{"id":73093,"date":"2014-03-13T00:41:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T04:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=73093"},"modified":"2014-03-12T22:49:24","modified_gmt":"2014-03-13T02:49:24","slug":"tesla-poaches-nissan-vp-simon-sproule-as-new-pr-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2014\/03\/tesla-poaches-nissan-vp-simon-sproule-as-new-pr-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla Poaches Nissan VP Simon Sproule as New PR Chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New Tesla PR Chief Simon Sproule.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been an up-and-down month for Tesla, and if at times it seems like the start-up battery-carmaker has struggled a bit to stay on-message that\u2019s probably no surprise.\u00a0 It has, in fact, struggled to keep staffed with PR professionals and even those now on the Palo Alto-based team have often been overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the generally good news about the maker\u2019s stock price run-up, the worrisome developments involving a series of vehicle battery fires.\u00a0 This week, Tesla seemed shell-shocked when it was denied the opportunity to set up factory-run dealerships in New Jersey. Never mind the fact that its expanding in Europe, preparing to enter China and getting ready to launch a new SUV, to be followed by a more mainstream battery sedan.<\/p>\n

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Global Insight!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Making sense out of all that will shortly become the responsibility of one Simon Sproule, at 45 an industry veteran who has worked for Ford, Jaguar, and for most of the last decade with CEO Carlos Ghosn in a variety of duties at Nissan and the Renault-Nissan Alliance. \u00a0His most recent assignment was director of communications for that Euro-Pacific partnership.<\/p>\n

Sproule confirmed to TheDetroitBureau.com that he will be joining California-based Tesla Motors next month as its new vice president of communications.\u00a0 It\u2019s an intriguing jump with an especially significant synergy since Nissan and Tesla are each vying for title as the world\u2019s biggest producer of battery-electric vehicles \u2013 though at as much as $110,000 apiece, the Tesla Model S is a significantly more expensive and lavishly equipped offering than the little Nissan Leaf.<\/p>\n

(NJ pulls plug on Tesla’s plan for company-owned showrooms. <\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a> for the latest.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

While Sproule declined to discuss his plans for Tesla having not officially started in his new post, a series of industry insiders suggest he\u2019ll have a lot of work ahead of him.\u00a0 Not only is Tesla in an aggressive growth mode \u2013 add plans for its new \u201cGigafactory\u201d battery plant to the list of developments, never mind its growing Supercharger network \u2013 but it really hasn\u2019t followed a traditional PR path.\u00a0 Make that a traditional automotive PR path.<\/p>\n

Much of its message has been aimed at non-automotive media, often to the frustration of traditional car scribes among whom many have yet to been given the opportunity to even sit in, never mind drive, one of the Model S sedans.\u00a0 The approach can be an effective one when things are going right, said one PR veteran, \u201cbut it can go very seriously wrong, as well.\u00a0 The general media like to build you up then knock you down.\u201d\u00a0 Asking not to be identified by name, the executive added that traditional automotive media have a better understanding of the business that shows in their coverage.<\/p>\n

(Tesla plans to have its \u2018gigafactory\u2019 up and running by 2020. <\/em>Click Here<\/a> to learn more.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Elon Musk. The Internet billionaire, founder of Tesla \u2013 and of the SpaceX rocket company and SolarCity solar energy company \u2013 isn\u2019t your typical business executive.\u00a0 He\u2019s seldom shy when it comes to expressing his opinions, whether in an interview, a conference call with investors or his public blog. Musk has an innate ability to speak to the public but it can also prove a risky move as many a PR person handling such public personas as Donald Trump or Lee Iacocca can explain.<\/p>\n

For his part, the British-born Sproule has a natural cool mixed with a bit of hipness that should help balance Musk\u2019s brashness without trying to button the CEO down.<\/p>\n

(What\u2019s the upper limit for Tesla stock? <\/em>Click Here<\/a> for the story.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond his experience with Nissan\u2019s battery-car program, Sproule has had additional \u2013 albeit brief \u2013 experience in the high-tech world, a short tenure as head of the PR operations at Microsoft several years back before returning to Nissan in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

He is expected to settle into the bay area with his wife and young daughter but as he did while working for the globe-trotting Renault-Nissan CEO Ghosn, don\u2019t be surprised to see Sproule spend a significant amount of time passing through SFO, the international airport in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

(Tesla Model S named Best Overall Vehicle by Consumer Reports. <\/em>Click Here<\/a> for more.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been an up-and-down month for Tesla, and if at times it seems like the start-up battery-carmaker has struggled a bit to stay on-message that\u2019s probably no surprise. But Tesla will soon have a new helping hand, having lured PR veteran Simon Sproule away from the Renault-Nissan Alliance to become its new corp. communications chief. This from TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73093"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=73093"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=73093"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=73093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}