Martin Eberhard
Martin Eberhard ( born May 15, 1960 in Berkeley, California) is an American electrical engineer and founder and was, until August 13, 2007 CEO of Tesla Motors, a company for the production of electric cars in San Carlos in Silicon Valley.
Education and personal life
Martin Eberhard received his bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign in computer development and the Master of Science in Electrical Engineering.
He lives in both Northern and Southern California with his old college love, Carolyn and their two children. As hobbies he pursued flying with hang glider and paragliding, to him this was forbidden by the insurance.
Network Computing Devices, Inc. and NuvoMedia
He founded together with other first the Network Computing Devices, where he acted as lead developer for the division's computer networks and developed broadband computer terminals for Wyse Technology.
After the sale of which he founded with Marc Tarpenning the NuvoMedia, a developer of e-books, which he sold for $ 187 million to Gemstar -TV Guide International.
Tesla Motors
After that he founded in 2003 with Marc Tarpenning the company Tesla Motors Incorporated, whose aim is to develop competitive attractive electric cars. Financiers were the billionaire and PayPal founder Elon Musk, the Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the eBay founder Jeff Skoll as well as some of the biggest venture capitalists: Vantage Point, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, JP Morgan. The inspiration for the company name is the great pioneer of electrical engineering Nikola Tesla. After Martin Eberhard in the early years of the company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was, he resigned on 13 August 2007. However, he was also responsible for the development. In December 2007 it was reported that Eberhard is no longer an employee of Tesla Motors was, but only one shareholder. About the reasons for his resignation is still not known.
Martin Eberhard is concerned about America's dependence on oil imports from the Middle East and the promotion of the greenhouse effect by combustion engines in cars. He loves claims to cars. A typical quote from him is: "Electric cars have been made by people who do not like cars. You want the customer changes his nature, and that is a mistake. We need to offer him a car that he wants. "
The first three years of development, 2007 by Tesla Motors presented vehicle is the Tesla Roadster, an optically Lotus designed and produced Roadster with a 252 horsepower electric motor with an acceleration of 4 seconds from 0 to 100 km / h A sedan with the name Model S followed.
Tesla Motors is the first automotive manufacturer in Silicon Valley.