Some 26 of the top people fired.
I am not really surprised. There’s been problems with them being able to get the perfomance out of the cars that they promised. They say customers will be able to take delivery this quarter, but the talk is that the cars will have to be recalled at some point, when they’re able to get the performance up to what they promised.
Sounds like another case of Marketing decing what to sell, telling the world it exists when it doesn’t really, then firing (& later firing) the Engineering team that fails to do the impossible.
Perhaps they’d do better to loudly fire the lying sack-of-shit marketers.
I’d love to see Tesla succeed, but I’m pessimistic. Even if they get the problems with the Roadster fixed (and I suspect they will eventually), their business plan is cracked. I did an analysis of the company for one of my MBA classes recently. They’re simultaneously trying to develop their next models (The White Star and Blue Star sedans), build a manufacturing plant, build a nationwide sales/service infrastructure, and get the Roadster to market – all with something like 150 million bucks in the bank. That’s not enough money. They’re going to have a hard time coming up with the kind of real money they need to build and market a mainstream car from scratch. They could probably compete nicely in the sports car niche, but once they start trying to compete in the sedan market, I think they’re toast. I hope I’m wrong about this, but if I am, at least a lot of other auto analysts are wrong too.
I really didn’t like your thread title, Tuckerfan. I saw it and thought, “oh, not another office shooting.” Sadly, this type of hyperbole is no longer just metaphorical. 
This is beginning to sound like Tucker motors (1948?). A gifted inventor has a good idea-starts a company, and raises some piddling amount of money. You need BILLIONS$ to get into the auto market-even in a small way! Preston Tucker, Henry J. Kaiser, and John DeLorean found out the hard way: YOU CANNOT start up a car company on a shoestring-it has been tried before, and it never works. the last start up was walter Chrysler (in 1924).
It’s like going in to a casino, and palying in the back room with the high rollers-you need hundreds of chips, not one ot two.
Actually, there’s no comparison between Tesla and Tucker, really. Tesla’s been everybody’s darling since the beginning and the folks behind Google have helped to bankroll the company. If it’s short on cash, then that’s because somebody’s being stingy, not because they don’t have access to capital. Also, Chrysler was not the last person to start a successful car company. There’s Panoz down in Georgia and Mosler Automotive in Florida who’re quite profitable, to name but two. Chrysler’s credited with being the last person to start a full-line car company from scratch, but that’s not really correct, either as he bought a small car company, put his name on it, and made it big.
Established companies like GM, using tried-and-true technology, routinely spend between $500 million and $1 billion on new car programs (White, J. B. “Electric Car Maker Aims For the Top With Sports Car”. The Wall Street Journal 10-15-2007, p. D2.) Even Googlites aren’t going to crap out that kind of cash too happily (actually, the early people made their money in NuvoMedia and PayPal). Also, I was mistaken earlier when I said Tesla has $150 million in the bank. They have $105 million, or at least did in November. They’re talking about an IPO, but almost no one expects them to raise enough cash that way. They might survive if, over the next several years they: focus on the Roadster, work out the kinks, satisfy the early adopters, and expand the market for it (say, to Europe, where it is being built). Then, they could grow the company more slowly and bring out the sedans when they’re more stable and have had time to build up some cash. But, trying to push out the sedans in 2010 is, I think, asking for disaster. Of course, I would love to be wrong about this. Just sayin’
It reminds me of the famous quote from Henry J. Kaiser : “I tossed $100 million into the pond-I didn’t expect it to disappear without a ripple!”
Kaiser tried hard-but even his vast fortune wasn’t enough.
Its like Tesla Electric, all over again!
Tesla’s so bad at business even companies named after him are doomed to fail. Maybe it’ll be mercifully bought out by Westinghouse.
I hear the company’s going into the weapons business. Boiling your eyeballs at fifty feet is their current project.
Kaiser didn’t try all that hard. The forklift engine he dropped into his cars was considered crappy before the war. Had he listened to Frazer (who was supposed to provide the brains), that might not have happened. The only thing bigger than Kaiser’s fortune was his ego, it seems.
IMHO, an electric car at this point and time is a disaster. Despite what their fans claim, they’re utterly impractical for millions of Americans and until they get the problems of recharge times and range licked, they’re going to be nothing more than a niche market (and as a supercar, the Tesla is a niche inside of a niche).
I cannot believe that TESLA can survie. Just setting up a dealer network, stocking spare parts, training a sales force, is going to eat up $105 million in NO time.
Still, I applaud them for trying-too bad they couldn’t be acquired by a larger firm, that might save them.
“Tiny British sportscar maker prepares to go under” is hardly a new headline. They’re building them in the old Lotus works, for fucks’ sake- the future has been staring them in the face.
The previous chapters in the book somebody will write soon:
http://www.panthercarclub.com/history.htm
http://www.bristolcars.co.uk/index2.htm (appears they’re back in business - good for them)
Triumph Motor Company - Wikipedia
I could find more, but it’s just too depressing…
So instead, here are the two I can think of who are still doing alright:
http://www.noblecars.com/
My husband has a deposit down on one. So far, they’ve sent him a couple of coffee mugs. One was chipped.
I wish I was kidding.
Part of the problem is that telsa is American.
My guess is that in about 40-50 years, electric cars will be standard in most of the world , but America will be left behind, still in love with gas guzzlers.
Electric cars will first succeed in cultures where people are less obsessed with cars and more interested in practical commuting vehicles. Maybe Singapore, Taiwan, Tokyo. Then India and China, and then American companies will get on board and try to play catch-up.
Said another way, electric vehicles will first suceed where people’s commuting vehicles make daily round trips of 30 miles not 60 or 100 or 120.
I consider my commute to be short & painless at 32 low-traffic miles each way. Add in going to lunch & maybe stopping off at the grocery on the way home and any car that has less than a 100 mile range is simply not going to work, period. I’d do as well to buy a boat for a commute vehicle.
:dubious: You realize, of course, that if electric cars were really practical those places would already have them, don’t you? Most of the places you mentioned have higher gas prices than we have in the US and stricter auto emission standards.
*Is * Tesla American?
The Japanese are just as obsessed with cars as we are. The difference is that while American automakers spent the last thirty years resting on their laurels and slimlining their R&D departments, the Japanese decided to make decent cars and start thinking about the future.
Perhaps as importantly, while Ford and GM used their extra cash buying up other domestic and foreign automakers just to increase market share, the Japanese companies, for the most part, didn’t. (With the notable exception of Honda’s acquistion of the remnants of British Leyland, which was a really, really bad idea.) Instead, the Japanese just built factories in the places where they wanted to boost market share. Thus, they avoided the pitfalls of inheriting other companies’ workforces and suppliers, which were usually at least part of the reason that failing car company X was available anyway.)
Ford loses millions every year keeping Jaguar running, for example, and defends the action to their shareholders by suggesting that Jag is a testbed for new technology and so on. They could just as easily try out the stuff in their own niche models - Thunderbird, whichever giant Lincoln they’re trotting out this year, and so on.
Well, just because they aren’t practical now, it doesn’t mean they won’t be practical 20 years from today. The Honda Insight would probably outsell the Civic if they didn’t cost so damn much- but they won’t always.
