Tesla to go public
The owner of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors is making plans to take the company public, a historic move for the company which could take place very soon, perhaps within days.
A milder climate for green business ventures has lured Tesla to become the first new public offering of an automobile stock since Ford Motor Company did so in 1956, according to a Reuters article. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, has been talking about the possibility of going public since sometime last year, and apparently feels that the time is now ripe. That is a landmark change in an industry that obviously felt that the electric car was dead until very recently.
Perhaps the move was not undertaken sooner because the collapse of Lehman Bros. virtually shut down the IPO arena for most of 2008 and 2009. There has been a resurgence in recent months, especially among companies with green offerings, such as that of A123, the manufacturer of high-tech lithium ion batteries, who had a very successful and profitable IPO in September. Analysts have said that the success of A123, the first green-technology IPO this year, would encourage more venture capital-backed green companies to go public.
Tesla Motors will hardly be alone in the electric car marketplace, although Tesla is probably after a different demographic than larger players such as Ford, General Motors, and Nissan Motor, all of which are racing to launch electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. The success of hybrid vehicles in recent years has renewed interest in fully electric cars. Their newfound popularity has also been spurred by government programs aimed at reducing reliance on fossil fuels, such as the Obama administration’s push to have 1 million rechargeable vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015 and low-cost Department of Energy loans for manufacturers.
Tesla’s offerings still include the expensive sports coupe which made its reputation, but which will probably never be built in quantities sufficient to attract many investors. The company is now planning other more practical vehicles, such as the all-electric Model S 4-door sedan, which will retail for less than half the price of the roadster. With energy credits from government and the lower cost of fuel, electric automobiles are beginning to approach the point where they are competitive with gasoline-powered cars.
Related Posts:
