Tesla Hires Aston Martin's Vehicle Engineering Leader

http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=762317

by Pasanpr • 13 years ago

125 49 13 years ago

ir.teslamotors.com

I was wondering why Elon tweeted, "Anyone interested in doing ultra hardcore vehicle engineering at Tesla, please apply!" but now it makes sense.

On a similar note, isn't it odd that this position is just being filled?

Elon's Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/elonmusk

changdizzle• 13 years ago

His previous tweet before that read "Chris Porritt from Aston Martin just joined as head of vehicle engineering at Tesla"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/331489911842689025

toomuchtodo3• 13 years ago

Always be closing amazing talent.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

As someone who's anything but a greasemonkey, how good are Aston Martin from an engineering standpoint compared to the competition?

no-opinion• 13 years ago

I'm no expert, but I know that they're highly respected in industry.

beat2• 13 years ago

Their direct competitors are Porsche and Ferrari, not Ford and Toyota. They're GOOD.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

"good" is a very murky term here. They are certainly more high-tech, but are they as simple? As reliable? As easy to service?

You really need to define "good" in this context.

guimarin• 13 years ago

Aston Martin engineers good cars for their production volume. Since they are more or less in the same production volume as where tesla wants to be in the medium term, I would say his experience will bring a lot to Tesla. It was probably one of the best pick-ups they could have made.

joshu5• 13 years ago

That really depends.

They do sound way, way better though.

I got to drive a Vantage GT4 on the racetrack recently: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/8368748201/in/set-7215763...

nlh2• 13 years ago

So here's the thing - they're not actually that good. Let me preface this by saying that a) my perspective isn't a normal consumer one -- my business has put tens of thousands of miles on various Aston Martin models (we rent them) and b) the last model I've dealt with extensively is an '06 DB9, so things may have changed a lot in the past few years.

But that being said, despite being IMHO the most gorgeous cars on the road, Astons are not particularly well-engineered.

First, we had an '02 Vanquish and an '03 Vanquish, both of which had a very fundamental and deeply expensive flaw in the transmission design. Without getting too deep into it, they used a "auto manual" style transmission, which was basically a 6-speed manual combined with hydrolic actuators to shift automatically. No manual clutchwork required (same design, basically, as BMWs SMG). On just about all similar cars, after a while (i.e. 12k - 15k miles) the clutch needs to be replaced. On Ferraris and Lamborghinis, it's a simple job that costs a few $thousand - drop the transmission, replace clutch and flywheel, and you're good. On both the Vanquishes, the way in which the clutch would fail would literally destroy the entire transmission, and we TWICE had to spend $15,000 to rebuild the entire transmission after a failed clutch (one on each car). I've never seen another car with design like that, and since it happened the exact same way on two different cars, we're pretty sure it's endemic to the design.

Move to the later models - we had a bunch of 05 & 06 DB9s, and they just weren't great. The brakes were notoriously bad, the bodyflex was particularly bad on the convertibles, and they suffered repeated electrical gremlins.

So from my purely technical perspective as a heavy user of Astons, I'd say I'm not impressed with their engineering.

NOW - that all being said, I'm not going to make any judgment about this guy and his work at Tesla and what this means about that. There is far too much that goes into the production of a car to make any real judgment call about things to come -- Astons could have been beautifully engineered and then ruined with bad supplier decisions, that were outside this guy's control. Etc. etc.

So them's my $0.02.

joshu5• 13 years ago

My neighbor used to have an F430 or F360 (I forget) and told me that he allocated $25k a year for maintenance and clutch replacement.

The DCT on the 458 is rated for the life of the car, though.

Note that Aston was sold in 2007 and I believe engineering quality changed after that.

gcv• 13 years ago

Were they any fun to drive? After Ford bought Aston, I always assumed the cars would feel like souped-up Tauruses with Connolly leather interiors, but I've never actually sat behind the wheel of an Aston.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

I think you are being a bit unfair.

Gearbox wise, they were on the edge of what they knew, but had to keep up with the competition, and well, pointless fashion. It was an optional extra that customers didn't have to have. That gearbox is not typical of the engineering at AML. Yeah, they should have not released it with out more R&D, but equally, the gearbox is not representative of the whole package.

Bodyflex wise, or the loss of torsional rigidity is what happens when you cut a roof off, and well, make things worse by adding a load of structure to make up for it, ish, adding weight. But that happens to greater or lesser extents with other cars. All lose torsional rigidity and gain weight, unless specifically designed to be convertible. The DB9 is long, and there for suffers more than a shorter car. Same problem with a DBS, but why any one would want to buy a DBS and compromise it is beyond me. But, much better with the Vantage. So, IMHO, you get what you gat. If you must have a DB9 type car chopped up, it will flex more.

Dunno what's wrong with the brakes, but given that you say the problem was for 2 years of production suggests that its a problem solved.

Electrics. Ahhhh, never a good thing on Astons!! Which for Tesla is pretty ironic.

voltagex_• 13 years ago

The things you don't hear about on Top Gear. Do you think there's anywhere else I can go to read stuff like what you wrote?

rdl• 13 years ago

Please at least slightly pimp your business, it sounds awesome. (Is it Gotham Dream Cars? that's the only place I know of which rents multiple Aston-Martins in the US)

justin662• 13 years ago

> NOW - that all being said, I'm not going to make any judgment about this guy and his work at Tesla and what this means about that. There is far too much that goes into the production of a car to make any real judgment call about things to come -- Astons could have been beautifully engineered and then ruined with bad supplier decisions, that were outside this guy's control. Etc. etc.

One encouraging thing: with the Roadster, Tesla took a Lotus chassis and made something magnificent out of it with brand new drivetrain technology. They based a car on a Lotus, who hasn't made a reliable car... ever? (they're wonderful cars in their way, but sorry, it's true) From what you're saying, perhaps it's sort of similar to Aston.

If it's an ability to turn sketchy-but-brilliant British design into great cars that's needed, they seem to have it.

shin_lao• 13 years ago

The car is brilliant, especially in terms of design and engine, but it's a small scale production and they don't have the means of Porsche, Mercedes, Audi (great but not perfect though) or Ferrari and therefore aren't state of the art when it comes to gearbox, transmission and brakes.

The worst part is the gearbox who is notoriously unreliable and many models have issues around 20,000 km.

It's really upsetting to put 100 k€ in a car to have the reliability of a 80' Lancia.

That being said I love Aston Martin, they make awesome cars. Probably the best car body there is to date.

But if you're looking for engineering perfection, get a Porsche 911 Turbo.

mrkmcknz• 13 years ago

Tesla also recruited Henrik Fisker from Aston Martin. Those who don't know of Fisker, he went on to found his own company after a couple of years at Tesla(http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/).

Looks like Aston Martin have some serious talent working on those machines.

kiba• 13 years ago

Fisker then left Fisker Automatives, and that company is now in the process of dying or dead.

toomuchtodo3• 13 years ago

Fisker Karma. What irony.

coob• 13 years ago

TSLA is up on the news - have a look at the end of today's graph: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA&ei=vSGIUe...

toomuchtodo3• 13 years ago

As someone who bought several thousand shares at $17/share when it went IPO, its hard not to be excited for TSLA.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

Heck, I bought 100 shares when it was at $40 and even I feel incredibly lucky!

gigabytejack• 13 years ago

Could have something to do with a pending deal with AMG which would lead to a very different development cycle. http://www.leftlanenews.com/aston-martin-in-talks-for-amg-en...

From a reliability standpoint there have been more problems with them than their German counterparts (ie: Lamborghini - engineered by Audi with Italian design, or Porsche). From an engine perspective this move makes a lot of sense with the rising cost of compliance with EU emission standards.

Cars will continue to look awesome, will be more reliable and cheaper (relatively) to service.

DerekAlia2• 13 years ago

Hilarious review of an Aston Martin Vantage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi0yXeuqBjU

calinet64• 13 years ago

Man I wish I had capital now... or a year ago... or 13 years ago when I told my parents they should buy AAPL.

Oh well. The best investment you can make is always yourself.

Tesla Hires Aston Martin's Vehicle Engineering Leader

Related Stories