Photo: Tesla Motors
The biggest threat for Tesla comes from within. It would be so easy for its key figure employees to take everything they know and either join another company or even form one themselves, that it's hard to believe it doesn't happen more often.
But it does happen, as it was the case with Bernard Tse. Mr. Tse used to be Vice President of Tesla and a member of the board back when a certain Elon Musk wasn't CEO, but he left soon after that changed. He then founded a company called Atieva together with the man Musk replaced, Martin Eberhard.
Atieva was supposed to deal with energy storage solutions for both electric vehicles and stationary units, but one thing led to another, and so it has now become apparent it intends to build an electric vehicle of its own from the ground up.
To do this, Atieva snatched another former Tesla employee, Vice President and Model S Chief Engineer Peter Rawlinson, who is now the company's Chief Technical Officer. Even though they've been working on the mysterious vehicle for some time, not much was known about it. As in "absolutely nothing."
Yesterday, though, a few glimpses of information transpired, and even though we don't have much to work with, it at least sounds highly encouraging. Automotive News discovered that Atieva is now testing its electric powertrain onboard of a Mercedes-Benz Vito van. The two electric motors push the van to 60 mph in just 3.1 seconds, but the developers expect the final product to reach that speed 0.4 seconds faster.
Atieva plans to release an electric luxury sedan that will be a direct competitor for Tesla's Model S in both performance and amenities. The car's design is kept under the wraps, but the same report talks of something resembling "a futuristic descendant of the Audi A7" with "ultra-thin headlamps" and a dashboard with a "three-piece reconfigurable digital display." The car is code-named "Project Cosmos" and should hit the market in 2018, followed by a pair of luxury crossovers.
Atieva seems to have its future pretty clearly laid out in front of it, but at the moment, it doesn't even have a plant to build the 20,000 cars it would like to manufacture during the first year. Besides, the premium EV segment might be a little more crowded by then with both Mercedes-Benz and Porsche announcing models of their own, not to mention the inevitable successor of Tesla's Model S that should be more than just an idea by that time.
Atieva was supposed to deal with energy storage solutions for both electric vehicles and stationary units, but one thing led to another, and so it has now become apparent it intends to build an electric vehicle of its own from the ground up.
To do this, Atieva snatched another former Tesla employee, Vice President and Model S Chief Engineer Peter Rawlinson, who is now the company's Chief Technical Officer. Even though they've been working on the mysterious vehicle for some time, not much was known about it. As in "absolutely nothing."
Yesterday, though, a few glimpses of information transpired, and even though we don't have much to work with, it at least sounds highly encouraging. Automotive News discovered that Atieva is now testing its electric powertrain onboard of a Mercedes-Benz Vito van. The two electric motors push the van to 60 mph in just 3.1 seconds, but the developers expect the final product to reach that speed 0.4 seconds faster.
Atieva plans to release an electric luxury sedan that will be a direct competitor for Tesla's Model S in both performance and amenities. The car's design is kept under the wraps, but the same report talks of something resembling "a futuristic descendant of the Audi A7" with "ultra-thin headlamps" and a dashboard with a "three-piece reconfigurable digital display." The car is code-named "Project Cosmos" and should hit the market in 2018, followed by a pair of luxury crossovers.
Atieva seems to have its future pretty clearly laid out in front of it, but at the moment, it doesn't even have a plant to build the 20,000 cars it would like to manufacture during the first year. Besides, the premium EV segment might be a little more crowded by then with both Mercedes-Benz and Porsche announcing models of their own, not to mention the inevitable successor of Tesla's Model S that should be more than just an idea by that time.
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