Tesla Electric Cars Take Off with $465 Million in Government Funding

The car company has bold plans for the forthcoming Model S and beyond.

June 25, 2009 at 10:17AM by Jim Motavalli | 4 comments

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Tesla is getting more interesting by the day. Here's a company that was basically flat on its back just a couple of years ago, plagued by internal strife and trying to sell a then-$92,000 electric Roadster that cost $140,000 to build. That's not my estimation, it's right from the blog of CEO Elon Musk, who was responding to a suit by an embittered co-founder.

I recently drove a Tesla Roadster (pictured) owned by the Vulcan Motor Club on a jaunt through rainy rural New Jersey, and enjoyed it more than similar rides in even more expensive high-end supercars by Aston-Martin and Lamborghini.
And now Tesla is in fast company. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced June 23 that Tesla was one of three recipients — with Ford and Nissan — of $8 billion in advanced technology loan funds. Tesla will get $465 million to build a manufacturing plant for the new ultra-fast Model S sedan in Southern California, and a second battery plant in the Bay Area.
The federal fund is designed to further a very worthy cause: ensuring that the U.S. will be competitive in battery technology. It's quite clear that without federal assistance, we will lose that business to Asia, mostly to China and Korea. And right now it really matters who will capture this market: it is, unquestionably, the future of the auto industry.