Spearheading the EV revolution

Tesla Motors' JB Straubel has built an engineering team that is challenging the traditional auto-engineering culture-and may be a blueprint for the future.

The words “tumultuous” and “auto industry” are synonymous these days, but it is not only the incumbent giants who are suffering. Tesla Motors, the fledgling Silicon Valley-based electric car maker, has seen more than its share of management upheaval, product and plant delays, expense slashing, layoffs, and government loan requests since the company's 2003 founding. No doubt Tesla's key investors are now quite aware that the century-old business of auto-making is not as predictable as perhaps they once imagined.

But none of that detracts from the David-like role Tesla is playing. It has beaten the Goliaths to market with an attractive, high performance battery-electric car with acceptable (+200 mi/322 km) range. Despite a high price tag and low production volume, the Roadster already is considered a pioneer in the drive toward greater vehicle electrification. Next in the pipeline are a Tesla-designed lithium battery pack for Daimler's 2010 Smart EV-part of the company's strategy to sell electric propulsion systems to other OEMs-and the svelte Model S sedan slated for MY2012.