The entrepreneurs first to use the Tesla brand name and their Chinese associates before American electric car makers had the same idea. Back row, from left: Kelvin Blake (co-director), Jason Huang (Freerider Corp, Taiwan), Mhairi Fraser, Peter Fraser. Front: Juyu Fan (director, Freerider Corp) at Freerider’s factory in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Photos: Peter Fraser.
Two Australian entrepreneurs selling mobility scooters scored an unexpected windfall when the American founders of Tesla electric cars came knocking on their door.
Among the first people to see an emerging market for mobility scooters in the 1990s, Peter Fraser was operating from Sydney and Kelvin Blake from Melbourne. They teamed up to become exclusive dealers in their respective states.
Since then, Peter and his wife, Mhairi, have resettled in Goulburn, where they’re still engaged in innovative sustainability projects with fellow activists in The Goulburn Group.
Back in 2011, when Tesla representatives went to register the name in Australia, they discovered Peter and Kelvin had beaten them to it.
The two businessmen had formed their company, Scooters Australia, in 1995, and by about 2000 were importing scooters themselves from two Chinese companies and two Taiwanese firms. They then needed a distinctive model name.
Considering several possibilities, they settled on Tesla, the name of Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla, famous for his pioneering contributions to the alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
In 2006, they trademarked Tesla with IP Australia because by then, rivals had started copying their successful business model.
A cartoonist and friend of Peter’s had produced a logo for their scooters showing a smiling 60-year-old woman riding on a scooter with the wind blowing in her hair, giving the sleek vehicles a cool, more favourable image.
Protecting their hard-earned logo and trademark, they were constantly firing off legal letters warning their rivals to stop ripping off their branding.
Having developed the all-electric Roadster sports car, Tesla America called Peter in 2011, but was unwilling to offer any money for their Australian brand name.
Teslas in central Goulburn putting the city on the electric car-recharging map. These days, Australia’s biggest charging station, with 20 charge points near the Big Merino, is open to all brands of electric cars.
“In the end, we worked out a price, which was way, way too low,” Peter said. “We figured if we could sell them the name and keep it for ourselves to use it on mobility scooters, it would be extra money for us.
“I’m not quite sure why they paid us anything, because they could have got it for nothing.
“They could have registered Tesla for motor vehicles excluding mobility scooters and wheelchairs and would have been able to do that for nothing.
“We didn’t register for all motor vehicles, we only trademarked it for mobility scooters and wheelchairs.”
At the time, neither the Australians nor Americans could have imagined in their wildest dreams the all-conquering worldwide success of Tesla’s electric cars.
And Peter and Kelvin sold the Australian rights to Tesla for under $50,000.
At the time, the partners’ electric scooter venture was hitting its straps.
“We got to do a lot of travel. We went to China and Taiwan three or four times a year, we went to Germany once a year to a big trade show and made a bit of a holiday out of it as well, staying in Europe a few more weeks,” Peter said.
An Israeli company wanted them to represent it, as did two or three American ones, a Danish business and numerous Chinese and Taiwanese firms, all making or distributing mobility scooters.
They had worked closely with a Chinese company with a workforce of 5000, which was also the biggest manufacturer of prams in the world.
“We used to go to China three or four times a year and help them develop the scooter,” Peter said.
Later in Goulburn, Peter joined The Goulburn Group, where his contacts with Telstra again proved fortuitous.
Alex Ferrarer, a colleague in The Goulburn Group, got wind that Tesla was about to establish charging stations between Sydney and Melbourne. So, Peter tracked down Evan Beaver, who managed the Tesla Supercharger program from 2014-2016.
When Evan told them Marulan was the preferred location, they convinced him, with then-mayor Geoff Kettle’s help, that Goulburn was a better site.
Consequently, Tesla established the eight-bay superchargers in the Goulburn Visitors Centre carpark.
Goulburn Mulwaree Council’s business manager marketing, events and culture Sarah Ruberto said during the 40 minutes to charge at the Tesla Supercharger, many drivers popped into the centre to stretch their legs, browse local products and learn more about the region.
“Forty minutes might not sound like much, but it’s often enough to spark curiosity,” she said. ”We regularly have visitors return saying they first stopped in while charging their car and wanted to come back to see more.
“We estimate that around one-third of our walk-in visitors are people charging their Teslas.”
The first charging station outside Australian capital cities, the Tesla Supercharger is now marking its 10th anniversary.
