 | Further Troubles at Tesla?by DPeezy on October 31st, 2008 at 4:49 am |
(8 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
Loading ...An interesting/worrying little tidbit I came across earlier this evening during my ‘non-stock’ forays across the internets…according to a Tesla Motors insider, the company has only $9mil left in the bank and thus may run out of money before delivering on all of its existing orders (either fully paid or reserved with a deposit). Â So says the insider:
“The first few hundred cars have been paid full in cash when they booked their vehicles. The reservations following that required from $4,000 to $60,000 of deposit. We have over 1,200 reservations, which manes we’ve taken multiples of tens of millions of cash from our customers and have spent them all. Meanwhile, we only delivered less than 50 cars.”
This, let’s call it rumour for now, comes on the heels of layoffs and various other ‘refocusing’ efforts. Â None of those are exactly ‘good signs’.
Of course, stories from ‘insiders’ popping up on random blogs are not to be always trusted…but this morning, new CEO Elon Musk confirms the only-9mil-in-the-bank claim in a Reuters article.
“Musk was speaking after an apparently disgruntled Tesla employee posted a letter to a Silicon Valley blog that suggested Tesla was running out of funds after a financial briefing for employees this week.
“It’s a bit silly. If we had almost no money in the bank then one could say that we are about to run out of money. But I think it’s kind of silly to say that with $9 million in the bank,” Musk said.”
But how ’silly’ can that be, when in the same article, Musk claims that they NEED additional funding, at least $20mil (apparently coming next week), in addition to the $200mil that they’re still due from the government. Â And all this after they failed to secure $100mil in additional funding just 2 weeks ago!
All-in-all, these are very troubling times at the company that once seemed to light the way to the future of cars (and was going to public by the end of this year)! Â Now all we get are ass-shot teasers of the Tesla S (due 2010?):
Dpeezy,
Interesting post on Tesla.
I was recently at the San Diego Solar Expo and visited the Quantum Fuel Technologies (NASDAQ: QTWW) booth. Quantum, a photovoltaic panel manufacturer, will be installing the sun-roof PV panel on Fisker Motors new lithium-battery/solar-power car. Retailing at $80,000, the car is expected to go to market in late 2009 and is a direct competitor to Teslar Motors.
The sleek new Fisker Motors car resembles a cross between an Aston Martin and a BMW. I spent over 40 minutes speaking to the engineer manning the QTWW booth. Apparently, Fisker, which expects to produce 15,000 units annually, has logged between 1,400 and 1,600 in reserved sales. Your post makes me wonder what the situation is at Fisker.
Assuming everything remains on track, which is never a safe bet when the world economy is spiraling into a Depression, there could be a trade in QTWW in the 3rd quarter of next year, ahead of Fisker’s hybrid car rollout in the 4th quarter (note: Fisker is not publicly traded, so no trade there).
October 31st, 2008 at 8:11 amMost of the Telsa Motors trouble have been know for a long time since this July Fortune article.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/10/technology/copeland_tesla.fortune/index.htm
In-fighting, last minute changes, deviations from plans, cost overruns, etc ….
October 31st, 2008 at 9:18 amDamn. Guess I won’t be getting that Tesla, after all.
I forget to read Valley Wag. It’s like TMZ for ugly people.
Thanks, DPeezy.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:23 pmYeah, it should be interesting as Fisker & Tesla race to claim first in the ‘luxury’ electric car segment (while suing each other back & forth).
I’ve only seen guesses at what the Tesla S would look like, but the Fisker Karma looks sweet. Of course, Fisker is known for sweet designs, so that’s nothing new.
And just imagine driving one…no need to wait for the revs & the torque to come. Press the gas, and all the torque is there instantenously to rip your moustache off. Holla!
October 31st, 2008 at 5:32 pmlol, Anton. “TMZ for ugly people”.
So true.
The only time I go there is when it’s linked on Gizmodo or Jalopnik.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:40 pmDaPeez,
I always thought they were trying to do Tesla too much on the cheap before they went IPO. The whole building on the Lotus chassis thing seemed a little DeLaureanish.
My “genius move” for Tesla was to approach Ford when they were selling Aston Martin and offer to swap slightly-dated Tesla technology for a majority stake in AM, plus a royalty on future Ford electric cars.
Tesla gets a dealer network and cool brand, plus a manufacturing capability of their own. (I don’t know if that’s more baggage than it’s worth; just go with me on this, Tucker-style.) Ford gets a future for a fraction of what it would cost to develop their own electric cars (AM sold for, like, $850 million). Plus they get to market Ford electrics as having the same cool shit as the next generation of James Bond-mobiles.
And if they had to go looking for more $$$, I think it’s much easier to raise money for Aston Martin-Tesla than for either of the companies alone.
But maybe this economy will have us all driving Tata Motors wood-burning mini-cars soon anyway.
October 31st, 2008 at 6:02 pmFlinstones mobiles are in our future. I’m doing my heel/foot workouts already.
AM-Tesla could’ve been cool, if for nothing else, then for the next Bond to drive an electric car.
I think the Lotus chassis was a good choice for the Roadster…the Elise is a fun drive. Maybe they can get some from AM for the sedan.
October 31st, 2008 at 6:37 pmTesla’s problem isn’t funding. The problem is that Tesla trying to do something that battery technology isn’t up to doing.
It is hard for the Silicon Valley types to understand, but, just because something involves electricity and a lot of electronic controls, you can’t expect it to get twice as good at half the price every 18 months.
Storing large amounts of electrochemical energy at very high energy densities is tricky enough on its own. If you throw in the demands of use in a commercial automobile, and you have an engineering minefield - wide temperature ranges, vibration, long periods of idleness, highly variable electrical loads in use, and so on. Changes in the battery technology that bring improvements in one aspect of performance can be problematic in some other aspects.
Fisker/Quantum is even more of a nightmare, IMO. Neither one of them has any background in battery technology.
The short version of my opinion is that the two companies together don’t have (probably can’t afford) the quality and level of engineering effort needed to succeed. On top of that, I believe that QTWW’s management is inferior almost to the point of being criminally incompetent.
QTWW is supplying the guts of the hybrid drive system, but the company has no real experience with commercial vehicles. It was spun out of IMCO (now FSYS). IMCO produced fuel components for natural gas forklifts and vehicles (it was a GM supplier). I wasn’t impressed by the products for NG vehicles. GM’s offerings were inferior to competitors, and IMCO never signed up a second OEM. IMCO also had some big warranty problems when it supplied a line of medium-duty trucks. Over time, GM gave a few product lines to competing suppliers, and then dropped the NGV options completely.
QTWW was formed to develop compressed H2 storage tanks and to transfer IMCO’s NG expertise into fuel-system components for H2 vehicles. It supplied GM and Toyota, who cooperated to some extent on fuel cell vehicles for a time. Toyota had to pull its experimental vehicles off the road no less than 3 times due to problems with the QTWW-supplied components.
If there is any gold in the QTWW technology, and I doubt that there is, management will manage to degrade into brass.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:38 pmOtt -
I’m sorry, but I’m not buying your seemingly well-reasoned critique of the limitations of current battery technology and electric vehicles. When I was, maybe, 8 years old, I had an Aston Martin complete with a machine gun that popped out from the bumper and an ejector seat. The whole thing ran on TWO “D” BATTERIES.
True story.
A “pot-stirrer” such as yourself would be quick to point out that the entire vehicle could fit into a shoe box. But I am SURE the idea could scale.
By now I thought we’d all be driving like the Jetsons. But DPeezy’s right;
we will soon be driving like the Flinstones.
You guys have a great Halloween, especially with the little guy. I’m off to see Jane Goodall speak, ’cause I know how to par-TAY (didn’t realize she was tonight).
Pot-stirrer.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:14 pmYou are forgetting inflation, Mr. Cigur. Used to be you could pack dozens of electrons into a D-cell casing. With inflation, electrons are now so large that you need one of those 6V lantern batteries to hold an electron.
Inflation works on people, too. The Aston Martin that fit in your shoebox would have been big enough to drive if you’d been born in the 1920s.
November 1st, 2008 at 12:04 amOtt -
I have checked — TWICE — for this “electrons” to which you refer.
There is no such animal cited in my “Big Book of Creation Science.”
I can only assume that you are “having some sport” with this very
serious topic and regard my comments as “some kind of joke.”
And with that I will bid you good day, Sir.
I said GOOD DAY.
November 1st, 2008 at 8:27 pmBut seriously…
I just opened the Nov. 10 edition of Time, which includes a kind of “Top Ten” list of the inventions of the year.
Tesla is No. 2.
No pun intended.
November 1st, 2008 at 9:03 pmWait a minute…didn’t they win invention of the year once before already??
_____________
We ‘Silicon-Valley’ typed only understand Moore’s Law. Which states that our batteries by now should be the size of my fingernails. I don’t know who’s working on them, but they obviously need to get their shit in gear.
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:13 amEDIT: It was one of the ‘best inventions of 2006′ but I guess not technically a ‘best-of’:
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:15 amhttp://www.time.com/time/2006/techguide/bestinventions/