Tesla's High-Tech Lawsuits in Silicon Valley War

An anonymous reader writes "After pressing charges against its chief competitor in the race for the world's first production electric sports car that we broke down here recently, Tesla Motors seems to be shifting from the high-tech company re-writing Detroit's script to another Silicon Valley startup trying to sniff out the competition. So says Engadget's legal analyst in an in-depth column breaking down the legal ramifications. From the article: "This could upset the whole race for major production of an electric car in the U.S., which may be the main result of this whole drama. If anything, that's a win for Tesla. Let's just hope the company that set out to upend the automotive industry achieves its competitive goals in the lab and in the marketplace — and keeps its future fights out of the courtroom.""

Comments

Not quit accurate.

[WindBourne]

Calling Fisker's Tesla's chief competitor is a lot like calling MS IBM's chief competitor. Fisker was a sub-contractor to Tesla and had signed on as just that. Apparently via documents, Fisker was not going to go into car development, just stay in design. During that time, Fisker found out how to build the car, as well as the relatively low cost of doing so (much easier than a gas car) and decided to create his own with a one-off design of the roadster. So he basically delivered less to Tesla than was promised and then used the internal information that he had acquired from Tesla to help design his own, and as well as obtain funding.

Almost certainly, Fisker will have to pay back all the money that they obtained from Tesla. The real question is, can Tesla block Fisker's new car company?

The true loser on this will be customers and the world. In a way, for Tesla/Spacex to be successful, they need to move with speed. Spacex has contractual obligations to meet, and tesla will have to compete against major car companies in about 2-3 years. This lawsuit is taking Musk away from Tesla core AND Spacex. Both of these companies are innovative and are pushing the industry forward. But if he gets bogged down in court, they will stall. It would be far better for Tesla/Spacex, if Musk settles with Fisker quickly and moves on. In addition, the more companies that are doing EV, or even REV, the better it is.