Posted on 09/26/2012 8:39:15 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Tesla Motors Inc., the electric-car maker led by Elon Musk, fell the most in two months after cutting its revenue outlook for the third quarter because of supplier shortcomings and other delays in the production of its Model S sedan.
Tesla slid nearly 10 percent to $27.64 Tuesday after the company said in a regulatory filing that it expects to generate $44 million to $46 million in third-quarter sales, compared with analyst estimates of $83.1 million.
..........Already the company's largest shareholder, Musk may buy 33,311 more shares, the company said in the filing. Tesla, whose investors include Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler AG, said it now expects to exceed its plan to produce 20,000 of the electric cars next year, when it projected it would earn its first profit.
The company amended its loan agreement with the U.S. Energy Department and may need to do so again if it fails to raise enough money from investors. Tesla plans to begin repaying its Energy Department loans in the fourth quarter.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Solar City solar panels
Space X rocket
May 29, 2012 (Ricochet) Elon Musk Shows Us How to Thrive in the Government-Directed Economy ...."Those who know how to navigate an economy driven by the state will succeed. They do so regardless whether the market has determined their product as the best or not—sometimes it has, sometimes it hasn’t. Sometimes the consumer has no real ability, thanks to the aforementioned mix of laws and regulations, to go in another direction. Sometimes the only consumer is the government, meaning the appropriators, bureaucrats, and administrators who dream fondly of working some day for the contractor titans they fuel with other people’s money.".....
Sept 18, 2012 - Elon Musk SpaceX Head Obama Bundler?
April 15, 2012 (National Legal and Policy Center) Taxpayers Subsidize Forbes 'Green' Billionaires' Schemes........Musk, best known as co-founder of the company that became PayPal, is Chairman of SolarCity and CEO of Tesla. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, SolarCity spent $535,000 in 2009 and 2010 to lobby Congress and the Department of Energy on climate legislation, the Recovery Act, “green workforce training and development,” and provisions in various legislation “relevant to solar development.” SolarCity has sought to extend a program, due to expire at the end of 2012, that delivers to manufacturers an upfront cash grant in lieu of a 30 percent Investment Tax Credit (called the Section 1603 grant program). So far, according to DOE reports, SolarCity has received more than $66 million from that program.
The company also won a partial guarantee from DOE of a $344 million loan that will place up to 160,000 rooftop solar installations on military housing across the country..........."
Tesla has even more questionable connections:
Tesla brings political pull, as well. A former Tesla board member, Steve Westly, is an Obama bundler who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the president in 2008 and for his 2012 re-election campaign. His Westly Group was also a financial supporter of Tesla Motors until Tesla went public in 2010, and Westly continues to back the company.
Tesla’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is a hearty political contributor who has primarily backed Democrats, including Obama. According to published reports, another Tesla investor is Nick Pritzker, a donor to Obama and a cousin of Penny Pritzker, the national finance chair of Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Thanks for posting this, which is of obscure interest to most freepers. It’s more important than you realize. If you get anything else, would you ping me?
Penny Pritzker? Hillbuzz.org is making the case that she is the one who is buying the Obama family a 35M$ house in Hawaii.
Does anyone know how many they’ve made so far?
Why is the department of energy lending money to a car company? I understand it is an electric car company... but still. Picking winners and losers (and doing a bad job of it) is NOT the job of the government.
Yes.
And Elon Musk co-hosted an inaugural bash for Obama with A. Huffington.
And the money goes round and round.
Pritzker...
Westly....
etc.
etc.
Another Obama Money Pit.
His instincts are consistent if nothing else.
They’ve made about 350 so far. Production is running at 77 vehicles/week right now, and they should hit their target of 400/week sometime early next year.
Note that they did just start production this summer, and in mid-August production was under 20 per week.
The sick thing is that people have “fallen” for the line that Obama promotes commercial space, when in fact he’s killing our U.S. manned space program - (de-developing America) with this slight of hand to support (sponsor, subsidize) companies with tax money drained from our national program. As the U.S. budget keeps shrinking (and no market materializes for the no-nothing “improvement” of private rocket companies) Americans will be left w/o our national space program infrastructure and our technical/engineering workers scattered to the wind.
A company called “Tesla” should be developing anti-gravity technology, generators that extract electricity from atmospheric static and the magnetosphere, particle beam weapons for the DOD, and beyond speed of light warp drives. Re-inventing automobile technology that was around in the late 19th Century just doesn’t seem to cut it.
They must be smoking crack to think they can produce 20,000 cars next year.
They couldn’t even design a reliable 2 speed transmission.
We’re seeing the pealing of the green scam onion - the Dept of Energy loaning tax money for unsustainable new technologies.
On September 1, 2011, Solyndra ceased all business activity, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and laid off all employees.
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October 4, 2011 - “Despite reports to the contrary, Tesla Motors won’t ask the U.S. Department of Energy for an additional Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan, according to the automaker’s chief executive officer.
Palo Alto-based Tesla has “significant” capital reserves and more than enough funds to develop its Model S sedan, CEO Elon Musk told reporters in Washington last Thursday. Apparently, Tesla’s initial $465-million DoE loan is all the government money that’s needed for now. Quoting Musk:
We don’t need any additional DOE funding. We will not be applying for any.
For the record, Tesla admits it had been in the loan pre-application process, but did not submit a formal application to the DoE. Ricardo Reyes, Tesla’s vice-president of communications, stated, “Tesla has no completed loan applications pending before the DoE.” And now, with Musk’s words, it seems no application will move from pre to pending status.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2795936/posts
If their suppliers can get their acts together, they’ll make 400/wk sometime in the first quarter.
They know they can’t screw up. It would be tough for the company to survive a recall, so they’re ramping slower than original plan. They do claim to be on pace for over 2500 deliveries in the fourth quarter, which is an average of about 200/wk production.
I don’t think they’ll have any problem making 20,000 next year. At least not a production problem. If they have a problem, it’ll be financing. They have about 16,000 orders right now, and have gotten 2600 new ones so far this quarter. I just don’t know how many customers there are out there for this $60-$100,000 vehicle.
Personally, I think they’ll hit a wall, similarly to the Volt. Tho’ who knows? The car is gorgeous, and can kick a BMW all over the road.
There are a lot of negatives with the car as it stands today, but as a rich guy's play thing, it might be interesting...
CA....
It boggles the mind, doesn't it?
I always knew there were a lot of foolish and dumb people in America but the democrats have elevated stupidity from a developmental flaw to a religion.
Some sanity and reality about the realization of a “not ready for prime time” business outlook with investors and market:
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Sept 17, 2012 - “Boeing may yet shelve future development of its CST-100 capsule, despite a recent award of more than $460 million from NASA’s programme to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
“Our base business case is based on transportation to ISS through 2020,” says John Elbon, Boeing’s vice-president of space exploration. Though not formalised, the company requires at least two flights per year from NASA to make the project viable.
“That’s just for the ISS. That’s kind of the basement,” adds Elbon. More flights than those to the ISS are required he says, and Boeing is cautious about over-committing itself while future revenue streams are unclear.
NASA has funding for two full awards and one partial award in the commercial crew integrated capability (CCiCap) programme, to be doled out gradually according to established technical milestones. The two full grants were awarded to Boeing and SpaceX, while Sierra Nevada Corporation won the partial award.
Attached to each space act agreement, as the contracts are known, is an extensive list of optional milestones that takes the companies into flight testing.
While Boeing stands to gain at least $460 million by completing all 19 milestones during the 21-month base period, which would bring the CST-100 through the critical design review stage, an undisclosed, but significant, amount of additional funding may be gained through accomplishing 33 optional milestones.
But the base-period investment alone may not be enough for Boeing to justify continued funding, which may bring CST-100 development to an end.
While the cut-off point “wouldn’t be at the end of this base period”, says Elbon, it may be in the following option period.
“It’s more important to have a definite market there. Obviously Boeing has significant resources, and if there’s a business caseit’s important that it’s clear NASA is committed to the commercial crew programme going forward, that they’re going to use it for flights to the ISS, and that we can grow some markets around that.”
Boeing is working closely with space station manufacturer Bigelow Aerospace and orbital tourism company Space Adventures in an attempt to secure non-NASA revenue. While Bigelow and Space Adventures have racked up tangible success, neither has yet demonstrated a requirement for regular passenger trips into orbit.
The CCiCap contenders’ business cases were among the criteria by which NASA evaluated their proposals. In a NASA justification document released after the selection announcement, Boeing’s business case was described in “neutral” terms. It says: “Proposed corporate investment during the CCiCap period does not provide significant industry financial investment and there is an increased risk of having insufficient funding in the base period.”
Boeing programme manager John Mulholland said it was difficult to compare the contributions made by companies. He said: “We are only counting things that are direct monetary contributions as an investment, we have a very conservative guideline that we use for what we call true investment. There is a lot of additional contributions we are making to the programme beyond that cash infusion.” [end]
Tesla has the same problems as the other electric vehicles that are not selling according to company projections. Range, price and length of time and number of places to charge up the batteries. I saw a Model S on the road a few days ago. It is a nice looking vehicle but not for the average joe’s pocketbook. It looks like sales to the FEELING GOOD SAVE THE EARTH CROWD have started to peter out and they are experiencing the struggles of trying to sell to the average joe.
Tesla will make Solyndra look like your kid’s lemonade stand going broke.
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