You Can’t Sell a Car That Looks Like Crap 172
car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s
transition to electric vehicles.^382
As Eberhard and Tarpenning wrote in the business
plan, the idea to build the Roadster was to license the
powertrain from AC Propulsion and use an existing car
manufacturer to build the rest of the car. “Well, so we set
out to build a high performance sports car and we looked
at who we could partner with to put that car together,”
Eberhard said.^200
Tesla decided to collaborate with Lotus. The British
sports car manufacturer is well known for its Formula One
history with the famous black-gold colored car, as well as
the iconic Esprit. But Lotus make at least as much money
by selling its engineering expertise. “Lotus was a company
that made sense for us because of the size of the cars that
they made and the fact that their factory has built cars
for other companies already. They’re used to doing that,”
Eberhard said.^200
To contact Lotus, Tesla went to the 2004 Los Angeles
Auto Show where they cornered the Lotus booth. After a
convincing speech, Lotus agreed to invite them to England
so they could talk to the rest of the company.^200
The Lotus model Tesla wanted to rebuild was the Elise.
Named after Lotus chairman’s granddaughter, the Elise
happened to be the lightest production car on the road,
and light is always a good start for any electric vehicle.
In November 2004, Tesla bought an Italian version of the
Elise. Lotus had earlier transported the car across the
Atlantic Ocean to use it as a demonstration vehicle. But