RE: Breaking News: Tesla in Financial Difficulties?

[dublet]

Daisy Duke said:

The chap I spoke to at the Motor Show couldn't see what the issue was or why a maximum range of 200 miles was also a problem. He couldn't understand that people often drive performance cars long distances (obviously hadn't heard of Le Mans) without wanting to stop for several hours to recharge, but then he didn't even realise that most households don't have access to three-phase electricity so all his calculations were rubbish. At least the chap on the Lightning GT stand understood the issues, although in the current financial situation that may not succeed either.

There may well be a future for electric commuter vehicles, but the Tesla always struck me as a vanity project, particularly when there are other more exciting ways to drive fast whilst still saving the planet.

A Tesla would be perfect for my commute of 45 miles each way. After a day of working, I could plug it in at home, recharge for pennies, and be away the next day. With a range of 200 miles I would only have to recharge it every two days, and still have a few miles left over to go to Tesco's. In doing that I would save a fortune in fuel, albeit my leccy bill would go up a bit to compensate.

Sure there are minor problems with recharging speed if you want to go a long way, but there are battery technologies out there to address that. Remember, when they first had petrol cars, there were precious little fuel stations anywhere, but that didn't stop them eventually.

Besides, when combined with a portable nuclear power plant, or two, imagine the range!

[teapea]

what a shame, sign of economic times

realisticially the cost of them, to justify one over a comparable lotus you'd have to do a lot of miles in terms of breaking even

and they sound st compared and i assume theyre auto??

mmmm and not as pretty

shame though

[AlpineWhite]

patmahe said:

A pity if its true, there was some real potential difference in this company.....

Edited for electrical engineering humour.

[Monkey boy 1]

ymmv said:

Keep in mind they're not dead, they're just wounded ("merely a flesh wound ... I've had worse ...")

The rolling chassis is made in the UK. Tesla finishes it with a fall carbon fibre body kit and their own cabin trim.

The finished car being assembled in California,
.

Wrong
Someone ought to tell the guys @ Hethel then that they are actually in California, but there again, there is a California near Great Yarmouth, and that too is in Norfolk It's also kind of cold here for California.

I think the big give away was when somone said earlier that they saw lots of them at the Lotus 60th, that's because thay did.

Edited by Monkey boy 1 on Wednesday 15th October 17:51

[6th Gear]

Bear Stearns, Lehman and now Tesla.....

[mike360]

Tested one on Saturday,,,, it feels real fast,, the whishhh noise it makes is great

[Daisy Duke]

Mattt said:

Oh, Daisy YHM about something else while I remember!

Thanks Mattt, I will try to sort something out.

[phase90]

Dracoro said:

Whay would anyone pay 3/4/5 times as much for an Elise powered by batteries?

They'd just buy the Elise and save a fortune.

If it had been, say, £5k more than an Elise then it may well have succeeded.

If they bought an Elise, they would not have 3.9 sec 0-60 now would they?

[jquin]

I drove one this morning and was very impressed. Brilliant power delivery and I really didn't mind it not being noisy. I reckon it's the sort of thing that in 30 years we'll wonder why people would want a noisy car when you can have a quiet one.

My issues are price £92k, LHD only (until 2011), only 2 seats and it does effectively still look like an Elise (so it's quite small).

For me 150-240 mile range isn't an issue and you can "fill it up" quite quickly with 3 phase power so I could see fuel stations in the future supplying that.

It's just a classic case of early adopting. The first of a new technology is always more expensive. If you would rather have it sooner than cheaper then you pay that price. In 10 years they'll inevitably be cheaper, longer range etc.

Also, let's wait for the facts before feasting on the rumours. They have a strong order book (there are quite a lot of people in forums who say they have paid their deposits who don't seem to be chancers so I don't think that's a lie).

Edited by jquin on Wednesday 15th October 18:03

[Hedgerley]

This needs to be treated for what it is - a rumour. Tesla have over a 1000 deposits for the roadster and Lotus is gearing up to produce 40/week by the New Year.

They recently secured $135m additional funding plus State Grants for their new facility near San Jose. This is where they will be building the new 'affordable' 5 seat sedan, "Whitestar". A quick search on their site also shows dozens of jobs available and no doubt recruitment will pick up again as the new factory takes shape.

This doesn't sound to me like a company in trouble. Having said that, given whats happened in the last two weeks nothing can surprise me anymore.

[buddhabelly]

jquin said:

I drove one this morning and was very impressed. Brilliant power delivery and I really didn't mind it not being noisy. I reckon it's the sort of thing that in 30 years we'll wonder why people would want a noisy car when you can have a quiet one.

My issues are price £92k, LHD only (until 2011), only 2 seats and it does effectively still look like an Elise (so it's quite small).

For me 150-240 mile range isn't an issue and you can "fill it up" quite quickly with 3 phase power so I could see fuel stations in the future supplying that.

It's just a classic case of early adopting. The first of a new technology is always more expensive. If you would rather have it sooner than cheaper then you pay that price. In 10 years they'll inevitably be cheaper, longer range etc.

Also, let's wait for the facts before feasting on the rumours. They have a strong order book (there are quite a lot of people in forums who say they have paid their deposits who don't seem to be chancers so I don't think that's a lie).

Edited by jquin on Wednesday 15th October 18:03

Makes sense,

At the same time, why pay £100k-ish for a car now when you know the technology is going to move along pretty fast, especially now everyone is pouring money into being green. In time, Telsa_v1.0 is going to the equivalent of those huge computers we see in black and white clips.

petrol works fine for now, and achieves the same result. So why would an early adopter go for a telsa (i know some will) but for me, the Telsa is not an ipod in a walkman world, its just a different type of walkman.

[Alfanatic]

xjs_man said:

neema_T said:

Article said:

with an economy equivalent to 135mpg.

How the hell did they work that one out?

I took it to mean that for the price of a gallon of petrol, it would do 135 miles?

I believe it's derived from the energy consumption rate, per mile, of the Tesla, worked back to the power station providing the energy. Or something like that. Or perhaps xjs_man is close but say energy of a gallon instead of price?

[Dracoro]

phase90 said:

Dracoro said:

Whay would anyone pay 3/4/5 times as much for an Elise powered by batteries?

They'd just buy the Elise and save a fortune.

If it had been, say, £5k more than an Elise then it may well have succeeded.

If they bought an Elise, they would not have 3.9 sec 0-60 now would they?

Apart from the Elise SC which isn't far off. Then there's all the exige's.

[tim milne]

buddhabelly said:

jquin said:

I drove one this morning and was very impressed. Brilliant power delivery and I really didn't mind it not being noisy. I reckon it's the sort of thing that in 30 years we'll wonder why people would want a noisy car when you can have a quiet one.

My issues are price £92k, LHD only (until 2011), only 2 seats and it does effectively still look like an Elise (so it's quite small).

For me 150-240 mile range isn't an issue and you can "fill it up" quite quickly with 3 phase power so I could see fuel stations in the future supplying that.

It's just a classic case of early adopting. The first of a new technology is always more expensive. If you would rather have it sooner than cheaper then you pay that price. In 10 years they'll inevitably be cheaper, longer range etc.

Also, let's wait for the facts before feasting on the rumours. They have a strong order book (there are quite a lot of people in forums who say they have paid their deposits who don't seem to be chancers so I don't think that's a lie).

Edited by jquin on Wednesday 15th October 18:03

Makes sense,

At the same time, why pay £100k-ish for a car now when you know the technology is going to move along pretty fast, especially now everyone is pouring money into being green. In time, Telsa_v1.0 is going to the equivalent of those huge computers we see in black and white clips.

petrol works fine for now, and achieves the same result. So why would an early adopter go for a telsa (i know some will) but for me, the Telsa is not an ipod in a walkman world, its just a different type of walkman.

More like an iPod in a portable cassette player world

[odyssey2200]

Like having an iPod that you can only listen to for half a track before putting it on charge for a few hours. and you can only charge it at home.

[TargaFlorio]

I pass by Menlo Park, California, where they have a major dealership just about everyday. They've got a few cars in there but I've never seen any customers, nor have I even ever seen anyone parked out front. Shame really, but perhaps its the location; it's just a converted Cadillac dealership that went bankrupt in a not-too-wealthy part of town (shame really considering how much money there is in that part of the Bay Area but I guess it's just hard to find the real estate to open up a car dealership...)

I live in San Jose now though so I'll keep my eyes peeled for this factory they speak of...

You know what would be promising, to all of you saying an electric saloon would work better? The Fisker Karma. Yes it's a hybrid, but it's cheap, fast, quite elegant looking...I dig it

[dandarez]

neh321 said:

More proof of just how impossibly hard it really is to break into car-manufacturing. All credit to those who try because they nearly all end up bankrupt...

Credit!!!!?
Yeah, and leave a load of empty pocket customers behind, dozen of creditors who will never get their money back while they bugger off to start up another new venture (usually with other people's money).

If it's true, can you have pity on the boneheads who put down (probably substantial) deposits? 'Before' parting with any hard earned you should do at least a little research and whichever way you look at it the Tesla is way too 'expensive', it's 'untried technology', outwardly it's an 'old hat' design bodywise (IT'S a modded Elise!) will probably be superseded 'fast' if it works, so can only be labelled high risk - probably worse than putting your money in an Icelandic bank!

Here are a few words just picked up on the site that would stop me ever risking my money with these guys:

'It is true that Elon Musk, the company's main financial backer, is stepping in to replace CEO Ze'ev Drori, who's staying with the company as vice chairman and a member of the board. But anyone with a sense of history should be very worried at the prospect of Musk taking the wheel.

Musk lucked out twice, with the $300 million of a long-forgotten Internet portal, and the survival, despite his best efforts, of PayPal, the payments site now controlled by eBay. According to Elon Musk, Elon Musk was the driving force behind PayPal during his brief, tumultuous reign as CEO of the payments company. Musk's version of events is a fiction believed by no one else. I know this because I spoke to PayPal insiders regularly while he was CEO, and they told me of chaotic management, boneheaded marketing and technology decisions, and serious turnover under Musk's reign.

That is what Tesla has to look forward to. In some sense, it's already been enduring it since Musk ousted founder Martin Eberhard and replaced him with Drori last year. Musk has been working at the company for several days a week, Darryl Siry, Tesla's VP of marketing, tells me, in an effort to portray Drori's beheading as some kind of smooth transition.

With a parlous economy, Tesla was already in for a bumpy ride. Musk is keeping his second job as CEO of SpaceX, a private rocket company which has seen several botched launches. Add to that the infamous tale of his PayPal-era car crash, and you've got an entrepreneur who's better known for destroying vehicles than building them.'

Would you have put down a deposit?

[Ex Boy Racer]

I think that everyone has got the wrong end of the stick here. EVERY car maker is in the doo doos. Only difference that this one is small and therefore has to react to the global crisis. I would put money on the fact that Tesla's forecast losses are smaller than GM or Ford or probably every other manufacturer you can think of.
This story has nothing to do with electricity, or whether Tesla is any good or not. It's about the economy.

[Frik]

Ex Boy Racer said:

I think that everyone has got the wrong end of the stick here. EVERY car maker is in the doo doos. Only difference that this one is small and therefore has to react to the global crisis. I would put money on the fact that Tesla's forecast losses are smaller than GM or Ford or probably every other manufacturer you can think of.
This story has nothing to do with electricity, or whether Tesla is any good or not. It's about the economy.

Exactly. It is by all accounts a very good car (a friend drove it yesterday and couldn't stop raving about it).

I wish them every success.

[jquin]

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=65
Elon's blog:
"focus on our two revenue producing business lines"
"A modest reduction in near term headcount" (It would be interesting to know the percentage)
"Tesla is absolutely committed to development of our next generation vehicle... However, we are going to reduce activity on detailed production engineering, tooling and commitments to suppliers until our Department of Energy loan guarantee becomes effective."
"I personally stand behind delivering a product... We are not far from being cash flow positive...I will do whatever is needed to ensure that Tesla has more than sufficient capital to get there."

This is not necessarily a bad thing. The company is much more likely to survive if is at least near-profitable (or at least cash flow positive). Better to start small and grow organically than burn money and go bust. I really hope they succeed. Some people seem to think Tesla is a threat but I think it's a great opportunity as it will spur other car manufacturers to develop eco-friendly cars. Whatever your view on Co2, governments are going to aggressively pursue Co2 reduction. The quicker we have eco-friendly sports cars the less chance of them perceived as the next 4x4s.

Edited by jquin on Thursday 16th October 09:29