Martin Eberhard

Martin Eberhard
Eberhard in 2006
Born	May 15, 1960 (1960-05-15) (age 51) Berkeley, California
Known for	co-founder of Tesla Motors

Martin Eberhard is co-founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors, an electric car company in San Carlos, California. He was born in Berkeley, California on May 15, 1960.

Eberhard is passionate about sportscars but has moral disagreements regarding dependence on oil imported from the Middle East and is also concerned about global warming. This led to his co-founding Silicon Valley's first automobile company with Marc Tarpenning.

Eberhard currently drives the second of Tesla Motors Founder's Series Roadsters cars, which is the first series of the Tesla Roadster.^[1] The Tesla Roadster is a battery electric sportscar with 244 mile (EPA) range.

Eberhard was ranked among the top 24 innovators of 2007^[2] by Fortune Magazine. Also in 2007, Business 2.0 Magazine ranked Eberhard number 32 of the 50 people who matter now.^[3]

History

Eberhard grew up in Kensington, California, attending Kensington Hilltop Elementary School there. He attended junior high school and high school in adjacent El Cerrito until the middle of 11th grade, when his family moved to Elmhurst, Illinois. He graduated from York Community High School in 1978.

Eberhard received his undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering in 1982, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He subsequently earned his Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1983 from the same school.

Eberhard began his career as an electrical engineer at Wyse Technology, where he designed the WY-30 ASCII computer terminal as his first product.

Later, Eberhard co-founded and founded start-ups Network Computing Devices, Inc. (making X Window-based network terminals) and NuvoMedia (making the Rocket eBook), respectively.

On January 7, 2008, the New York times reported^[4] that Tesla Motors issued a statement on its web site explaining that the Silicon Valley electric-car start-up’s founder and former chief executive, Martin Eberhard, “has transitioned from the board of directors and executive management of the company to the advisory board.”

On November 30, 2007 Tesla Motors released a press release titled "Martin Eberhard, Co-founder of Tesla Motors, to Transition to Advisory Board."^[5] According to the Tesla Motors Club forum^[6] and CNN Money,^[7] Martin was asked to leave, but the reason for his being asked is not publicly available.

On January 7, 2008 Martin confirmed that he was no longer employed in Tesla Motors and was only a shareholder in the company. He said he planned to start another company entirely in the green tech field.^[8]

Eberhard maintained a blog at teslafounders.com until a lawsuit with Tesla Motors was settled. The blog has been deleted.

On January 14, 2010 it was rumored that Martin was working for VW of America.^[9] On January 19, Martin Eberhard confirmed to Autoblog Green that he was doing work with Volkswagen but no further details have been provided.^[10]

Quotes

"A key element to be a successful entrepreneur is a certain amount of naiveté, because if you actually know how hard the problem is when you set out, you don't do it." - Stanford University, 10/10/07

"We’re not just juggling a lot of balls. We’re juggling knives and chainsaws and burning things. We have to catch every one of them, and we have to catch them by their handles."^[11]

"Because a car crash is fundamentally different than a software crash" ^[12]

"Without plug-in capability, a hybrid is just a gasoline-powered car with some fancy hardware" ^[13]

References

1. ^ "press room". Tesla Motors. http://www.teslamotors.com/media/press_room.php?id=29. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
2. ^ Ryan, Oliver (2007-04-30). "24 Top innovators | 14 | FORTUNE". Money.cnn.com. http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0704/gallery.fortune_innovators.fortune/14.html. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
3. ^ "The 50 Who Matter Now - Martin Eberhard (32) - Business 2.0". Money.cnn.com. 2007-06-19. http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0706/gallery.50whomatter.biz2/32.html. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
4. ^ By Dealbook (2007-12-04). "Unhappy Tesla Founder, or Impostor? - NYTimes.com". Dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com. http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/an-unhappy-tesla-founder-or-an-imposter/. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
5. ^ "Press Center". Tesla Motors. http://www.teslamotors.com/media/press_room.php?id=748. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
6. ^ "Is Martin Eberhard still with Tesla Motors?". Teslamotorsclub.com. http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php?t=756&page=2. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
7. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}
8. ^ [2]^{[dead link]}
9. ^ "Rumor: Tesla Co-Founder Eberhard Working with VW". Greentech Media. 2010-01-14. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/rumor-tesla-co-founder-eberhard-working-with-vw/. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
10. ^ Abuelsamid, Sam (2010-01-19). "Confirmed: Tesla Co-Founder Eberhard working with Volkswagen". Green.autoblog.com. http://green.autoblog.com/2010/01/19/rumor-tesla-co-founder-eberhard-working-with-vw/. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
11. ^ Tesla Motors - think
12. ^ om een reactie te plaatsen!. "Gadgetoff 2007 - Martin Eberhard". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNrRepLBFvE. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 
13. ^ "Tesla Founders Blog". Teslafounders.com. http://teslafounders.com/. Retrieved 2011-09-24. 

External links

• Do Something Meaningful, Martin Eberhard speaks at Stanford
• Silicon Valley entrepreneurs race for electric car market
• Official Tesla Motors website
• Listen to Martin giving a great presentation to the Executive MBA class at the University of San Francisco
• An interview with Tesla Motors' founding father
• Innovators: Powered by Pragmatism
• WNBC TV Interview With Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard
• Comments on Eberhard's lecture at the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar, 10 October 2007
• iinnovate podcast (Stanford), interview with Martin, 17 November 2007

Persondata
Name	Eberhard, Martin
Alternative names
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Date of birth	May 15, 1960
Place of birth	Berkeley, California
Date of death
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