Tesla pulls in $465 million government loan to build Model S electric sedan
By Laura June 
posted January 22nd 2010 12:05PM
posted January 22nd 2010 12:05PM
The Detroit News is reporting that Tesla has closed on a $465 million low-cost loans from the Energy Department to work on its next electric vehicle, the Model S sedan.The funds will apparently be used by the company to build manufacturing plants in California. The loan, which closed on Monday and was approved back in June, will come from the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, which has about $25 billion to dole out to automakers manufacturing energy efficient vehicles. The Model S will, when complete, boast an up to 300-mile driving range, and will hit up to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds. It's supposed to hit production in 2012 with an output of 20,000 units (that means cars) per year.
If they build this nice and tight, I'll buy one.
your looking at a $90k +car!!!!!
this car is a j/k
the govt lends the $500m to develop a car that is for who?
not you and me thats for sure.
@(Unverified) http://green.autoblog.com/2009/04/30/tesla-responds-to-model-s-price-questions/
next engadget giveaway?
This a LOAN
This will create high tech jobs
This is for an environment-friendly car, that doesn't look too shabby.
We will get our money back with interest, and in the process build clean cars.
Whether you believe this can happen or not it doesn't matter because it's a good idea and Tesla has already proved they can build a production EV car.
@cray I agree great but make $20k-$25k cars not $50k-$90k
@(Unverified)
Don't any of you posting this kind of comment know that it is impossible for a small start up like Tesla to build the volume (~100k annual units) necessary for a decent $20-25k car (one that is not total crap)? It's not cheap to build a factory that can churn out that many cars, not to mention paying workers, handling parts logistics, and having dealers to service those cars. And that's assuming conventional technology; Tesla is doing EVs, so it's even harder for them. The strategy they are taking is 1st car: $100+k, 1000 units/yr, 2nd car: $50-70k, 10k-20k units/yr, 3rd car: ~$30k, closer to 100k units/yr.
The auto business is a lot harder than a lot of you guys think.
Great ... big loans to help build expensive cars that joe public wont be able to afford and those that can will still choose a Porsche ... useless!
Grants should be given to companies that produce decent affordable cars (not plastic boxes like the Prius!) ... something that most people can afford and most would be happy to buy. As lovely as this car is no one I know is gonna be buying it!
@(Unverified) $23K for a Prius is affordable unless you spend all of you $ smoking something, which obvious people posting on this blog must be doing.
Go test drive a 2010 Prius before you talk smack about it! That so called "plastic box" is faster, more fuel efficient, and safer than majority of cars on the road today.
The success of the Prius where people voted with their $, proves that it is not a "plastic box". Do some research on the Prius before you talk smack!
I would rather pay $50 more per month on the car payment to drive a Prius and invest in a tangible assent and technology than burn $75 more on gasoline every month to drive some antiquated ICE only garbage that the oil companies and automakers have been selling since the turn of the last century. Get with the times sauce berry!
@cosmicinglewood
Hmm, cosmic, ingle, wood, talks about smoking and smack ... I think we have enough here to show us what types of people/hippies buy a Prius. What a spanner!
I HAVE test driven a Prius Mr cosmic ingle smackhead and its a pile of **** and I can name a number of non hybrid production cars such as an Audi A2 (although no longer in production - hence even better value second hand!) which deliver more fuel efficiency at half the price and with normal looks. If you're dumb enough to smoke the **** you're smoking (too much obviously seeing as you're advocating blowing 23K on an ugly tub), then you're too dumb to comment in a non insulting fashion on my submission (touchy aren't you about - are all tree hippies like this ... I'll have to ensure I never get into road rage with one of you guys).
That aside, my post was about the expense of new hybrid cars, not your beloved Prius, so please don't flatter yourself thinking the Prius is a car worthy of any more mention!
What a plonker!
macdoc = republicant or something?
it looks like this one's running an operating system we are all familiar with .. :/
induction charging when you put your phone in your pocket is a good idea
@spade
Sorry wrong tab
Why have you failed me chrome?
As for cost of this vehicle we can speculate and quote expected MSRP listings, etc. We'll see what we'll see when it comes to market. On the matter of the Loan no one can make a factual statement that Tesla will fail and the government won't get it's money back. The technology is something that needs to be pushed forward. Rich people will get this if only cause some dudes daughter wants the "hotness" electrical vehicle for her sweet 16 on MTV. If the cars come to market they will sell cause there are more rich enviromentalists than you would care to admit to.
You want to be pissed about government handouts be pissed at the banks that took the money and continued to give multimillion dollar bonus' to high level employees to come up with ideas that clearly didn't work the first time around.
It may come to be that "hot" electrical vehicles will be the new "thing" for rich kids to still show that their parents have more money than you but are still trendy with saving the environment.
So...1) why are they building a NEW factory, and 2) why California? It's a very well-known fact that GM (as well as other American auto manufacturers) has been shuttering plants left and right, resulting in many job losses and enormous buildings that will likely go unused (if they aren't eventually demolished).
Why doesn't Tesla pick up one of these facilities for dirt-cheap and retool them to manufacture their vehicles? There are likely quite a few for them to chose from, and a fairly large pool of prospective employees in a number of these locations.
500 million for 20,000 cars is not very efficient
Wow lots of young, ignorant lib hippies here. Bottom line - Barry is a socialist failure which is why even Massachusetts elected a Republican. Keep it up Big Ears. This is what happens when you hire based on affirmative action.
Hahahaha this is fun. But seriously, I think the government marketplace investing on ET is the way to go here, we are left behind now.