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It's hard to say. If they can get that Model S out for $50K, and with a California credit of 4K, this could be pretty competitive to the audience they are targeting, which would be BMW/Mercedes/Infinity. I know what kind of mileage I get on my Mercedes! And with standard driving, you could look at probably saving 3K per year in gas. Put 3 years of savings in there, and now you're competing with some decent cars, with a decent price point!

Their technology is completely different, and I hope they don't sell too much of it. If they do, Ford and others will simply sit on it after Tesla is run down to a simple R&D company. They have some good technology in charging and draining their batteries, which is what an electric car is all about.

Last I heard Toyota was licensing some of their tech. It's not a given that the big auto companies can just roll right over a company like this, in point of fact their in-house research can be quite lacking. Easier to acquire it as needed. Risky but this has potential IMO.

As Warren Buffet said about car companies when they first came out. Deciding who was going to win was almost impossible. Deciding who was going to lose was easy - horse carriage companies.

Today we've had every car company go bankrupt essentially in the US. Of the 100+ companies that started up in the US the only ones that survived where GM/Ford/Chrysler.

Pretty bad odds for Tesla...

Saw a Telsa parked at Fry's in Palo Alto a few weeks ago. Boy that is a small car. No way I would ever fit into it.

this has potential, just I don't see it yet. I'm not sure if they can compete with Ford and Toyota/Honda for the hybrid/electric car business. Can they get their price low enough? Or is this going to be a luxury priced item?

Of course I don't know their business enough, so naturally curious about what others think about investing into them long term. So far I'm thinking of toyota (TM) is a better choice because of how well they've done historically.

Anyone has any concrete thoughts or opinions on this?

Tesla will either go out of business or be acquired by a larger auto company. Their chances of being a strong independent automobile company seem slim

I'm betting on TSLA being acquired by TM in the long term. Once TM start producing cars with significant components based on a partnership they'll want to OWN it. Until then they'll be perfectly happy to leave it as a partnership.

Vicente says

I’m betting on TSLA being acquired by TM in the long term. Once TM start producing cars with significant components based on a partnership they’ll want to OWN it. Until then they’ll be perfectly happy to leave it as a partnership.

Vincente do you think it's a good investment? Or would it be better to simply go straight with TM?