Tesla Will Discontinue the Roadster

Attila Dimedici writes "Tesla has announced that their business model has failed. Their basic idea was to sell a boutique electric car to fund the development of a regular consumer electric car. With this announcement they are saying that they did not sell enough of the Roadster to make producing it profitable. If that is the case, it is only a matter of time until Tesla closes its doors. I thought their approach was the most likely to create a successful fully electric car. Although it is possible that the technology they have developed will allow the existing car companies to develop successful fully electric cars, it is a shame that Tesla has failed to become a successful car manufacturer." CT: As a huge number of you pointed out, the linked article is not nearly as doom and gloom as the submitter: Tesla isn't locking the doors and throwing away the keys, they plan on selling a $80k sedan in 2012 with a 300 mile range.

Comments

Re:How did you come to that conclusion?

[NeutronCowboy]

This is one of the few times where I wish there was a bury option for stories, if not outright delete. The summary is the exact opposite of what is said in the story,is reported by everyone else, and even of what can be inferred through looking at Tesla's financials.

Maybe instead of filtering stories on editors, we need the ability to filter stories on submitters. I have yet to see a story by Attila Dimedici where the summary wasn't the exact opposite of what was actually going on.

Re:These guys are actually innovating

[Kell Bengal]

I agree - the summary is completely incongruous with the article. My understanding was that Tesla was always going to make a sedan after the roadster. According to the article, they are doing exactly that. Doing exactly what you planned to be doing sounds like success to me.

The fact that they are discontinuing the roadster seems peripheral, although one may ask why they would discontinue them if they were profitable. Perhaps they don't have enough capital to tool more than one production line at a time? Perhaps the sedan is expected to be more lucrative and they don't want to pay the opportunity cost of continuing to make roadsters.

Re:Sad, but not unexpected

[Chris Burke]

Keep in mind that calling it a "sedan" may give the wrong impression that it's going to be like a Toyota Corolla.

It's going to be more like a BMW "luxury sports-sedan", which only makes sense to try to go for that market given that it's priced as though in that market. Quite a few people find those pretty sexy, and will probably find the high acceleration rate of the Tesla offering to be a nice sexy icing on the sexy cake too.