The idea of creating a car with an electric motor arose long before the appearance of the first car with an internal combustion engine. Because Nikola Tesla’s working documents also contained drawings of a car running on an electric motor.
But because he was ahead of his time, the technology was not yet advanced enough to realize his idea.
For many years, only environmentalists were proponents of electric vehicles. Because electric cars like golf carts couldn't compete with conventional gasoline-powered cars in many ways.
Mark and Martin, who met in California in the 1990s at a meeting organized by their mutual friend Greg Rand, were like two sitcom characters: the chatty and enthusiastic Eberhard and the modest Tarpen, who made up for each other's shortcomings. Soon they begin to work together.
In the spring of 1997, Eberhard and Tarpenning founded NuovoMedia and launched their Rocket eBook. They quickly caught the wave of success and earned US$187 million.
By 2004, having purchased PayPal and become a millionaire, Musk founded his own company, SpaceX. Eberhard and another “father” of Tesla Motors, Ian Wright, meet with Elon Musk in Los Angeles, at the SpaceX headquarters.
There were several disagreements about the upcoming project, and Musk was initially very hesitant to invest. However, in some ways, the engineers of Musk and Tesla were united: an electric car must be powerful, beautiful, not just good, but a real technical achievement and finally “bury” gasoline. Having reached a compromise with Tarpenning, Musk makes an initial investment of $7.5 million in Tesla Motors.
Interestingly, most people today who know even a little about Tesla Motors only know Elon Musk as its founder. However, we should not forget about the idea and the first founders of the company, Mark Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard.