Telsa unveil Model S sedan

[DanS]

Suffice it to say that you're not investing. Rather, you are trying to speculate. And you'll probably lose your shirt, if you are betting it.

[MOBIUS]

Betting your shirt is always a hiding to nothing, but a few grand, meh.

[One_more_turn]

If you want to charge up the 42 kWh battery pack in 8 hours using only 220V outlet, you need a charge current of 24A. That's lot of current.

[DanS]

Betting your shirt is always a hiding to nothing, but a few grand, meh.

Hey, if you think it's a worthy charity, then by all means go ahead. However, I imagine that being a customer has better payback.

[DanS]

If you want to charge up the 42 kWh battery pack in 8 hours using only 220V outlet, you need a charge current of 24A. That's lot of current.

They're offering up to 480v 70 amp charging on the Model S. That kind of supply's not quite standard install on your typical house, of course.

Apparently, the home charging unit for the Roadster will go up to 240v 70 amp.

[Dinner]

Daimler may have ditched it's shares of Chrysler but they did decide to buy a 10% stake in Tesla Motors for $50 million.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/daimler_tesla/

[Dinner]

Tesla achieves profitability in July, but for how long?

by Sam Abuelsamid (RSS feed) on Aug 7th 2009 at 2:55PM

Seven years into its existence Tesla Motors has achieved a milestone few Silicon Valley startups ever manage: the company was profitable in July 2009. According to a press release from the company today, its July revenues, approximately $20 million, exceeded its expenses by about $1 million. Since Tesla is still a privately held company, it has no obligation to disclose its finances nor to give details on its sales. Thus, Tesla has been very selective about what information it publishes. With that in mind let's take a little look beyond the surface.

In July, the company had its best month yet for Roadster deliveries with 109 cars being placed in customer hands. That in itself is a major achievement for a start-up automaker and is deserving of praise. If we assume an average transaction price of $130,000 with options that comes to $14.2 million in revenue. I'm not a financial expert, but I'm told that the deposits for Model S can't be booked as revenue. That leaves about $6 million in revenue which likely came almost entirely from Daimler for battery packs and charging systems for the Smart ED. That won't be ongoing revenue and in all likelihood is at least break even if not profitable.

While Roadsters reportedly had a surge in sales in July, Tesla still isn't say what the net sales are after subtracting cancellations. If net sales of the Roadster don't pick up soon, the profits could be short lived. Let's hope not.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/08/07/tesla-achieves-profitability-in-july-but-for-how-long/

[Sava]

if i buy one of these, are they going to at least spell the name right?

[Thoth]

Not a ****ing hope mate.

[Dinner]

Still, I believe Tesla is the only American Automaker which is making money right now (even if only $1 million) and that's something even if Sava doesn't like their name.

Oh, and they recently upgraded the battery in the roadster to Li-Ion batteries which are built in Britain by a Japanese company. The new batteries have a longer range and got recharge times down to just three hours. That's still a long wait but much better then before.

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSLL7042220090721

[Thoth]

A couple of years ago GM came up with the bright idea of selling their cars with "employee discounts". They lost money with every car they sold. Ford is now offering the same deal.

Name or not, it sounds like a dumb idea.

[Dinner]

Tesla will be doing an IPO soon.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34068058/ns/business-autos

[SpencerH]

The data I'd like to see is how well the batteries fare in different collisions.

[Guynemer]

If I could afford this car, I would buy it in a second.

[Dinner]

The NYT is reporting that Toyota and Tesla have signed a deal where Toyota will buy $50 million worth of Tesla stock, share electric car technology, and give Tesla access to the NUMMI car plant that GM recently abandoned and Toyota is shutting down. The idea being that instead of completely shutting the factory it can be used to make Tesla's Model S Sedan and possibly have the Roadster's production moved their as well. That's good news for the bay area but bad news L.A. since Tesla was planning on locating production at an old NASA factory in the L.A. area.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/business/21tesla.html?src=busln

The good news is Toyota is going to be sharing its engineering expertise and quality control systems to help Tesla insure the highest quality possible.