From Torque News.

One true story from Tesla’s history is the company’s early struggles to get their first electric car, the Tesla Roadster, off the ground. In 2008, just a few months after the Roadster went on sale, Tesla faced a major setback when the transmission in one of the Roadsters failed during a test drive for a journalist from The New York Times.

The incident sparked a flurry of negative press and criticism of Tesla’s technology, which the company’s engineers and executives knew they had to address quickly to avoid irreparable damage to the brand. Tesla’s founder and CEO at the time, Elon Musk, decided to take matters into his own hands and personally oversaw the investigation into the transmission failure.

After days of testing and analysis, Musk discovered that the transmission issue was caused by a design flaw in the car’s two-speed gearbox, which had been supplied by an outside vendor. Rather than try to fix the existing gearbox, Musk decided to design and build a new, in-house transmission that would be more reliable and efficient.

The new gearbox, which Tesla called the "Roadster 2.5" transmission, was developed in just a few months and debuted in the updated Roadster model in 2009. The transmission was a major improvement over the original, and helped to restore confidence in Tesla’s technology and capabilities.

The incident with the Roadster transmission taught Tesla an important lesson about the risks and challenges of pioneering new technologies, and the importance of rigorous testing and quality control in order to succeed in a highly competitive and demanding industry.

#tesla

This is Armen Hareyan from Torque News. Please follow us at https://twitter.com/torquenewsauto on Twitter and https://www.torquenews.com/ for daily automotive news.

Reference
Torque News Tesla https://www.torquenews.com/video/true-story-how-tesla-changed-game-electric-cars