Tesla has named Aston Martin’s vehicle engineering head, Chris Porritt, as its new vice president of vehicle engineering.
In a statement, Tesla said Porritt was “a world-class leader and automotive engineer who established A-M’s vehicle engineering team from the ground up and used his innovative approach” as chief engineer for the One-77 supercar “best known for its advanced structural design combined with cutting edge active suspension and aerodynamics” which combined to make it one of the fastest cars in the world.
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Porritt takes over 25 years of automotive engineering experience to Tesla. He joined A-M in 1997 where he brought vehicle engineering function in-house, establishing vehicle dynamics, NVH and durability and later whole vehicle architecture and vehicle packaging, as well as thermal management, aerodynamics and full vehicle test.
His team was responsible for the architecture of the VH platform cars including the DB9 and V12 Vantage. Prior to A-M, Porritt spent 10 years at Land Rover which he joined as a college intern and rose to principal engineer in vehicle dynamics.
“Tesla is a hardcore technology company, which means that anyone leading a team of engineers must be an outstanding engineer themself, as well as a good leader,” said Elon Musk, Tesla co-founder and CEO. “Chris demonstrated exactly that in his prior role at A-M, creating in the One-77 what was arguably their best car ever.”
Porritt said: “This is an incredible opportunity to bring technologies normally reserved for supercars to the high volume market.”
