Tesla repays DOE loans nearly a decade early.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/tesla-repays-465-million-government-loan-early/

More at the link.

So now what do you alternative energy haters have to say?

This part seems kind of key to me.

So, not quite as remarkable as if they'd been able to do it from the profits that they'd made. It remains to be seen how well they'll do in the future.

Tesla rocks.

Genius idea to start at the top end and push down market as the tech develops and economies of scale kick in.

Good. Now never again take a loan from the government.

I don't hate alternative energy--and I think the Tesla cars have some really cool technology--but it's clear Tesla didn't need taxpayer help.

Without access to their books I don't think we can make that assumption that they clearly didn't need help. That 465M loan might have given them the cash influx they needed to get their manufacturing up and running in the first place. Now that they've show they can be profitable investors are willing to take a chance.

Not so much genius as good business sense, there were a number of business books written in the mid-90s that said the same thing. Its always been easier to take an upmarket brand downmarket than it is to take a downmarket brand upmarket. In the late 90s VW announced that they were going to try to compete with Mercedes in the US, that didn't turn out too well for VW, but everyone liked the lower-priced Mercedes that hit the market.

Eh, maybe. But that's now how it's supposed to work. (And such a strategy will fail far more often than it will succeed.)

We don't want the government funding stuff private investors won't. If a product is worthwhile, the taxpayers don't need to finance its development.

Its a bit of a shell game. They sold stock to cover part of the cost, but they also took on some more debt to cover the rest. Not necessarily a bad thing, but its not like they're completely in the black and did this with the petty cash they had laying around.

Not always true. Revolving loan funds can give a huge boost to an area's economy, especially in a climate where banks aren't lending.

However, I'm hesitant to cheer this on too much. On the one hand, it's good that they were able to pay back the loan. On the other hand, it's still not real money, per se. There are plenty of companies that manage to make good money in IPOs because they can convince investors they're going to go somewhere ... and then don't go anywhere. There are also a lot of companies whose main purpose seems to be to be enough of a pain in the neck to another company that they get bought out ... building businesses around the exit strategy, not sustainability; banking on the payoff happening before the lack of a good revenue model causes it to come crashing down.

That isn't a product.

Considering who is behind Tesla (founder of Paypal, same guy that is behind SpaceX) I don't think that is the plan. Not to mention the wait list is a year for the S (and since they are going luxury, the cars are 100k a pop, so they aren't taking a loss). They are ramping up production.

You mean the taxpayer didn't even get anything to show for all that government waste!?

If they did, there'd be a website about it, I'd think.

This is the real world, not libertopia. Our economy isn't in a neat little orderly box. There are global factors at play here and that means government intervention is necessary to level the playing field sometimes. I certainly am glad for small business loans, student loans, and the occasional big risk by our government. All those things help our economy thrive.

Solyndra was a failure, while Tesla repaid the taxpayer dollars they were loaned early.



I find neither act to be damning or redeeming for the current administration.

They showed a profit past quarter by selling their government tax credits to competing automakers who are afraid of not meeting government mandates in the future. Without that they would he 40 million in the hole again. Foreign investment is also a large part of their revenue. They used their own money for that, but fungible budgets of course are always a factor when in comes to government loans.

This makes good PR, but I wont be running to Schwab.com anytime time soon until the speculators clear out. Their stocks are hotter than a Rolex in a Detroit pawn shop right now.

Why do you think the stock took off the way it did? Valuation is based on expected future revenue streams. Investors believe there will be sales significant enough to enjoy a profit.

For a variety of reasons, this isn't true. Investors might demand a higher risk premium, or might be too focused on short term results to fund a new technology. This type of program seems preferable to grant funded research.

Elon Musk being awesome and this one working out doesn't negate the fact that our government wastes billions on cronyism and we should continue to point that out.

Anybody who thinks that the stock market is an accurate predictor of a company's performance isn't paying attention to the market. Even hugely successful companies will see wild fluctuations to their stock price for no logical reason (i.e. they make a record breaking profit, but it was .05% smaller than what analysts expected, so everybody starts dumping the stock). Apple and Google have both had this happen to them in recent years.

I'm not bagging on Tesla, they're doing what's to be expected of them, but that doesn't mean it's going to work out.

Sure, but smart investors factor in what Greenspan called irrational exuberance. The fact that some fools buy a stock doesn't mean there are no strong fundamentals underlying it.

Also, water is wet.

Tesla just might be the biggest innovation in US carmaking in decades. You guys should be happy that the gov't decided to give some aid. It's a paltry sum compared to what they give to banks and in agriculture subsidies.

Gonna be hard to ever get a handle on those things when people eat up the odd success story like this one.

When you are pushing the industrial/technological envelope even failures provide useful data.

Yes...if only we could corrupt and sabotage government to the point where it gets absolutely nothing done...

evenflow agrees: We didn't do that, they accomplished that all on their own.

Don't know what you mean by 'we' but Paladin our straight party line GOPer has admitted that he doesn't support making government more efficient. The more it costs and the less it delivers the easier it is to cut. This has been Republican strategy for decades now.

Where is the middle ground with these people? How do you work with someone who admits working in bad faith?