Daniel Englander
Another Tesla Departure June 5, 2008 at 12:42 PM
Up until this week, Ron Lloyd was the VP for Tesla’s White Star program. Lloyd joined Tesla in 2005 to head up the program’s vehicle manufacturing strategy, including the construction of a 150,000 square foot production facility near Albuquerque. The WhiteStar, which Tesla says will be available for sale by 2009 or 2010, is the company’s attempt to break into the consumer market - it’s a four door EV or REV sedan that will reportedly sell for between $50,000 and $70,000.
Or maybe not. Fat Spaniel, the solar monitoring company, announced today that Ron Lloyd has joined the company as its new VP for Operations. Lloyd will be in charge of scaling the company’s global monitoring services.
Lloyd is just the latest in a series of high profile departures for the EV company, which has been plagued recently by a slower than expected production ramp up. In January, Tesla fired 15 employees, including three senior executives - two of which were manufacturing vice presidents. That happened a month after the company’s board ousted founder and former CEO Martin Eberhard. The difference here is that it appears Lloyd left of his own volition, while the firings in December and January were, according to Tesla’s VP for Sales Darryl Siry, “about accountability. If you don’t get the job done, there are consequences.” Presumably, then, Lloyd was getting the job done - it may have been Tesla that wasn’t reciprocating.
With only five Roadsters completed, and plans for the WhiteStar far from solid, the departure of the program’s head may put a damper on the WhiteStar’s production future. Already we know production on the WhiteStar was delayed three to six months because of allegedly substandard work performed by car designer - and current competitor - Henrik Fisker. Fisker’s work, and subsequent introduction of a competing car, are the subject of a Tesla lawsuit and counter lawsuit and motion for arbitration filed by Fisker. So why would Lloyd leave a company where he was in charge of a potentially large breakthrough in the EV market? One guess may be that Lloyd was out of his range - he worked previously at Sun Microsystems and HP - and felt more comfortable working at a software-based company instead of the (supposedly) production-centric Tesla.
Another, perhaps more plausible guess based on the company’s slower than expected production and difficulties building a production-ready drivetrain, is that Lloyd got out while the getting out was good.
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