla is deceiving consumers and the like. Eberhard said in an interview that in Tesla’s early days, he didn’t even have the budget for proper infotainment, let alone consider autonomous driving.
Eberhard still has a relationship with Tesla itself. He still owns the second Roadster produced with custom paintwork and MR.TESLA license plate. He rides it rather rarely, he uses a different specimen for normal riding. And his wife drives a Model S. He is in regular contact with Marc Tarpenning, co-founder of Tesla.
