Tesla Saga continues: When is production car #2 not?

Creating big things is generally the province of visionaries. All too often, big visions go hand in hand with big egos. Big egos are generally like electrons. Anyone who has studied sub-atomic particles knows that similarly charged particles repel each other. You can force them into the same space for a period of time but eventually they push each other apart. Such is often the case with startup companies.

Let's start with a little background. When Tesla Motors was first getting launched a few years back, as part of their initial investment in the company, the first two dozen or so people involved agreed to buy what became known as Founders Series cars. Initially, company founder Martin Eberhard who had the vision that became the Tesla Roadster intended to keep the first production unit for himself. When Paypal founder and seriously rich guy Elon Musk got involved as a major investor in Tesla Motors the situation changed. As Eberhard tells the tale (and I have no reason to doubt him on this) since Musk was putting up the bulk of the cash, he asked to get the first Roadster. After some back and forth Eberhard ultimately relented and took car #2. According to Martin:

During the entire time I was at Tesla, staff discussions about the early production cars rarely referred to the first two cars as "P1" and "P2." They were simply called "Elon's car" and "Martin's car." Everyone at Tesla knew this, and everyone knew how important these cars and their production sequence meant to both of us.

By autobloggreen