Tesla Motors only $9 million in bank?

[graham]

This is all good news - I am glad the European rollout is not going to be impacted. I wonder if they are planning on slowing down the opening of future service centers in the short-term until the DOE money kicks in as well?

 

[graham]

Yes, ValleyWag broke the news about the $9 million dollars. But the rest of the quote mentions the "Tesla Motors fan club website" -- I can't imagine they consider ValleyWag a Tesla Motors fan club. Are there more Tesla fan club sites than this one? Were they referencing us or someone else?

 

[dpeilow]

This is quite a good write up of the situation.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10868665?nclick_check=1

 

[DaveD]

Yes, ValleyWag broke the news about the $9 million dollars. But the rest of the quote mentions the "Tesla Motors fan club website" -- I can't imagine they consider ValleyWag a Tesla Motors fan club. Are there more Tesla fan club sites than this one? Were they referencing us or someone else?

Sorry graham, I'm guilty of not reading your whole post. The formatting of this thread is wider than my narrow notebook display and I didn't scroll.

Yes, I think you're right about them referring to TMC. There are one or two other Tesla sites, but TMC is the most active one I'm aware of.

 

[doug]

Tesla Motors getting new money

Are they talking about us? Or is there a different web site?

It appears the author is talking about us, but I have no idea where he gets the 11 Roadsters figure. The whole article is poorly written; rife with grammatical errors, typos, and factual errors. He even refers to the Roadster as a hybrid, so it's hard to be concerned about any assertions this guy makes.

 

[Iz]

They can raise additional funds by taking early deposits for Model S - "sight unseen".

 

[graham]

This is quite a good write up of the situation.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10868665?nclick_check=1

Fixing the link for dpeilow for anyone who could not see this:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10868665

The Mercury News has annoying URLs and you sometimes need to edit off the "?nclick_check=1" for other people to read it. I have made this very mistake on this site before.

 

[Cobos]

Graham/dpeilow: Yes it is a good writeup, it also manages to repeat the names of the real Tesla founders which is good.

Iz: I would probably be stupid enough to do a $5000 deposit on the Whitestar sight unseen, but I doubt they would want to do that. That sort of puts them in the same league as Zap. Or people can claim that, and they need all the credibility they can get right now (Tesla that is).

Cobos

 

[dpeilow]

Thanks graham

 

[TEG]

Tesla Motors Receives $40 Million Financing Commitment

 

[dpeilow]

Just beat me to it TEG

TG Daily - Tesla gets $40 million in financing

Tesla Promised Another $40 Million - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

 

[graham]

Yay! Hopefully this will put to rest the rumors they are about to go under, and bridge them to the DOE loans. Hopefully it will also give them the resources to more confidently ramp production quickly (and get me my car soon!)

 

[dpeilow]

Yes, hopefully all authors of those semi-gleeful obituaries will now eat their words (ahem, TTAC).

 

[graham]

Yes, hopefully all authors of those semi-gleeful obituaries will now eat their words (ahem, TTAC).

Hee! Don't hold your breath over TTAC!

 

[Kevin Harney]

The WSJ had this to add ...

Tesla secures $40 mln debt funds for electric-car operations - MarketWatch

 

[dpeilow]

^ Is "Vidas" from the comments of that article on here?

Also: Tesla secures $40 million in convertible financing | Industries | Consumer Goods & Retail | Reuters

 

[vfx]

Another:

Tesla Motors Getting Some Cash

 

[graham]

Don't hold your breath over TTAC!

The Truth About Cars weighs in, of course with a negative spin:
Tesla Death Watch 34: Convertible and Carefree. Or is that Car-Free? | The Truth About Cars

And if you aren’t already bearish on Tesla, consider that the latest round of financing comes in the form of convertible debt. This financing option is described here, but the major benefits to Tesla are that it does not have to place a value on the struggling firm (can you say “upside down?”) and it protects early “angel” investors. What we don’t know is what the “trigger” for this convertible debt is, whether it is filling a specific number of orders, reaching certain financial goals, or what. Whatever the trigger is, whenever it happens, the folks who just ponied up $40m better hope Tesla is in much better shape when that debt converts to equity. If the debt ever converts to equity. Ultimately this news is only good for one category of filth people: lawyers. Convertible debt is notorious for requiring near constant legal oversight. Whatever it takes, right?

I wonder if there could ever be any Tesla news that would not cause them to think negatively of it? In any case, it is interesting to hear an opposing point of view.

 

[graham]

Tesla has emailed out to all owners. Pointing to the press release on the $40 million they have posted to their web site:

Tesla Motors - Press Releases

 

[donauker]

I wonder if there could ever be any Tesla news that would not cause them to think negatively of it?

Of course TTAC will spin everything about Tesla as negative. They have staked their reputation on Tesla's failure. Any success by Tesla is failure by TTAC.