One of the original co-founders of TeslaMartin Eberhardt, expressed disappointment with Elon Musk’s decision to cancel the program to create an affordable electric car worth $25 thousand. Instead, the company focused on producing a pickup truck, which he described as «looking like a trash can».
Tesla’s co-founders are real and by court order
The story of Tesla’s founding is somewhat confusing. Most believe that the company was founded by Elon Musk, as he has been its face for almost two decades. However, Musk is listed as one of five recognized co-founders.
It is worth noting that Musk was allowed to call himself a co-founder thanks to a court settlement with four other people: Martin Eberhardt, Mark Tarpenning, Ian Wright, and J.B. Straubel. However, in fact, the first two co-founders of Tesla in 2003 were Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpenning.
They ran the company for the first 5 years, while Musk was an investor and chairman of the board for 4 of those years. Tesla faced difficulties when launching the production of its first car, the Roadster. Eberhard and Musk blamed each other for these problems. In the end, amid this conflict, Musk was able to remove Eberhard from the company, thanks to the fact that he was the largest shareholder and controlled the board of directors.
They then sued each other. As a result of the court settlement, Musk gained the right to be called a co-founder of Tesla along with early employees Ian Wright and J.B. Straubel. Musk was very outraged by this decision and argued that only Straubel had the right to be called a co-founder with him. This is despite the fact that Eberhard and Tarpenning founded Tesla a year before Musk joined the first round of investment.
Tesla – a wrong turn
In a recent interview, Eberhard shared his vision of the company’s current strategy. He recalled that at the initial stage of development, Tesla planned to produce not only expensive models but also to enter the mass market. This is how the Model 3 and Model Y appeared in due time. Then, according to Eberhard, the company had to move towards even more affordable solutions.
However, instead of the promised «affordable Tesla», the company scaled back this project and decided to focus on Cybertruck and cheaper versions of existing models. Eberhard criticizes this decision:
«I’m really disappointed that Tesla canceled the budget electric car program. That’s what the market needs right now — not a pickup truck that looks like a garbage can».
When journalist Kim Jawa asked him about a possible low-cost Robotaxi Model 2, Eberhard expressed skepticism about this direction. Perhaps he was referring to the concept of Cybercabbut it should not be confused with the Model 2 project, which previously meant Tesla’s $25K project. According to available information, this project was indeed closed by Musk’s decision, despite the resistance of the development team.
In addition, Eberhard spoke out sharply about the development of autonomous systems:
«People ignore autonomous driving failures too easily. If a prototype goes out on the road and kills someone because of a malfunction — is that normal? For me, — no».
He also criticized Tesla’s new design solutions, including the Cybertruck, which he called a car without inspiration and taste.
Source: electrek
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