May 28, 2021
As a Wall Street Journal technology and automotive reporter, Higgins has received insight into the interesting rise of Tesla. Here, he provides a detailed narrative about Tesla's eccentric team of Silicon Valley innovators, whose goal was to beat overwhelming odds and change the future of the car. Tesla was founded in the early 2000s when, Higgins notes, electric cars were still novelties and other automakers had limited success with prior versions of them. The car business has notorious barriers to entry, this book explains, making it a "brutal business--and an expensive one." Tesla struggled in the beginning, including with a rapidly changing executive leadership, a troubled economy, layoffs, and many unexpected costs. But, Higgins writes, Tesla's eventual CEO Elon Musk and his team kept a focus on "revolutionizing" cars and the automotive business in multiple areas. This book makes the case that Tesla started with an unlikely idea and became the world's most valuable automaker because of more factors than just Musk's leadership. Higgins used hundreds of interviews and multiple primary sources to weave together an intricate story of one company's mission to become the dominant car maker of the present and the distant future. VERDICT This book is a well-documented and comprehensive look at Tesla, Elon Musk, and the people involved with its creation and successes.--Gary Medina, El Camino Coll., Torrance, CA
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 7, 2021
The hidebound auto industry collides with the spirit of Silicon Valley in journalist Higgins’s colorful debut, a history of Tesla. Higgins recounts the company’s rise from shoestring start-up to the world’s most valuable automaker through many rounds of near-bankruptcy, last-minute funding miracles, and breakthroughs in the manufacture of electric vehicles. The company was founded in 2003 by engineer Martin Eberhard and his friend Marc Tarpenning, with Elon Musk as an early investor; power shifted hands multiple times before Musk became CEO in 2008. Billionaire Musk dominates the narrative: the irrepressible industrialist set visionary goals with impossible deadlines, improvised engineering fixes, raged at underlings, set managers to “clawing at each other in front of him,” headbutted a car on a stalled assembly line, and tweeted so many overly optimistic corporate predictions that the SEC came after him. Behind the shenanigans, Higgins takes an in-depth and well-balanced look at the interplay between Musk’s swashbuckling mindset of “building the airplane as was heading down the runway” and the hardheadedness of Tesla’s veteran engineers and leaders, who understood the rigors of making cars that could kill people if they malfunctioned. The result is a sometimes appalling, occasionally inspiring, and always entertaining saga. Agent: Eric Lupfer, Fletcher and Co.
July 1, 2021
A Wall Street Journal tech and auto reporter probes the evolution and histrionics of Tesla and its eccentric billionaire leader. Higgins begins with the inception of Tesla Motors in 2003 by American engineer Martin Eberhard and his longtime friend, tech entrepreneur Marc Tarpenning, who both wanted to manufacture fuel-efficient sports cars. An early investor in the endeavor, Elon Musk soon joined the company ranks as CEO and fostered multiple rounds of investments from entrepreneurs eager to cash in on his goal to create affordable electric vehicles. With Musk consistently commanding center stage, Higgins chronicles Tesla's prototype-to-production line, from the Roadster to its Model S, X, and 3 series. Each vehicle embodied intrinsic challenges involving battery production, transmission functionality, and funding--not to mention Musk's nano-management style and wild Twitter storms, which had been highly criticized since he was ousted from PayPal. Boastful, stubborn, and ego-driven, Musk persevered despite the precarious state of Tesla's financial health. The company burned through hundreds of millions of dollars each year and often faced dire bankruptcy projections despite a surge of preorders and Musk's promises to deliver the Model 3. Higgins shows that while these financial and innovation issues seemed fatal to the company's market longevity, a series of sudden, mostly monetized interventions changed the odds in their favor in what became a "defining feature of the Tesla narrative." While Musk's slick tech wizardry and visionary "startup gumption" butted heads with Tesla's more grounded core of engineers, the company's success was evident as the Model 3 became the defining product in its line. The author effectively combines his well-honed journalistic skills with revealing perspectives from industry observers, frustrated Tesla staff, futuristic engineers, and Musk himself, creating a spirited report on a company consistently embroiled in a swirl of melodrama and controversy. For an even fuller picture of the Musk aura, pair this one with Eric Berger's Liftoff. Readers fascinated by the hype of Tesla history will find a gold mine of facts and foibles in this immersive analysis.
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