Tesla teases freshly delayed Model S sedan
The image has been removed at the photographer's request, to view it visit BusinessWeek.
BusinessWeek has a story about last week's trials and tribulations at Tesla Motors, which wraps up most of what we already know, along with some new details. The investment bankers called up Tesla chairman Elon Musk to let him know that the company's IPO plans weren't going to fly in the current financial markets. Musk and the management team reacted quickly by slashing 25% of the company's workforce, shutting down the Rochester Hills, MI engineering office and pretty much halting all non-revenue producing work. That meant the much anticipated Model S sedan was put on the back burner until more cash was flowing into the coffers. Now, the four-door electric sport sedan won't be going into production until at least 2011.
Tesla SVP Darryl Siry tipped us off that the story was being published tonight and more importantly, to the presence of the photo you see above. That's recently hired Tesla design boss Franz von Holzhausen revealing a wee bit of the tail of the Model S. Siry tells us that we probably won't be seeing the whole car until the Geneva Motor Show next March. In the meantime, this is probably just the first of a series of teasers that will appear to keep the publicity pot boiling.
[Source: BusinessWeek via AutoblogGreen]
BusinessWeek has a story about last week's trials and tribulations at Tesla Motors, which wraps up most of what we already know, along with some new details. The investment bankers called up Tesla chairman Elon Musk to let him know that the company's IPO plans weren't going to fly in the current financial markets. Musk and the management team reacted quickly by slashing 25% of the company's workforce, shutting down the Rochester Hills, MI engineering office and pretty much halting all non-revenue producing work. That meant the much anticipated Model S sedan was put on the back burner until more cash was flowing into the coffers. Now, the four-door electric sport sedan won't be going into production until at least 2011.
Tesla SVP Darryl Siry tipped us off that the story was being published tonight and more importantly, to the presence of the photo you see above. That's recently hired Tesla design boss Franz von Holzhausen revealing a wee bit of the tail of the Model S. Siry tells us that we probably won't be seeing the whole car until the Geneva Motor Show next March. In the meantime, this is probably just the first of a series of teasers that will appear to keep the publicity pot boiling.
[Source: BusinessWeek via AutoblogGreen]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
scappy 8:54PM (10/23/2008)
I knew the oil companies were behind the market collapse and sub prime mortgages. Gas prices are dropping and corporate financing is nowhere to be found for the start that could defeat them. Who would invest what little money they still have in an electric car company when gas costs 2.50 right?
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Yar 9:21PM (10/23/2008)
Submit to the Dark Side.
Oil that is, Black Gold, Texas Tea.
You can't fight us, we're too powerful. Join me and together we can rule the Galaxy.
Conspiracy theories aside, Oil Companies are a good thing. Very good, in fact.
Jason 8:30AM (10/24/2008)
That's quite a conspiracy theory there. But what about Occam's Razor. The simplest answer is globalization and how that has led to "turbulance" being so affective in unanticipated ways.
Big Rocket 1:05PM (10/24/2008)
FactCheck.org:
There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
• The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
• Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
• Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
• Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
• The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
• Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
• Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
• Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
• The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
• An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
• Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation.
Quoted article at:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html
homunculus 9:02PM (10/23/2008)
i hope tesla rides out this economic downturn/tesla riding out this economic downturn bankrupts elon musk.
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stecki 9:09PM (10/23/2008)
nice quick printout on that license plate. hardly noticeable...
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thomas 12:06AM (10/25/2008)
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/24/teslas-4-door-all-electric-model-s-sports-sedan-gets-pictured/#comments
why is this not on autoblog yet??????
is this real????????
Mi key 9:13PM (10/23/2008)
Very Interesting.
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Torrent 9:18PM (10/23/2008)
Reminds me of a G37.
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Digital 12:09AM (10/24/2008)
This was my first impression as well.
Kumail 9:38PM (10/23/2008)
so far, i see a g37/xf..
looks nice though :D
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CarbonBlack 9:45PM (10/23/2008)
That "Tease" doesn't show anything!
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axium 11:06PM (10/23/2008)
Jaguar XF is that you?
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J 11:20PM (10/23/2008)
I hope the model S is on a unique platform
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Rob 11:33PM (10/23/2008)
Man, I can hardly wait to not see these driving around.
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jwrigh97 1:00AM (10/24/2008)
Man those z cars have really come a long way!! My friend had a 1986 300zx and it really went fast!!
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BlackEmblem 1:14AM (10/24/2008)
Will Tesla survive until 2011?
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Geeky1 12:41PM (10/24/2008)
Not with any luck it won't.
exkart 4:19AM (10/24/2008)
I wanna see it now!
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Egon 6:21AM (10/24/2008)
I wish them well and would like to their product in person. But I can't help but think that Tesla won't become anything more than a modern Tucker.
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