You Can’t Sell a Car That Looks Like Crap 176
redesigned. “Have you tried getting out of an Elise? It’s like
you have to be a contortionist,” Elon said. After riding for a
weekend in an early prototype, Elon insisted the seats had
to become wider in the hip area and have more padding. To
make the Roadster look, feel, and smell more like a sports
car, the dashboard needed more leather. Elon wanted the
door handles replaced with touch-sensitive microswitches
at a cost of $1 million. The Roadster needed new lights. “My
opinion was that if we had uncovered headlights it would
look like a kit car – a little cheesy,” Elon said.196,205
To solve all these problems, Tesla needed to find new
suppliers because Lotus hadn’t signed on to make new
parts. “We learned that the car industry is unbelievably
good at delivering what they’ve done in the past with
a little tweak – faster, or in yellow,” Tarpenning said.
“But if you want something a lot different – a simplified
transmission that’s electrically actuated – that’s too radical.
The designers and engineers who can do radical changes all
left Detroit forty years ago.”^59
When Tesla added everything needed to make a pro-
duction car, including stereo and safety systems, the Road-
ster became heavier than the tzero and thus slower. “Why
did DeLorean fail?” Elon asked. “Because it was a shitty
sports car. It may have looked cool, but it had the acceler-
ation of a Honda Civic.”^196
Elon demanded a top speed of at least 125 mph [200
km/h]. Eberhard, on the other hand, was satisfied with a
top speed of 110 mph [180 km/h]. “I thought it was an
unnecessary risk for the first model year’s cars,” Eberhard