Tesla was founded by two Americans Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning; Eberhard as an engineer and Tarpenning as an entrepreneur. In 1996 they founded NuvoMedia a lithium ion battery company which inspired the idea of a lithium ion battery powered car; by 2000 they sold the company for $187,000 and they used this money to buy AC propulsion a company that built electric sports cars called tzero. Together Eberhard and AC propulsion made a lithium-ion version of the tzero.
Though Eberhard and Tarpenning came up with the idea a few years before Tesla Motors was only incorporated on July 1st 2003. Soon after Eberhard and Tarpenning began to look for people to invest in their products. To be impressive they purchased an expensive battery pack and motor to prove electric cars could compete with other more traditionally fueled cars. That being said the company was not ready to start to build cars yet; in fact they did not know how to use cars at all but they used computers in a small office to make sure both their design and business plan were sound. …show more content…
One day they came across a small car from the sports car company Lotus; they got a partnership with Lotus which lead to their first big break.
Through their big break they developed a battery pack using laptop cells which had a liquid cooling system. Unfortunately, they hit a rough patch when it was suggested that the battery could have thermal runaway. This misfortune lead to a temporary stop in production while they figured out how to solve the battery
Though Eberhard and Tarpenning came up with the idea a few years before Tesla Motors was only incorporated on July 1st 2003. Soon after Eberhard and Tarpenning began to look for people to invest in their products. To be impressive they purchased an expensive battery pack and motor to prove electric cars could compete with other more traditionally fueled cars. That being said the company was not ready to start to build cars yet; in fact they did not know how to use cars at all but they used computers in a small office to make sure both their design and business plan were sound. …show more content…
One day they came across a small car from the sports car company Lotus; they got a partnership with Lotus which lead to their first big break.
Through their big break they developed a battery pack using laptop cells which had a liquid cooling system. Unfortunately, they hit a rough patch when it was suggested that the battery could have thermal runaway. This misfortune lead to a temporary stop in production while they figured out how to solve the battery