EV OUTFIT "TESLA MOTORS" SHUFFLES EXECS; WILL PRODUCT BE ANOTHER "EV1"?

And another one (possibly) bites the dust ... From the typical consumer, who buys a new car every six or seven years, to car enthusiasts "up" on all the latest industry news, to the salespeople working the showroom floor and all the way to America's all-time automotive super-promoters, from Carroll Shelby to (the late) John DeLorean to Lido A. Iaccoca, all of them would agree with the following: Any company intending to create, produce and sell cars should have some people on their staff with car-making, producing and selling experience. The smart and wealthy folks who created Tesla Motors must have been out of class the day that topic was covered. Tesla Motors is the Silicon Valley company with deep brains and even deeper pockets that is trying to bring real-world EVs to America. Last year, folks including US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, test-drove Tesla prototypes   (with video of Schwarzenegger in the car seen worldwide just days before the 2006 LA Auto Show, where the car was first shown to the general public). Now, a year later, Tesla finds themselves going through the easily-predictable period of pain which is inevitable when people with no experience building cars ... try to build a car. The company seems at the point where it either brings a product to market, and fast, or they should fold-up their slide rules, tuck that pen caddy firmly into their shirt pockets, shove their no-limit American Express "Black Card" into their wallets and get back into a business which they actually understand. Or give some car people a few zillion and let them make the car for you ... All of this might ultimately work out best for Ms. Rice. What if Tesla wanted to name one of their models for her? Standard Oil has already named one of their oil super-tankers after her; can you imagine her trying to explain why her name is also on an electric car to her friends in the oil business (like President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, and their families)? Some are asking another question: Is this company truly committed to building a 'real' EV? Or another "EV1", which was born to fail?

Tesla has gone through so many corporate changes in the past few months that it's been tough to keep  track, but the latest "news" from the outfit, originally headed-up by an impressive list of Nor Cal techies with equally impressive amounts of money, is that the company's co-founder and CEO, Martin Eberhard, is gone, and not by his own choice. He's being replaced by someone named Ze'ev Drori, whom the company says is a "a technology industry veteran who founded Monolithic Memories Inc., and more recently ran automobile security company, Clifford Electronics."

Hmmm ... The only other famous person we know of connected to a car alarm company is US Congressperson and staunch Republican Darrell Issa, who owned "Viper Alarms". Searching Issa's name and background on the Web (especially reading a 1998 Los Angeles Times profile) reveals the Congressman to be, well, "less than perfect". Frankly, the only reason we mention Issa is that we really don't like him and will take almost any excuse to say nasty things about him in print. If someone doesn't like that, they can start their own website and say nice things about him (but first, we dare anyone to find a nice thing to say).

(Photo --- California Governor Schwarzenegger met with the Tesla Motors people in a very public way just before the 2006 Los Angeles Auto Show; that bearded fellow to the right is Martin Eberhard, company co-founder, who has been let go from Tesla ... Have Some Fun: The nasty-looking bald-headed guy wearing the black jacket, the better to hide his weapons, and on the far right, in the rear, is one of the Guv's private security people; the CHP bodyguards which come with the job apparently aren't good enough for Arnold --- Click on the photo to view it enlarged).

Why is Eberhard no longer at Tesla? Well, he sent a letter (or e-mail, we are not certain) to those on the company's "buyer's list" this past August, stating plainly that Tesla cars were not nearly ready for production, and he was not able to state with any certainty when they might go on-sale.

Also, at the recent 2007 LA Auto Show, Tesla did not even have their own display. Their single show car was part of the Yokohama Tire display, with the car shoved into such a small display area that no more than two or three people at once could see the car close-up. Frankly, we would have fired whoever was responsible for that terrible auto show placement; perhaps that was the "final straw" for Eberhard's partners in the company.

What we do know, and almost for certain, is that it was not Eberhard's idea to leave the company he helped create and lead. Political and Hollywood luminaries have lent their names to the company (and lent their dollars, through those "100% deposits" they've placed on cars, which amount to the full price of the car). We wish Tesla and all their investors and those on the list to buy their cars all the best ... Our attitude? Wait and see. Wait a real long time and see.

The car borrows heavily from the Lotus Elise, with seats and lighting systems and more from that neat little sports car ... and that should be a "good" thing; Lotus does R&D work for many of the world's car-makers; Lotus and Tesla Motors being associated in the public mind makes both look good, at least to car enthusiasts. Ultimately, Lotus will continue to be a highly-respected car-building and engineering company, no matter Tesla's fate. (Photo --- Tesla "Roadster").

And one more thing ... The "conspiracy" angle ... There are more than a few people who believe that General Motors created their electric car, which was leased at Saturn dealers, "EV1", to be a failure in the marketplace, to prove to Americans that EVs were not viable, at least not yet, and our national addiction to oil would have to continue out of necessity. Is it possible there may be similar thought processes at work when it comes to Tesla Motor's executives and the company's supporters? For instance, Diarmuid O'Connell, Tesla's director of strategic affairs, worked in the State Department for the Bush administration until 2006, helping support military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. To read more about Tesla Motors and their political connections, from Sacramento to the White House, click anywhere on this line. When it came to the Oval Office, Big Oil and all car-makers had the best friend possible in Bush's Chief of Staff, Andrew Card. The government mpg targets did not change at all in the years Card was Mr. Bush's "gate-keeper", and the recent changes in the mpg goals came only well after Card left his Oval Office job. Before signing on with the Bush White House, Card was both the spokespiece for the now-defunct auto industry group, the American Automobile Manufacturer's Association (which was the lobbying arm of the Big Three, when a "Big Three" still existed), and he was also the chief government lobbyist for General Motors. To read more about Andrew Card and the cross-connections he had between the car-making industry and the White House, click anywhere on this line.