Every brand needs a story, right? Well, here’s ours.
I’m Erik Robertson, a Tesla Roadster owner and enthusiast. I’ve been making carbon fiber parts for Roadsters since 2019. In 2022, I formed Eggplant Fab LLC as a family business based in Houston, Texas. Today, our creations can be found on Roadsters all over the world, from an early Validation Prototype to the final US production car.
How did we get here?
In 2016, I bought my first Roadster after a few years of driving non-Tesla EVs and deciding that life was too short for that. The Roadster was VIN #113, finished in Thunder Gray. After a couple of years regularly commuting in it, I felt the need to spice things up. The completely gray exterior wasn’t exciting enough and was a safety issue as it blended into the road beneath it. Tesla had made carbon fiber upgrades, which were premium options further into Roadster production. Right around the time I was ready to get serious about purchasing these parts, Tesla discontinued sales of them and scrapped their inventory in the process of prioritizing their newer models. I found other owners in the same boat, with no real solutions. A handful of aftermarket vendors had come and gone on the forums. Some took money from owners and disappeared. Others produced a couple of parts and moved on to other more lucrative models. Aftermarket carbon fiber was not looking promising in the Roadster community.
I took a deep breath and looked back at my own unpleasant experiences working with composite automotive parts while in college. I’d spent a lot of time fabricating custom fiberglass speaker enclosures for high end car audio systems and skinning interior trim pieces with carbon fiber fabric. Carbon fiber in particular was a very unforgiving material, and expensive – especially on a college student’s budget. When I eventually gave it up to focus on my professional career, it felt like “unfinished business” for over a decade. I wanted to eventually give it another try. Now with the parts I wanted for my Roadster being unobtainable, I had the perfect excuse to dive back in. And a deep dive it was.
I could write a book about the highs and lows of learning carbon fiber fabrication, but I won’t. At least not here. After many months of trial and error (i.e. throwing money away), I learned how to consistently make quality parts for my own car and actually enjoy the process. In 2019, I shipped parts to my very first customer. Since then, I’ve produced and shipped several other parts for the Roadster, to independent service centers and directly to owners. See them all in our online store! Eggplant Fab’s goal is to eventually have molds for every body panel and trim piece on the Roadster, among other things.
Why “Eggplant”?
Shortly after buying the Thunder Gray Roadster in 2016, I learned of the existence of a 1-of-1 factory custom “Aubergine Purple” Roadster when it was listed for sale on Tesla Motors Club. In addition to working with composites, I learned to paint cars in college and personally painted my first car Bright Purple Metallic, the rarest 97-98 Chevrolet Camaro color. Having a thing for purple, Roadster #744 immediately became my unicorn car. In 2020, I had the opportunity to purchase it and the rest is history. “Aubergine” is the British way of saying “eggplant”, so there we have it. 🍆
