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Tesla Motors has wired the U.S. Department of Energy nearly a half a billion dollars, paying off the entire loan it was awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2010 with interest and nine years ahead of schedule, the company announced Wednesday.
The Palo Alto electric-car company, which has a showroom in Menlo Park, made sure to note that with the $451.8 million repayment, it became the “only American car company to have fully repaid the government,” according to a company press release.
“I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the ATVM (Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing) program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk said. “I hope we did you proud.”
The company made the payment using the nearly $1 billion it raised last week selling common stock and convertible senior notes. Musk bought $100 million in common equity stocks in the company.
Tesla has been in national headlines frequently this year. It announced the first quarter of 2013 as the first profitable quarter in its 10-year history, earning $11 million from $562 million in revenue.
In January, Tesla’s Model S sedan won Motor Trend’s 2013 car-of-the-year award and this month racked up a 99 out of 100 in Consumer Reports’ review, the highest rating earned in the history of the magazine.
The company’s stock price has risen to $87.24 from 30.74 a year ago.
The news comes despite the dire predictions of some political figures. During his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney called Tesla a “loser,” lumping it together with the likes of Solyndra and Fisker Automotive — failed and failing green companies also funded by the Department of Energy.
In an April 5 Facebook post, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin bashed Tesla as part of the “the latest manifestation of the administration’s crony capitalism as their green-energy buddies benefit from this atrocious waste of taxpayer money.”
“Obama-subsidized Tesla that turns into a ‘brick’ when the battery completely discharges and then costs $40,000 to repair,” she wrote.
Musk issued a dry response on Twitter. “Sarah Palin calls Tesla a loser. Am Deeply wounded … btw Model S warranty does cover ‘bricking.'”
Readers should see the op-ed in the fri 24.5.2013 Journal of Wall Street. Author shows how Tesla is making money through continued taxpayer subsidies and legislated transfers in the form of selling green energy creditor. These subsidies are fattening the wallets of wealthy investors and Tesla executives and adding no value to society at all unless you call providing yet another luxury car for the wealthy added value.
Bravo for Tesla and for US taxpayers! Payment in full, far in advance of the due date on this loan: something that should be welcomed by all sides of the political spectrum.
If the DOE Loan program were a mutual fund Morningstar would have given it 0 stars and would have made Bernie Madoff seem respectable by comparison. Do you think Obama acolytes such as Vinod Khosla or John Doerr would have touched it? Actually John Doerr of KPCB did back Fisker.
The following is a list of all the clean energy companies supported by President Obama’s stimulus that are now failing or have filed for bankruptcy. The Obama Administration hopes you’ve forgotten about all of them except Solyndra, but we haven’t.
Evergreen Solar
SpectraWatt
Solyndra (received $ 535 million)
Beacon Power (received $ 43 million)
AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy
Nevada Geothermal (received $ 98.5 million)
SunPower (received $ 1.5 billion)
First Solar (received $ 1.46 billion)
Babcock & Brown (an Australian company which received $ 178 million)
Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $ 118.5 million)
Amonix (received 5.9 million)
The National Renewable Energy Lab
Fisker Automotive
Abound Solar (received $ 400 million)
Chevy Volt (taxpayers basically own GM)
Solar Trust of America
A123 Systems (received $ 279 million)
Willard & Kelsey Solar Group (received $ 6 million)
Johnson Controls (received $ 299 million)
Schneider Electric (received $ 86 million)
That’s 19 and counting. We also know that loans went to foreign clean energy companies. Fisker sent money to its overseas plant in Finland to develop an electric car and most remember the vehicular flambe of a Fisker car outside Robert’s market in Woodside.
Over 80% of these loans went to President Obama’s campaign donors. Using DOE’s own data, the Institute for Energy Research has calculated that the DOE spent $11.25 million for each job created.” How do you spell waste, fraud and corruption? B a r r a c k
O b a m a.
Menlo Observer — stop with the nonsense. You are not convincing anyone. A list of donors to Romney or Bush would be far more damning. The Republicans would do better with a positive message, rather than the typical hysteria (punctuated with thinly veiled racism)
Have a nice holiday…especially when you honor the vets who served in Iraq who died for Bush’s folly since Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
The National Weather Service Sioux Falls South Dakota Weather Forecast Office (part of NOAA) clearly states that the hottest decade in the 20th centuiry was the 1930s.
1936 has the hottest average summer temperature at 77.8 degrees
1931 has the hottest average yearly temperature at 50.6 degrees
1931 has the hottest average winter temperature at 28.7 degrees
1936 had had 61 days where the temperature was 90 degrees or higher
Now for the 1990s
1995 has the hottest average summer temperature at 74.0 degrees
1991 & 1990 have the hottest average yearly temperature at 47.7 degrees
1992 has the hottest average winter temperature at 27.5 degrees
1995 had 33 days where the temperature was 90 degrees or higher
The 1930s beats the 1990s in every meaningful measurement
The highly heralded summer of 2003 came in with an average summer temperature of 73.8 degrees. This was beat by 1931 (74.1), 1936 (77.8), 1937 (74.4) and 1938 (74.5)
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/?n=joe_1930s
Menlo Observer –
I hate to be the one to point this out to you but it’s called “Global” warming, not “US” warming.
While the 1930’s did indeed produce new record highs for the time, average global temperatures since the 1990’s completely shatter those old records. That’s true whether you look at the annual average of global temperatures or the 5-year running average. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Instrumental_Temperature_Record_%28NASA%29.svg/300px-Instrumental_Temperature_Record_%28NASA%29.svg.png
Any if you do want to only look at US average temperatures, it’s clear why you stopped your comparison in the 1990’s. According to NOAA – the same source you quote – the 2000’s have seen some of the warmest years ever in our country:
“In an update to the 2006 average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S., NCDC scientists report that 2006 was the 2nd warmest year on record and nearly identical to the record set in 1998.” http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/ann/ann06.html
and
“According to NOAA scientists, the average temperature for the contiguous U.S. for 2012 was 55.3°F, which was 3.2°F above the 20th century average and 1.0°F above the previous record from 1998.” http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/ncdc-announces-warmest-year-record-contiguous-us
Damned inconvenient data I know but let’s not bury our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not true.
The New York Times, the darling of many liberals in Menlo Park because it leans further to the left than Pravda and ITAR?TASS has reported in Today’s newspaper
“While the White House publicly backed Mr. Holder as he tried to smooth over the latest uproar amid new speculation about his future, some in the West Wing privately tell associates they wish he would step down, viewing him as politically maladroit.”
and
“The White House is apoplectic about him, and has been for a long time,”
Click on the following link. Eric Holder actually has some defenders who don’t live in the Willows
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/us/politics/goals-to-fulfill-and-foes-to-foil-keep-holder-going.html?hpw&_r=1&pagewanted=all&
In times when all we can hear about are mortgage debts, payday lenders http://northenloans.ca/payday-loan-lenders-in-canada.html with their sometimes high interest borrowings, credit cards and car loans debts, it gets quite weird to learn that a company is capable of repaying the loan so much earlier. Isn’t this amazing, people? I know that Tesla is a huge and powerful company, but I honestly did not realize that they were that big and financially successful. I wish we had more of such examples. My big congrats to everyone who took part in that process