It’s a ponzi scheme insofar as NEW customers money is building OLD customers cars. Sooner or later someone, or a few, or dozens of customers will be last in line in with nobody new to fund their cars. Their deposits will be long gone… ask those folks whether or not they think they were victims of fraud.

The Type S is a different story. Tesla doesn’t have some manufacturer lined up to build this thing. They need a factory. If Musk was planning to play the Type S project the way the Roadster was, Siry was right to get out while he could. Completely different vehicles, strategies and capital needs.

Tesla is delivering cars; slow and late, but with a genuine determination. I know quite a few folks there, and there is no question that it it not a ponzi scheme. A risky bet — certainly, but not fraudulent.

Tesla’s delivered more EV’s this year than anyone except golf-cart makers, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt (or at least hope for their success).

BTW: global warming is the greatest fraud ever invented.

Dan.

Some of that money has now become earned revenue too, as Tesla has delivered $15 million worth of cars so far. That’s why I say that Tesla investors paid to design and build the Tesla Roadster. That $195 million is now gone, but at least Tesla spent it on what it promised to deliver.

As to Tesla delivering prototypes, I disagree. The Tesla Roadster is built by Lotus based on the Lotus Elise. Tesla has no factories — it makes none of the parts itself. Tesla does do final assembly in the US, but that is light manufacturing. I can’t see how Tesla can be accused of making and delivering prototypes.

Tesla did have problems with the transmission, since the instant-on torque of an electric motor strains a transmission built for a gasoline car. But Tesla claims to have sorted that. It’s certainly not the kind of problem that shows a fraudulent intent.

Again, I’m no fan of Tesla or Elon Musk. But I see no fraud here. And Tesla is delivering Roadsters that work. Give them that much credit.

I’m no fan of Tesla, but they are far from a Ponzi scheme. Tesla raised $195 million from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. That’s what they used to design and build the Tesla Roadster. Not customer money.”

So you are saying all that deposit money is sitting in an account somewhere untouched? I call bullshit.

I never thought I’d be defending Tesla. But it’s the other way around. The Volt is still being developed. The Tesla Roadster is the car that is on the roads.

And Tesla is not a Ponzi scheme, and never has been. Tesla has been upfront about their finances. Anyone who loses a deposit with Tesla has only themselves to blame.

At least the Volt exists. The tesla is just an vision in its owners mind. In that case potential telsa owners can go to bed tonight and dream about driving one. At least that kind of dream is free.

Nasa will have already been to the moon again by the time tesla is a viable company.

I would venture even Madoff didn’t intend to start bilking people way back when. But his ego probably led to him cover up a few bad bets, then it snowballed. He kept at it figuring sooner or later his ship would come in and he’d get back to even. Never happened. Rarely does.

Tesla has burned through any credibility beyond a bunch of SV geeks who built an electric car. They wildly underestimated what it took to start a car company, and I’m sure underestimated the money it would take. When the $200m disappeared down a rat hole their egos prevented them from fessing up. They had all those deposits after all. So they finally delivered a few cars, then unilaterally changed the pricing deal on existing orders to help margins, and when that still didn’t work decided to start soliciting deposits on a car they had no way to build if they wanted to…

The DOE $400m will be gone as fast as their seed capital. Even if they get it, it’s all over but the end game.

That being said, don’t count on getting your car or, alternatively, getting your deposit being refunded if Tesla fails to get the $400 million in government loans. I don’t see the company being able to continue in that case.

Hell, you’d arrive home before your car was delivered!

This is a total ponzi scheme (time for “Carponzi Watch”?). They deliver a few cars to make the scheme plausible, use new customer’s deposits to built previous customer’s cars, and hope a bunch more suckers pony up later…

You bet! RF needs to make his yearly sojoun over to downblouseamateur dot com for some content…

Hey, I like cleavage. Doesn’t everyone?

A few proud Roadster owners have described their experiences with their cars. Jason Calacanis is the most vocal. Why he has not yet lent his Roadster to Farago for testing I don’t know.

I read in other publications that Tesla claims to have 150 cars on the road.

I ask: where are they, and why have we seen exactly zero documented and instrumented road tests by those known for doing it well?