Timeline 345
company. They finished business plan
1.0- March. Starting a car company is expen-
sive, so they began to look for outside
investors - April. Series A funding where Elon Musk
was the main investor. Other investors
included SDL Ventures and Compass Tech-
nology Partners. JB Straubel joined the
company as employee number 5 - May. An early styling study began
- June. A technology implementation study
began - July. Tesla had 9 employees and moved
to an office in San Carlos, California.
They also made a “mule” which is a car
that doesn’t reproduce but you can see
if the concept works. To design Mule 1
they bought an old Lotus Elise - October. The 15 employees began to de-
sign the drive-train component - November. They installed the drive-train
in the Mule 1 - December. Tesla couldn’t use the same
design as the Lotus Elise, so they had a
contest where Barney Hatt made the best
design
2005- January. They made a 1/4 scale model in