Tesla has MONEY!  $96.9 million in their account.  That’s down compared to he $250 million they’ve raised in funding and stock sales.  They have some of mine in their account J

Here is a breakdown of how Tesla spends their money:

- R&D: $27 million
- Admin: $20.4 million
- Nummi: $42 million

Sales:
Roadster orders went up by 15%

Recently, CEO Elon Musk said “We are very pleased to report steady top-line growth and significant growth in gross margin, driven by the continued improvement in Roadster orders and our growing powertrain business”.

I just received an email from Tesla announcing the good news. Here is what their emails says “Tesla took possession of the Nummi automotive plant in Fremont, California earlier this month and opened the doors to employee tours on Wednesday. In the months since Tesla announced the purchase, negotiations with Nummi have enabled the repurposing of a complete paint shop, four mechanical press lines, a blanking line (used to cut sheets of aluminum before stamping), and a crane for use in the Model S production process. The purchased machinery will simply be retooled and tested before use. The Hydraulic Press Line has started to arrive; 50 trucks are en route to transport the entire line to Fremont. “

Below is the layout of their factory… pretty cool. Does anyone know if they offer tours?

Globally, Tesla Motors has sold over 1400 Roadsters. Japanese sales should help bump up the sales for Tesla.

Tesla’s choice to be in Japan is quite opportune for them. Toyota is a shareholder which invested investing US$50 million in Tesla stock and more recently signed a $60 million contract to have Tesla help develop the electric version of the Rav4, Toyota’s hot little SUV. Lastly, Tesla’s battery provider Panasonic is based out of Japan.

CEO Elon Musk recently said, “We think the Japanese market is a fantastic market,”. I would agree with Elon.

I would love to hear what the readers of this site think.  Is this really how the Roadster performs? Does it break down or was this just a horribly bad example of it’s performance?

What do you think of the Roadsters performance? Leave feedback.

They’ve just recently tested their 100% electric Mini Cooper.  The car has remained the same as it’s gas counterpart, just the engine has been replaced with an electric one.

With everyone slowly entering the electric car marketing, its getting us excited to see which manufacturer trumps this arena.

Key Specs about this car:

1) It can travel 100-156 miles on a single charge

2) Charges in 4.5 hrs on an 32 Amp power of 10.5 on a standard home power system.

3) It has a 198 horsepower. WOW.

4) Can do 0-62 in 8.5 seconds.  Not bad

5) Expect it out with a lease cost of $330 a month.  Although, no release date has been set.

Tell us what you think of this car. Please comment below.

Please leave your comments on this video… personally we loved it!

The care is being assembled in Oppama production plant in Japan where Nissan produces their small gas powered cars.

Nissan announced production of 50,000 Leaf cars a year and expect this # to grow as more of their production plants prepare for Leaf assembly.

Nissan is the first to market with a 100% electric car for the masses.  Yes, you may say Tesla Roaster was here first, but its not for the masses with a $70K + price tag.

Top 10 Cool Features in the Nissan Leaf:

1) The car can go average 100 miles on a single charge.  If conditions are good, you can get up to 138.  Worst case scenario is 62 miles

2) Leaf uses a 80 kW AC motor powered by a 24 kWh lithium battery.

3) The car is Zero Emissions Vehile (ZEV)

4) Features you would expect in any car…disk brakes all around, 4 wheel anti-lock brakes (ABS), electronic parking break, power steering, navigation system and more.

5) The Lead can speed up to 90 mph

6) It can seat 5 passengers and has trunk space.

7) Led Headlights… nice

Remote battery charging monitor.  You can see if your battery is charged from your cell phone… WOW

9) All electric windows, and exterior mirrors.

10) 6 speaker stereo with iPod jack, aux input, XM radio, cd/mp3 player

Want to read more, click here to visit Nissan’s website

What do you think of the Nissan Leaf? Please comment below.

Go here to enter the sweepstakes

Tesla HQ

Check out this interesting article by Kim Reynolds from Motor Trend.

“My last stop on the tour of Tesla’s sprawling new headquarters/engineering center/battery-and-motor assembly line/and early production site for the Model S … was an employee vegetable patch. It wasn’t part of the schedule. But I’d heard about it, and being a Southern Californian, I had to see if this wasn’t some sort of Northern Californian put-on. But there it was, atop a small hill that partially encloses the bunker-like battery testing facility where Tesla’s favored little 18650 cells — the cylindrical form factor used by laptops — are tortured and tested … and sometimes catch fire. Which is why the building itself sits apart from the rest of the complex’s 370,000 square feet, contained within three connected structures formerly used by Hewlett-Packard.”

Read more here

By 2020, China, which is the world’s largest auto producer and market will hit the big 1,000,000 mark in Electric Vehicles! Green is IN! Vehicle emissions account for 70 percent of pollution in China’s big cities.

Going Green is new to China, the country will soon need to promote the newer energy saving, environmentally friendly vehicles. How will they do this in a country with the highest population in the world?? To pilot this mission, China will focus on 25 of its biggest cities and promote new-energy, and the government will provide subsidies for the purchase of green vehicles.

Wan Gang, The Minister of Science and Technology commented on China’s new Initiative,”As the world’s largest auto market, new energy vehicles are key to the development of China’s auto industry.” It is estimated that 8.5 Billion Yuan has been raised from capital markets to build up the electric car industry and also help build Chinas battery output.

China’s economy is growing fast and is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade. With such growth China now faces the overwhelming task of educating its population on energy conservation and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions! Go CHINA!