Peter Rawlinson and Nick Sampson, prominent engineers on Tesla's 160-to-300 mile range electric sedan have left Tesla before seeing their baby to launch.
Rawlinson was Tesla's vice president and Chief Engineer while Sampson supervised the company's chassis engineering. The two left earlier this month. "Having completed conceptual and design engineering work on Model S, Peter has decided to step away to tend to personal matters in the U.K." said an emailed statement by Ricardo Reyes, Tesla spokesman. Sampson was noted as having already fully transitioned off of Model S when he left. Jerome Guillen (formerly of Daimler AG) and Eric Bach (formerly on VW small cars) have filled the open positions.
The market was not convinced by the words or actions of Tesla, shares in Tesla's stock fell 20 percent.
Is this just a case of businesses doing what they do? Or is the departure of two key executives in the final stretch of a huge launch indicative of things to come from the Model S?
prndlol says:
02:39 PM, 01/13/12
Remember when all the high level executives at Palm split just months before HP got suckered into buying it?
yesistreetrace says:
09:29 PM, 01/13/12
Tesla Model S may be an imminent failure.
09rich1 says:
09:57 PM, 01/13/12
Shrug it off and buy the stock...it's cheaper now, but will not be for long.
bodyblue says:
10:30 AM, 01/14/12
Its a company that will not be in business 5 years from now.....they are burning through cash like crazy and they are already sniffing around for another handout.