Tesla chief exec lashes out at former founder's law suit

Tesla's attempts to draw a line under the controversy that surrounded the company late last year have once again been thwarted after chief executive Elon Musk delivered a withering response to his predecessor's attempt to sue the company.

Earlier this month, the company's founder Martin Eberhard filed a law suit against the electric car manufacturer and its current chief executive Elon Musk, accusing them of slander, mismanagement and the delivery of a damaged version of the company’s flagship Roadster electric sports car.

Never one for a quiet life, Musk, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Tesla, yesterday published a lengthy blog post accusing Eberhard of perpetuating "a version of Tesla's history that is at odds with the truth".

In a blistering attack on the company's former chief executive, Musk accuses Eberhard of attempting to falsely position himself as the inventor behind Tesla's technology, arguing that when they first met "he had no technology of his own, he did not have a prototype car and he owned no intellectual property relating to electric cars…Three years later, when Eberhard was asked to leave Tesla, most of the work that he had been paid to do had to be redone".

Eberhard was removed from his position last autumn when it emerged that the high-profile electric car firm was facing severe financial difficulties.

In his blog post, Musk goes on to list a series of examples of Eberhard's mismanagement, accusing him of failing to correctly source materials, hugely underestimating production costs, and fudging the timeline for delivery of the Tesla Roadster.

In particular, he claims that Eberhard estimated the production cost for the Roadster at $65,000 after the first 100 units, when a later study showed that costs were running at $140,000 for materials alone after 100 units - leaving the company with serious cash flow issues.

In the law suit, Eberhard accuses Musk of causing delays to the production schedule by micromanaging the design and imposing last-minute changes.

Musk denied the allegation, arguing that the reason that the cost of production cleared $140m was because "after Eberhard was asked to step down from the CEO role two years ago, almost every major system on the car, including the body, HVAC, motor, power electronics, transmission and battery pack, had to be redesigned, retooled or switched to a new supplier".

The law suit is unlikely to have a major impact on Tesla as it continues to pursue plans to develop its Model S electric sedan, but industry watchers will be keeping a close eye on what looks set to become the clean tech sector's highest profile executive feud to date.