Tesla’s lesser-known co-founder and original CEO, Martin Eberhard, has opened up about the rocky early days of the electric car giant – including the shocking revelation that he had to sue Elon Musk just to get his own car.
In a new interview with YouTuber Kim Java, Eberhard looked back at the creation of Tesla and its first model, the iconic Roadster.
While most people associate Tesla’s rise with Elon Musk, Eberhard reminded viewers that the idea for the company started years earlier on a dinner date with his now-wife.
He said: “The idea of Tesla came to me while I was on a date with a woman who became my wife”.
Eberhard described how he and co-founder Marc Tarpenning wanted to prove electric cars didn’t have to be slow and boring.
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He explained: “New technologies start out typically as a high-end product and compete on something other than price until you've got enough volume”.
“We said, ‘Okay, we're not going to do what everybody else did.”
That mindset led to the creation of the first Tesla Roadster, built in partnership with Lotus and powered by a revolutionary lithium-ion battery pack.
But despite founding the company, Eberhard says he ended up having to fight for his own car, a Founder Series Roadster with VIN number two.
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At around the 24:30 mark of the video above, he revealed: “I had to sue them”.
“I had paid full price in advance for this car and they tried to rescind that deal. That was the real root of my part of the root of my lawsuit with Musk.”
The Roadster Eberhard eventually received wasn’t exactly in pristine condition either, thanks to Tesla’s early testing practices. He elaborated: “They were test driving the new cars on the public roads and their test driver drove my car into the back of a truck and they had to rebuild the front of it, which did not make me happy, obviously”.
Eberhard also opened up about his complicated relationship with Musk, saying the two have had no contact in years. While he acknowledges Musk’s success in turning Tesla into one of the world’s most valuable companies, his praise was limited.
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Eberhard reflected: “Look, he turned Tesla into one of the most valuable companies in the world for better or worse. So that's good. I'm glad to see my baby surviving, you know. So that's about it.”
Now retired, Eberhard still owns some Tesla stock and occasionally drives his Roadster, though his wife has urged him to keep it safe as its value as a collectable climbs. Reflecting on Tesla’s journey and his own role in sparking an electric vehicle revolution, he summed it up simply: “We started a revolution. All of the car companies in the world now make electric cars because of this car.”