Tesla’s High Score Could Lower Electric-Car Anxiety (Wall Street Journal)
The electric-powered Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) Model S sedan will likely get more mainstream attention after receiving a score of 99 points out of 100 in a road test with Consumer Reports magazine. Sure, it rides as smoothly as a luxury car and accelerates “like you’re sitting in the front of the Millennium Falcon,” according to the magazine’s road-test boss, Jake Fisher. But the most telling fact of the review is that the car’s range of more than 200 miles allowed Fisher to drive it home without worrying. “My commute is about 75 miles, and I usually drop off the kids and maybe stop at the grocery store on the way,” Fisher said, noting that other electric cars on the market, like the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV, cannot reliably handle the trip to work and other errands without being recharged.
Though Consumer Reports gave the Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) Model S a score of 99 out of 100 in its review – raving about everything from its Porsche-like handling to its Audi-like interior – to make it the highest-rated car by the magazine since the 2007 Lexus LS 460L, there were a couple small criticisms. CR apparently deducted its one point for the design of the car making it difficult to see out the rear window, and what it deemed an excessive amount of time to recharge the battery for another 200-mile drive. And it is this latter “fault” that prompted Musk to tweet Thursday afternoon. His counter to the long “refueling” was formed in this provocative hint when he tweeted: “There is a way for the Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) Model S to be recharged throughout the country faster than you could fill a gas tank.”
Tesla Motors sparks up first profit in 10-year history (BBC News)
The electric car maker, Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), has made the first profit in its 10-year history. The company said it made $15m (£9.65m) in the first three months of the year, thanks to sales of its Model S electric sedan. Total revenues hit $562m, a huge rise on the $30m reported a year ago. Tesla said it was receiving worldwide orders for the Model S in excess of 20,000 vehicles per year. Shares in the company jumped more than 16% in after-hours trading. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 12 cents, three times what Wall Street analysts were expecting.
Tesla says “opportunistic” capital raise possible (International Financing Review)
In Wednesday’s conference call, Elon Musk was asked by an analyst whether the company should be “padding the balance sheet a bit more with a capital increase” that could boost Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s ability to keep investing in its business. Musk said Tesla had no plans right now to raise funds. The company was cash flow positive in the first quarter and would be “relatively neutral” in terms of operating cash flow in the second quarter, he said. “It is always possible that we could be opportunistic about raising a round, but..we’ve spent no time on that at all,” Musk said.
Tesla CEO Musk tweets driverless cars “still a few years from production” (TechHive)
Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk says his electric-car company has had discussions with Google about autonomous driving technology, but tweeted Tuesday that self-driving Tesla cars are “still a few years from production.” “I like the word autopilot more than I like the word self-driving,” Musk said in an interview with Bloomberg. “Self-driving sounds like it’s going to do something you don’t want it to do. Autopilot is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.” Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were early investors in Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) before the car company went public in 2010.
