Barton Strauber

JB Straubel is Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Tesla Motors, Inc., an electric vehicle company based in Palo Alto, California. At Tesla, Straubel oversees the technical and engineering design of the vehicles. He is also responsible for new technology evaluation, research and development, technical due diligence evaluation of key suppliers and partners, intellectual property IP and system validation testing. Tesla recently made a groundbreaking move into the home energy market with its Powerwall home battery product, which stores solar energy converted through solar panels. This will allow homeowners to store backup power, thus reducing the use of primary power tools during peak hours. It could even shut down the commercial power grid completely. In addition to his work at Tesla, Straubel is also a member of the board of directors of Solar City. He is also an instructor at his Alma mater, Stanford University, where he teaches Energy Storage Integration, a course popular with students under the Atmosphere and Energy Program. In 2008, Straubel was named one of the world's top 35 Outstanding Innovators under the age of 35 by MIT Technology Review TR35. He spoke at MIT's Emerging Technologies Summit. Emtech conference presentation on green transportation in Boston, MA. In September 2007, he spoke at an energy symposium at Stanford University called Clean, Secure and Efficient Energy, attended by former US Secretary of State George Shultz. He stressed the importance of education on climate change and reducing the CO2 intensity of current energy production. Prior to founding Tesla Motors, Straubel co-founded Volacom with Harold Rose n and served as the company's Chief Technology Officer, CTO. Volacom worked closely with Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites to design a dedicated high-altitude aircraft platform powered by a new type of hydrogen power station. At Volacom, Straubel co-invented and patented a new concept for long-endurance hybrid fuel propulsion, which was later licensed to Boeing. Prior to founding Volacom, Straubel worked with Harold Rosen and Benjamin M Rosen at Rosen Motors as a drive engineer. And developed a new hybrid vehicle powertrain based on micro turbine and high speed flywheel.