As enthusiastic as I am about the actual product (when everyone was ready to crap all over Tesla based on some bad information, TTAC was one of the few publications to go to bat for the upstart auto maker), Elon Musk’s series of announcements, frequently couched in hyperbolic descriptions of their significance, are beginning to grate on me. Every week, Musk seems to descend from Mount Sinai bearing yet another set of tablets that promise to “disrupt” (to use a favorite term of Silicon Valley) the automotive landscape forever, yet end up being little more than a not-quite-a-lease program or some announcement about after-sales care.

(Read More…)

Tesla is changing course with its lease/financing plan, with CEO Elon Musk tacitly admitting that Tesla got it wrong the first time around.

(Read More…)

It’s a headline you might have seen in the past couple days: “Tesla Model S outsells Nissan Leaf (or Chevrolet Volt, you pick)”. To the layman, the story is that this amazing car from an amazing American upstart company is outselling lowly Chevys and Nissans to become America’s favorite EV. The angrier among us may wonder how a car that costs twice that of a Leaf or a Volt can outsell them both. TTAC just wants to know how any media outlet can make this comparison in the first place.

(Read More…)

Yesterday’s Tesla “lease offer”, (which turned out to be Elon Musk’s “big announcement”) was a classic display of Tesla’s penchant for theatrics. On the surface, the move is a smart one; most customers in the large luxury sedan segment tend to lease their cars, so Tesla’s move is nothing out of the ordinary.

(Read More…)

Just ahead of their Q1 2013 earnings called, Tesla announced that they were profitable in the first quarter of the year, with deliveries exceeding their own targets. In addition, Tesla has also decided to discontinue the base trim of the Model S due to a lack of demand.

(Read More…)

Tesla announced plans to pay down their $465 million dollar Department of Energy loan in 5 years or less, as Tesla seeks to achieve profitability.

(Read More…)

If Elon Musk is still smarting about how much damage the New York Times has done to Tesla, the fledgling automaker can take comfort in the fact that the positive reviews are still pouring in.

(Read More…)

Tesla Motors Inc. released its Fourth Quarter & Full Year 2012 Shareholder letter on Wednesday. While the letter provides a very positive outlook for Tesla’s future, there are some questions looming in the background once we dig deeper into Tesla’s balance sheet.

(Read More…)

The drama circling around the New York Times test of the Tesla Model S doesn’t surprise me one bit. Why? Because I understand, perhaps at a deeper level than most of the motoring press, how batteries work. Perhaps that has to do with growing up in a family of engineers and scientists, but battery technology has always interested me. So when people from Phoenix came to me crying in their soup about their LEAFs in the heat and friends started wagging fingers at Tesla and the New York Times, I figured it was time for a battery reality check.

(Read More…)

Tesla recorded a third-quarter loss of $110.8 million, versus a $65.1 million loss in the third-quarter of 2011.

(Read More…)

Viewers of last night’s Presidential debate may have caught Mitt Romney bad-mouthing Tesla and Fisker during his remarks. Meanwhile, Tesla’s new prospectus shows that they’re hardly out of the woods yet, financially speaking.

(Read More…)

What good is a twenty-minute test drive?

Well, when most sources are getting a ten minute test drive, a twenty-minute one is twice as good. The problem, of course, is that range is as critical to an electric car as tensile strength is to parachutes; it’s the difference between a safe arrival and a harrowing trip. Without a genuine understanding of the Tesla’s range, we can’t say for sure whether it’s a great car or not.

That doesn’t mean we can’t pass along what we did learn during those twenty minutes.

(Read More…)

Summer is always a slow time in the industry, so what better way to boost traffic than to manufacture a controversy out of thin air about a “third rail” topic like electric cars?

(Read More…)

Tesla Motors has almost used up funds from a Department of Energy loan program – but the startup car maker also says that they’ll start paying back the money at the end of 2012.

(Read More…)

An article in the New York Times Dealbook blog claims that Tesla is using their customer deposits on upcoming models as a major source of cash to finance operations.

(Read More…)