Tesla CEO Says Gov't Loan Is 99% Sure and Deserved

N!NJA writes "Two major themes of our time — the desire to achieve energy independence and the furor over public bailouts — have collided in the drama surrounding swanky electric carmaker Tesla. Late last year, a New York Times column whipped Silicon Valley innovators and bailout-weary taxpayers into a frenzy. Valley professor and writer Randall Stross wrote that Tesla was hoping for government money to produce its cars, which only the very wealthy could afford. It wasn't exactly true, since the loan was intended to produce the $50,000 Model S sedan, not the $109,000 Roadster. Still, Stross called it a risky, waste of taxpayer money that would only benefit the wealthy and bailout VCs who'd sunk money into the money-losing company. Never mind, Tesla has developed two cars on less than $200 million — compared to the $1 billion General Motors spent developing the now-deceased EV1."

Comments

Re:1 step forward, 2 steps back

[Chrontius]

High-current home batteries. They sit on the wall and trickle-charge over 14 hours, and you plug the car into it (with a bus-bar) and it fully charges in between 5 and 30 minutes. Tesla could do this, if they could afford to engineer it. Until and unless we run heftier power cables to homes, or install EV charging stations at the gas station, we put up with overnight charges.

Point is, this can change with a little work and/or commitment.

Re:Tesla Business Plan

[lupine]

Batteries(95% efficient) * Electric Motor(95% efficient) = 90% efficient
ICE(20-25%) * Batteries(95% efficient) * Electric Motor(95% efficient) =
23% efficient

The tesla has a range of 220 miles on 53kwh of batteries.
The amount of energy in the batteries is equivalent to about 2 gallons of gas.
Electricity cost to fill the pack, about $4.

I agree that the Aptera is a more innovative design, the slippery shape is more aerodynamic and the front wheel drive train is more efficient at capturing regen brake energy more effectively. The Aptera will initially only be sold in California and I am not sure how a three wheeler would handle the snow so I probably wont be buying one soon.

But the Tesla pure electric drive train is more efficient overall and they have been building and delivering vehicles, but as you said 120k is too much for a vehicle. The model S is more tempting, but still very pricey.