interview > eberhard > eberhard 1

Eberhard 1 (0:44)
Topic(s): Auto Industry
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Video Transcript

Nicola Tesla was one of the great American inventors from a hundred years ago – actually, he's a Serbian-American inventor. He had about seven hundred patents to his name—American patents—of which one was for the A/C induction motor, the kind of motor we use in our car. He has been somewhat forgotten in history, although recently he has come up again. Maybe we are part of that, but we thought that he had to get credit for some of his work and its, uh, it's a good name. Nicola was also a colorful character; he was, maybe, insane. Toward the end of his life especially he had various issues: hallucinations, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and so on and so that's probably why he was forgotten. Somebody smarter than me once said that if we took away the inventions of Nicola Tesla in this country, the wheels of industry would stop.