Peter Rowlingson, CEO and chief technology officer of Lucid Group, in a recent interview with HBO Axios, refuted Elon Musk's claim that he is not the chief engineer of Tesla's flagship electric car, the Model S. Since the current CEO of Lucid Group left the company, Tesla's former colleagues Rollinson and Musk have apparently not gotten along well.
Rawlinson led the Lucid Group to produce and deliver its first electric vehicle, the Lucid Air Dream Edition, on October 31. However, during Rollinson's tenure at Lucid, he earned the respect of many electric car enthusiasts, but Musk does not seem to be one of them. In interviews with Lucid's CEO, Rawlinson has said several times that much of his electric vehicle expertise comes from his experience as principal engineer on Tesla's Model S project in the early 2010s. However, Musk has disputed this claim several times, most recently in May 2021.
"Rawlinson was never the chief engineer. He arrived after the Model S prototype was completed, left before things got tough, and he was only responsible for bodywork, not powertrain, battery, software, production or design," Musk wrote on Twitter.
In an interview with Axios, Rawlinson said he described his position as "Model S principal engineer" on Tesla's business card. His LinkedIn page also states that his position at Tesla is "Vice President and Chief Engineer of Model S." In addition, he said tesla documents filed with the SEC during his tenure also listed him as the model S's chief engineer. In fact, in an 8-K filing with the SEC on December 16, 2010, Tesla did list Rollinson as a "vice president and chief engineer." While that doesn't suggest that Rollinson is vice president and chief engineer at model S, it will be the only car Tesla is developing at the time. According to the same report, Tesla plans to complete the Model S's alpha (prototype) build, exterior body design and engineering, safety and structural design, supplier procurement, and site preparation in 2010.
In response to Musk's claims, Rollinson said: "I think this is a kind of historical revisionism, isn't it? ”
The story doesn't stop there. Musk has also said in the past, "Rawlinson didn't design the Model S. The modelS prototype was done before he joined, and it wasn't cool for him to get us into trouble when things got tough. He did make some contributions to body/chassis engineering, but not to the powertrain, batteries, electronics or software. However, Rawlinson also talked about the reasons he left Tesla in 2012, including that his elderly mother needed his help, "and my boss didn't treat me very well." ”