tesla

Can these guys ever stay out of the news?

Tesla Motors is wrapping up a $40 million round of funding and will then seek another one on top of that in a few months, according to an interview with CEO Ze'ev Drori in VentureWire (subscription required).

Tesla has already raised more than $100 million. The money was largely used to develop the Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car coming out later this year, and build out the company's facilities. Car factories cost a lot. The onerous capital requirements, along with the long development time, are two of the … Read more

A few weeks ago, we asked Tesla Motors whether a pending departure of one employee we had heard about was part of a wave of layoffs at the company.

No, said Daryl Siry, vice president of marketing. It was an issue involving a particular individual.

It turns out that that more terminations were going on behind the scenes. Ousted Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard writes in his blog that 26 employees, including some vice presidents, have recently been cut from the company. That's about 10 percent of the company. The cuts come after Tesla was forced to delay the release … Read more

In order to get its electric sports car to owners sooner, Tesla Motors plans to deliver cars with a temporary transmission that falls short of its originally promised performance.

The news was distributed to the wide world on Thursday in a blog post from Ze'ev Drori, Tesla's new president and CEO.

The post is a reprint of a letter that was sent to Tesla purchasers on December 21, as a follow-up to a town hall meeting for Tesla owners that took place on December 12. About 100 people, including those who called in, participated in the meeting, according … Read more

Tesla Motors helped bring the concept of the all-electric vehicle back from the dead, but it appears they also have gas on their minds.

Speaking at the ThinkGreen conference in San Francisco, vice president of finance Mike Taylor told an audience that the GM Volt is "a really good way" of extending the range on electric sedans in a cost-effective way.

The Volt, planned to come out around 2010, contains a gas engine and an electric motor. The car runs on the electric motor and the gas engine recharges the battery. These sorts of vehicles, called range-extended electric … Read more

Tesla Motors founder Martin Eberhard, or at least a person who claims to be him on an online message board, says he's not happy about being pushed out of the management team.

Eberhard this summer stepped down from the CEO spot amid production delays and was replaced with interim CEO Michael Marks. In November, Tesla appointed a permanent CEO. What was less noticed was that Eberhard at that time also stepped down from the board. His official connection to the company now, besides being a major stockholder, is as a member of the advisory board.

On the Tesla Motors … Read more

The Tesla Roadster doesn't pollute, but you've got to wonder about the generator.

Tesla Motors is currently allowing prospective buyers to test-drive its all-electric sports cars. The test drives are taking place around the intersection of Skyline Boulevard and Highway 84 going toward La Honda.

I saw the company prep for some test drives while I was on a bike ride on Friday. (Thank you for repaving the road to San Gregorio, California Dept. of Transportation.) The company hauls the car up the hill in a trailer. But what does it also bring? A generator, to charge the … Read more

I woke up today ready to write a story on the three-wheeled electric cars coming from Venture Vehicles when a question dawned on me. How many electric car and plug-in start-ups are there in the world today?

I count 16. They are: Tesla Motors (sports cars), Wrightspeed (sports cars and plug-in drivetrains for trucks), Fisker Automotive (electric sedans), Zap (low-speed and sports cars), Miles Automotive (low speed), Zenn Motors (low speed), AC Propulsion (retrofitting Scions for electric), Phoenix Motorcars (SUVs), Aptera (three-wheelers), Porteon (low speed electrics), Lightning (sports cars in England), Reva (economy cars), Ultramotor (electric trishaws), Myers Motors (freakish … Read more

Fisker Automotive. Think of it as a marriage between the Chevy Volt and the Tesla Roadster.

The company is planning to come to market in about 18 months with a high-performance, high-end, plug-in hybrid sedan. The car will cost $80,000. It will go about 50 miles on a battery charge, which isn't far, but the car will also come with a built-in gas engine that exists primarily to charge the battery. With the charging capability, the car can go hundreds of miles, according to Henrik Fisker, the company's CEO.

With a range of hundreds of miles, the … Read more

The cozy relationship between car dealerships and automakers will have to be changed for electric cars to take off, theorized venture capitalist Jennifer Fonstad.

A managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Fonstad said that Detroit automakers have created an environment--through discounts and volume buying--that make it tough for new, electric car companies to squeeze into the market.

"The tipping point will be breaking the Detroit model," she said at the Alternative Energy Innovations Conference in Redwood City, Calif. Tesla Motors, which DFJ invested in, is already trying to "change the way cars are bought and sold." … Read more