JB Straubel (Jeffrey B. Straubel) is part of the founding team and the Chief Technical Officer of Tesla Inc., an electric car company based in Palo Alto, California. At Tesla, Straubel oversees the technical and engineering design of the vehicles. He also has responsibility for new technology evaluation, R&D, technical diligence review of key vendors and partners, IP, and systems validation testing.
In addition to his work at Tesla, Straubel is also on the Board of Directors for Solar City. He is also a lecturer at his alma mater, Stanford University, where he teaches the popular Energy Storage Integration class in the Atmosphere and Energy Program.
In a pioneering first step, Tesla has recently entered the home energy market by unveiling the Powerwall home battery – this stores energy converted from the sun via solar panels which will enable homeowners to store backup power, minimize the use of major utility providers electricity. It is an honor to host Mr. JB Straubel for the John T. Vucurevich Foundation’s “An Evening with..,” speaker series.
