The Electric Stars 163
range increased to 300 miles [480 km] and the acceleration
improved to 0-60 mph [0-100 km/h] in 3.6 seconds.^196
In the summer of 2003, Eberhard co-founded Tesla
Motors together with Tarpenning. When they founded
the company, they chose between if they should name
the company after the scientists Nikola Tesla or Michael
Faraday.^350 They agreed on Tesla Motors. Another fan of
Tesla is Elon, who even contributed with financial aid to
a future Tesla museum. JB Straubel is also a fan of Tesla
and one of his favorite biographies isWizard: The Life and
Times of Nikola Teslaby Marc J. Seifer.^215
Born in 1856, Tesla became a productive scientist, and
has given name to the units of magnetism, which are units
of tesla [T]. At the end of his life, he went a little crazy. He
became fascinated by the pigeons in the park and he de-
signed death-rays that would end all wars. “Tesla’s problem
was that he wasn’t entirely sane, and that got worse later
in his life,” Elon said. “Retaining sanity is important.”^128
In 1943, Tesla died poor and alone in a hotel room.
The reason why he was poor was that he could build
his inventions in his brain – he almost never made the
physical products – so he couldn’t make any money. When
he finished the design in his head, he became bored, and
moved on to the next idea. “I need no models, drawings,
or experiments,” Tesla said. “I could picture them all as real
in my mind. I do not rush into actual work. When I get
an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I
change the construction, make improvements and operate
the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me