Filed under: Raising money, Venture capital industry, Private equity industry, Public or private?
If you have been following the substitute energy saga alongside ridiculous oil prices going from rising to high to astronomical, you’ve run across the name Tesla Motors. Tesla is a venture capital and privately funded auto maker that produces a high performance electric powered sports vehicle.
The Tesla Roadster and soon to be sedan are now both now going to be manufactured in California, or so a report in the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere are noting. Governor Schwarzenegger included some incentives that have kept the electric auto maker from moving manufacturing to New Mexico (besides the Governator ordering one unit for himself). But it appears that the Say of California is giving it more than mere tax incentives. 
It appears that this is going to get equipment leases from the say, as well as additional allows. What is interesting here is that this gets the company even further on the map. There have been recent reports that Tesla was in the market for another big financing. Whether or not that comes about now is not certain. Other reports show that the company may even supply battery units to Daimler or other automobile manufacturers.
What is becoming fairly certain is that Wall Street expects to see Tesla file for an initial public offering. As capital intensive as these businesses are, the company needs to have a steady automobile (no pun intended) to be able to raise the capital it needs.
Think of the good news…. At least one US auto manufacturer will be considered cool.
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