Door County NewsPixels™ & Wish Books & Brochures MAG. THE DREAMING ISSUE | Page 47

In those days, Straubel also held a quarter-mile world record for the fastest electric vehicle, hitting 79.4 mph in a car that
he converted from a Porsche 944. He also
designed an electric bicycle with a top
speed of 32 mph and a 30-mile range on
a charge.
In 2003, Straubel joined up with Elon
Musk, the former owner of PayPal, (which
he sold to eBay for $1.5 billion), and who
was also very interested in electric-powered cars. Straubel and Musk met, and
began to explore the very real possibility
of an electric car platform that could truly
compete with the torque, speed, ad con-

venience of gas-powered vehicles.
It’s been noted that JB Straubel’s
name as of this writing has been
listed on most, if not all, of Tesla’s
patents.
Within months, Straubel and Musk
and a few other like-minded developers, had Tesla Motors ushered into existence. With JB Straubel as the
Chief Technical Officer, the electric
car industry was about to slam the
pedal to the floor. (Granted it wasn’t
easy and the rest of the story is pretty well-known.)

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