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Meh. Tesla is still in debt (and had to renegotiate their loan at that), so Romney's technically correct about that. The major benefit I see from the Tesla proj

Meh. Tesla is still in debt (and had to renegotiate their loan at that), so Romney's technically correct about that. The major benefit I see from the Tesla project is it puts pressure on other companies to make better electric cars. I really hope they go mainstream, but it seems they're not targeting the average Joe. If it's going to be an "energy" project, it needs to go mainstream, like the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Volt. I just don't see why the government should be sponsoring a company that will probably only ever sell to upper and upper-middle class customers. Don't get me wrong, I love the Tesla company, but I think there were more interesting points of the debate than this. To be fair, Romney didn't single out Tesla; it was lumped in with other projects that haven't proven successful yet.

biscarch 14y ago
Tesla is planning a lower cost vehicle, somewhere in the 30k range. Quick search turns up this: http://www.plugincars.com/tesla-reveals-lower-priced-fourth-electric-vehicle-112356.html http://www.plugincars.com/tesla-reveals-lower-priced-fourth-... As I understand it their plan was high-price/low-volume to start and progressing towards high-volume/low-price as time went on.
lukifer 14y ago
Just because a venture fails for its investors doesn't mean it's a failure for the economy as a whole. NeXT was a colossal flop, and yet look what came out of it in the end.
tantalor 14y ago
> Tesla is still in debt Yes, they have debts, about $505M.[1] They also have $700M in assets.[2] Calling them a "loser" implies bankruptcy or insolvency. [1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors