Posted on 06/22/2015 7:54:34 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Electrek is reporting that Tesla has signed a lease for the former Solyndra manufacturing site just a few miles away from its assembly plant in Freemont, California. Its current production facility can build up to to 500,000 cars a year, but Elon Musk says Tesla will be building “millions” of cars by 2020. What will it do with the new space? In an e-mail to Business Journal, it said “901 Page, located conveniently down the road from the Tesla Factory, gives us the space to expand our manufacturing and build more engineering labs as we build up production.”
There is a certain irony to the fact that Tesla will now occupy the former Solyndra factory. Both companies received loans from the US Department of Energy under different programs during the first Obama administration. Solyndra went bankrupt and Tesla found itself in deep financial trouble. At one point, Elon Musk considered selling the company to Google for $11 billion.
Then presidential candidate Mitt Romney severely criticized the Obama administration for picking “losers.” Romney’s comments personally angered Musk and spurred him to redouble his efforts to make Tesla successful. Solar City, another Musk controlled company, has purchased the former Solyndra headquarters to house the operations for Silevo, a solar-panel maker they acquired last year.
Tesla has recently announced a major push into residential, commercial and utility scale battery storage. It got so many orders for its PowerWall home battery system after it was announced April 30 that it immediately started thinking about expanding its battery manufacturing facility – the GigaFactory — before it is even completed. Could the former Solyndra factory be used to make batteries?
The company is notoriously tight lipped about its operations. The fact that the space was leased rather than purchased probably indicates that the company is not planning to occupy those premises for the long term. But we have learned that anything is possible when it comes to Tesla. We will just have to wait and see how the company decides to use this newly acquired half million square feet of space.
Why not?
The solyndra folks already laundered the taxpayer money out of that initiative.
More good money after bad. Who will benefit this time?
The problem with Telsa is it priced at the luxery level but does not offer the same features and options of the luxery brands.
Until Telsa can market a few low cost top sellers, it will not make money. For all the hype of the new high end cars all the top 20 sellers are Trucks and low cost cars.
“Tesla” motors has given a bad name to a great inventor. Besides that, who can afford these ridiculously expense cars? Government money should not be subsidizing private industry. University grants to fund the work on hydrogen engines for cars is semi-understandable. But stop wasting my money on a pipe dream (electric cars for everyone).
The prices are coming down as intended. When getting started with such complex products, easier to build a few very expensive cars with high quality and re-invest the profits to build cheaper ones, than to build a lot of cheap cars poorly and sell enough to garner the same profits. Musk intends to introduce a $30,000-range car some time next year.
BTW: hydrogen-powered cars have a severe problem with transferring & storing fuel. It’s a whole lot easier to use batteries.
EVs are not for everyone, but there IS a large market. I’m very happy with my LEAF, and would be delighted to upgrade to a Tesla (either way, I’m also keeping the 18-MPG Ford Explorer for cargo & long trips).
And yes, government money should not be subsidizing private industry. Insofar as such subsidies do exist, I have no problem with private industry leveraging them.
If battery cars were economically viable on their own we would have been driving them for 100 years. But 100 years ago,JUST LIKE TODAY, battery powered cars are suitable only for small niches in the world of transportation.
I would like to see what a free-market economy might be like;we haven;t had one in this country since FDR got elected.
It all depends on musk fleecing taxpayers for money through subsidies, tax rebates and grants.
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