I’d assume the kid from the “Dude, You’re Getting a Dell” commercials.

Of course, I’m also assuming it will be a strait to DVD release…

You make a good point but weren’t we all hoping that someone would make a viable electric sports car?

Even if it’s true, I had hoped to ignore any bad news about Tesla. If they fail it will be from your jinx.

Sigh.

One more difference – I bet Preston Tucker would have had the balls to give TTAC a tester car.”

Brilliant !! You had me laughing out loud !!

I agree about Tucker, at least to a point. I’ve worked with people like him before; enthusiastic promoters who get so caught up in PR hype that they start believing their own press releases.

The major similarity to Tesla is I think the double-edged sword of PR: you can leverage PR to try to drum up investment dollars, but it also raises the pressure to live up to the hype, and the consequences for what might otherwise be modest production problems.

Henry Ford said, “Nobody ever built a reputation on what they are going to do,” and that seems to apply in both cases.

It is, however, a bit unnerving that there has not been a successful automobile manufacturing start up in the United States in over 100 years now. Countless people and companies have tried, but none of the US based ones have survived. Meanwhile, multiple Japanese, Korean, Chinese & Indian companies have all entered the fray with success.

It does make a person wonder why.

It all sounds so familiar.

As exciting as it would be to see Tesla succeed (the company would, after all, have some brand reconition in the upcoming “everyman’s EV” showdown), I don’t believe it will happen. And this will doom Tesla to the footnoted of automotive history, alongside Tucker, Bricklin, and many others who tried and failed.

By the way, if you ever get a chance to see a Tucker in person, take it. It truly is a beautiful car.

http://www.scripophily.net/tucautcor19.html

The difference is, Tucker had an engaging guy behind the enterprise (oh, and he actually built a few cars).

Where’s the hook in the Tesla story? The compelling protagonist? The conspiracy against the company? This Tesla farce will never make a good movie at this rate…

(Of course, I didn’t think the movie Who Killed the Electric Car would be so engaging, either….)

However, I think it’s too early to predict Tesla’s demise. They might not become the company that they thought they would be, but their roadster is basically just a modified Elise that Lotus is manufacturing for them, so if they get the drive train straight they should be ok. The global automotive market is in the hole, but the potential purchasers of the roadster are not price sensitive (see TTAC article on increased Rolls Royce sales).

That said, this comparison is entirely unfair to Preston Tucker. He designed a mass market car from scratch, leased the largest factory in the world at the time to build it, and was taken down by the government, not the market. Tesla, if they survive, will have only accomplished the feat of putting an electric engine in an Elise, something they are not even the first to do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zytek_Lotus_Elise .

From Wikipedia: “Otto Kerner, the US Attorney who had aggressively investigated Tucker for fraud, intriguingly became the first Federal appellate judge in history to be jailed — for stock fraud.”

Also: “During the trouble Tucker faced while trying to promote his car and get it into production, he claimed that the ‘Big Three’ automakers were deliberately attempting to sabotage his efforts, through the influence of Detroit Senator Homer Ferguson, who is commonly held responsible for initiating the SEC’s pursuing of Tucker’s business.”

“at least GM has something to show with the Volt”

ROFL….Thanks for making me laugh on an otherwise dismal, dreary day.

Tucker built 51 examples. How many real cars has Tesla delivered?

Oh, and showroom display models with no internals don’t count…

And I hate to disagree with Chuck, but you can fix a Tucker; parts are available or can be fabricated. How do you “fabricate” the computers and operating systems that control the Tesla Roadster?

Something tells me that they’ll not be very forthcoming with source codes.

Of course, the “Who Killed The Electric Car” fans swear that Tesla is the Next Big Thing, but they were laying off people and closing stores too, right? And they only had $9 million in the bank and had to get a $20-40 million loan (forget the exact number) to stay afloat. Making cars must be harder than it looks.

I mean, at least GM has something to show with the Volt, while Tesla hasn’t shown much of the Whitestar or whatever they’re calling it now.

They are masters at PR, while swindling investors and customers along for the ride. Their goals are good and correct, but they are doomed to fail as Preston Tucker was. The Roadsters of today are the Torpedoes of tomorrow.

–chuck

Tesla does have the advantage of the web. It is a low cost way to market to people world wide. Sadly, People are broke world wide. I doubt there are enough mega rich people with interest in a Tesla. Right now, if you want to try to be green, you buy Toyota Hybrids. At least if something happens to those, they will be around to fix them. I wish Tesla the best, but odds are against them.