You Can’t Sell a Car That Looks Like Crap 175
particularly interested in the Roadster’s body styling. “You
will see elements of two of my favorite cars, Porsche and
McLaren F1, in the Roadster body,” he said.^421
Nevertheless, by dint of his personality and controlling
instincts, everyone noticed how Elon became more and
more involved in the design process. Eberhard wasn’t the
only manager the engineers had to ask if they wanted to
make a change. “What will Elon think of that?” everyone
asked themselves.^196
Eberhard realized he and Elon had different priorities.
While Eberhard wanted to finish the Roadster as soon
as possible by using standardized parts, Elon wanted to
redesign the standardized parts. “Elon wasn’t involved in
the day-to-day management of the company,” Eberhard
said. “His hands-on involvement was mostly pot shots. He
would come in and get worked up about one particular
thing on the car. He would get all fired up about door
latches without contemplating their importance compared
to the more difficult problems we had to solve. He would
become obsessed. He couldn’t have a conversation without
it being about the door latch.”^205
The development of the Roadster turned into a tug-of-
war between priorities. To design the logo, the look, and the
feeling of the car, Eberhard wanted to spend $30 000 on a
focus group. Elon canceled the project. To market the new
Roadster, Eberhard hired a PR firm. Elon fired the PR firm
because he thought his involvement in Tesla would give the
company enough publicity. Elon let his wife test the car,
and when she had trouble to get out of the car, it had to be