'Auto Trends' Revisits Tesla's Bumpy Racial History With Its Black Workforce (Two Shows)

In 2021, Tesla was winning the electric car race in terms of sales and record setting stock prices. Almost four years later, Tesla has been on a rollercoaster ride. While Tesla is still number one in the U.S. electric car market, both sales and stocks have tumbled. Some of the sales fallout is attributed to more electric vehicle competition in the market, while the lion's share of the luxury brand's ills have been driven by CEO's Elon Musk's new role as what many see as co-President of the United States of America. 

'Auto Trends' Talks One-On-One With One Of The Leading Black Voices In The EV Battery Lane

 

While the world is familiar with Elon Musk and his line of mass produced, all-electric Teslas that achieves just over 200 miles on a battery charge, Denise Gray, who's a much quieter player in the hybrid and electric battery field, is one of the pioneers revolutionizing the industry, too.

Gray and her team are directly responsible for designing and developing battery packs to fuel, no pun intended, such vehicles as GM's new Tesla fighter, the mass-produced Chevy Bolt. Like the California built Teslas, the all-electric Bolt also has a driving range that surpasses 200 miles on a full battery charge. Conversely, unlike the pricey Teslas, the Bolt is currently one of a handful affordable EV alternatives on the market today to Musk’s luxury electric vehicles.

'Auto Trends' Talks One-On-One with Ford's First Black Female Car Designer (Two Shows)

 

Emeline King designed the interior of the 1994 Ford Mustang. (Photo Credit: EK)

As we celebrate Black History Month, Auto Trends with Jeffcars.com, a multicultural syndicated automotive program, shines the high beams on Emeline King, Ford Motor Company’s first Black female car designer. King, who was hired in 1983, was one of the first Black female car designers in the auto industry. Marietta Kearney Ellis, who was hired one-year earlier by General Motors, was the first in the industry.

Currently, there are approximately 30 Black car designers globally. Black car designers barely make up a fraction of this exclusive club of creative innovators. In fact, one has a better chance of being drafted at .03%, according to sports sources into the NBA, than becoming an automotive car designer.  

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Women's History Spotlight: The First Black Woman To Become The Chief Legal Officer At Toyota

Sandra Phillips, who joined Toyota in 2012, is the new general counsel and chief legal officer at Toyota Motors Sales USA. Phillips is the first black women to hold such a position at Toyota (and what we believe to be in the auto industry). Phillips recently served as vice president and assistant general counsel at the automaker. 

In her new assignment, Phillips will be responsible for legal operations, legal technology and coordinating the representation of Toyota's affiliates in North America.

Phillips joined Toyota's legal team at a time when the company was bombard with class action suits for alleged sudden acceleration suits. According to one of our internal resources, her background is in class-action suits, product liability and government investigations.

Shining The Headlights On A Black Owned Female Dealer: The Road Less Traveled For Women (2005 Interview)

 

In this world of male-dominated dealers, its rare that we run into females, or for that matter, a sister who has her own dealerships. As a tribute to Women's History Month 2005, we would like to shine the headlights on Ms. Elaine Fairhurst, owner of Hunstsville Autoplex, Huntsville, Alabama. Nationally, less than 4 percent of dealerships are owned by women. Needless to say, ethnic minority women make up an even smaller piece of the pie.

According to Black Enterprise Magazine Annual Auto Dealers list for 2005, Ms. Fairhurst is one of the top 50 dealers in the country. She recently spoke briefly with JeffCars about the path she has traveled to become an automobile dealer.

J: Are you the first and only African-American female dealer in the country to date to own a Lexus dealership?
EF: Yes, as far as I know.

Women History Spotlight: GM Joins FCA, Having The First Black Woman On The Board Of Directors

Linda Gooden

Linda Gooden is the first black woman to serve on the board of General Motors. The former executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Corporation joined the board in February. Ironically, Gooden began her 40-year career at the former Packard Electric Division of GM. In 2010, she was appointed to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee by President Obama. With the addition of Gooden, she now becomes the thirteen board member and the second black to currently sit on GM's board. Five women serves on GM's board, including the CEO, Mary Barra, the industry's first female to run a major automaker.

Crystal Windham: The Sister Behind GM's Trend-Setting Interiors

At one time, growing up in the suburbs of Detroit as an African American female meant you had two career options: work in the music industry for Motown or build cars for the "Big Three" -- GM, Ford and Chrysler. Since music wasn't the calling of Crystal Windham, the first African American female director in GM's design history (and in the auto industry), she decided to take the road less traveled by not building cars in a factory like many of our ancestors or working in a traditional administrative role typically expected of women.

Windham decided to buck the trend, operating in a field not normally occupied by women (African Americans or Hispanics for that matter). Furthermore, having Windham overseeing a design team is about as rare as finding a brother teaching elementary school.

Windham, who says she's a risk taker and driven like her mom (who is now deceased), became enamored with the auto industry after receiving a scholarship to take up an auto design class during her freshman year at the College of Creative Studies in Detroit (Ralph Gilles, lead designer of the Chrysler 300, and Earl Lucas, the exterior designer of the all-new Taurus, attended CCS, too).

While she found the class to be both challenging and rewarding, Windham immediately caught the bug -- itching to become an auto designer. To test her skills at auto designs, she accepted a summer internship with Ford before landing her dream job out of college with GM.

And unlike most Generation Xers, who have worked for several companies in the span of their professional careers, Windham has been loyal to GM (and GM has been loyal to her, too). Since joining the company, she has had several high-profile assignments, from living in Germany for a year to becoming the lead designer of the interior of the 2004 Chevy Malibu to her current appointment as director of North American passenger-car design.

In fact, while researching new trends in luxury purses such as Louis Vuitton, Windham came up with the award-winning two-tone upscale interior for the current generation Malibu, which has been praised by the industry and customers alike.

In addition to fashion influencing her car-interior designs, interface products like Blackberry cell phones and MP3 players have also helped the GM designer develop the Midas touch.

When Windham was asked what advice she would give to those looking to accomplish something outside of the norm, she suggested finding something you love and are passionate about. Stay open-minded, but never be afraid to ask for help even if it's from someone who doesn't look like you. Work hard. Have a positive support system. And be open to criticism -- within it, there's a message that shouldn't be ignored. Like Jesus was able to turn water into wine, Windham has used her fashion sense and love for tech gadgets to revolutionize the car industry.