From Wikipedia:

“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.”

“I have the means and wherewithal to do so. So people should have absolutely zero concern about their deposit.”

I look forward to Musk setting this benchmark for wealthy business owners.

Best comment of the day. Of course, Elon Musk is our Professor Harold Hill in this case. Then again, if Tesla Motors was headquartered in Iowa instead of Silicon Valley, perhaps Musk would have been run out of town before the company even got off the ground…

And cos999, I think you’re absolutely right about the parallels to Eclipse. I just moved to Albuquerque and it ain’t a pretty situation for Eclipse, not to mention the area’s stake in the company’s success.

This is where TESLA is heading….

One difference is Eclipse has delivered 255 planes, but those planes are having a myriad of problems as cited in the blog.

it’s not that every manager is crappy at their job. It’s that the 3 are sclerotic (especially GM) due to turf wars, etc., and the corporate culture is not conducive to quality. There are probably some competent individual managers in GM.

A Tucker sold for just shy of $1 million in August. How long until the Tesla gets there?

If any company had the credentials to be one of these ‘new breed’ of US auto companies, it seems that Tesla should have been it. First mover advantage on a new technology; home base in the heart of the US’ high-tech homeland and darn close to a major source of fashion and cultural trends; plenty of cash from willing investors; a darling with the media and every stripe of celebrity in Hollywood. And I’m sure the list goes on.

Yet here they are. Misleading public statements on vaporware products. Backpedaled performance claims. Delayed milestones. Disappointed (or plain ripped-off) customers. Massive layoffs. Empty bank accounts. Again . . . the list goes on.

With your eyes shut and perhaps a few tweaks, it smells just like a story about the Big 3.

So tell me . . . if this seemingly golden company can’t succeed here — and in fact seems to fall into exactly the same traps as our existing domestic producers — is there something inherent in our market that stacks the deck against domestic players?

At some point, it becomes a bit of a stretch to always invoke ‘bad management’ as the reason. As I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere on the site, it strains credibility to believe that every top manager at every domestic automaker for the past half century has been crappy at his job. So is it necessary to call on that chestnut again as the reason for Tesla’s implosion?

I’d love to see the editors or the {ironic finger quotes} “best and brightest” {/ironic finger quotes} do some deep thinking and provide some commentary beyond the usual glib and easy answer . . .

Sounds good, but I hope the investors got that in writing.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN3130815920081031

Mel 11:57 PM on Thu Oct 30 2008

Wow. It’s the Electric Tucker.

The Tucker also went through a couple of transmission designs. Hmmmm.