Tesla loses one of its most senior engineering executives

Tesla is dropping one among its most senior engineering executives, Colin Campbell, and he’s going to an organization based by Tesla cofounder and board member JB Straubel.

Colin Campbell joined Tesla in 2006 when the corporate was nothing greater than a small startup with a plan to deliver an electrical sports activities automotive, the Roadster, to market.

As one of many earliest engineers to hitch Tesla, Campbell rose by the ranks of the powertrain workforce as the corporate grew from a startup to one of many largest firms on earth.

In 2016, he joined the chief workforce as a director of engineering for energy electronics. He was shortly promoted to senior director answerable for all powertrain improvement:

Answerable for {the electrical}, mechanical, and manufacturing engineering of excessive energy electronics, motors, gearboxes, battery packs, and charging programs throughout each automobile and vitality companies.

Most lately, he was vp of powertrain at Tesla, however he has now introduced that he’s leaving the corporate after 17 years.

Campbell introduced on LinkedIn immediately that he left Tesla to hitch Redwood Supplies:

After 17 unimaginable years at Tesla, I’m excited to share that I can be becoming a member of Redwood Supplies as CTO!

At Redwood, the engineer will be a part of his longtime colleague JB Straubel, a cofounder and longtime CTO at Tesla, earlier than he left in 2019 to start out Redwood, which is making an attempt to create a North American battery provide chain by the manufacturing of cathode and anode supplies and recycling.

Straubel additionally rejoined Tesla lately by accepting a seat on the company’s board – probably making this rent a bit awkward.

Campbell commented on his time at Tesla:

I had a once-in-a-lifetime expertise at Tesla and, as an engineer, I can’t start to summarize what number of rewarding technical challenges I encountered whereas constructing our thrilling, secure, dependable, and more and more inexpensive EVs. My time on the firm started after we barely had a proof of idea and ends with tens of millions of Teslas on the street worldwide. We not solely made a distinction on world emissions, but in addition eternally influenced how the world thinks about transportation and helped to form the product roadmaps of virtually each different automaker. It’s been extra rewarding and memorable than I may have imagined.

However there’s an opportunity that he would possibly nonetheless get to work with Tesla in some capability since Straubel rejoining Tesla has sparked rumors of the 2 firms constructing ties.