Tesla’s Musk Says Battery-Car Maker Defying Skeptics
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Tesla Motors Inc.’s Elon Musk says his company, backed by Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler AG, defied skeptics when its electric Roadster came to market two years ago and will do so again with a battery-powered sedan due in 2012.
The California startup named after inventor Nikola Tesla is using funds from an initial public offering that raised $260 million in June, more than $324 million from private investment and $465 million in low-cost federal loans to get the $57,000 Model S rechargeable sedan into production at a former Toyota joint venture plant. So far, development costs are within Tesla’s $400 million budget for the car, Musk said this week in an interview with Bloomberg Television.