Government Approves $465 MillionTesla Loan for Model S and EV Powertain Plants
By John O'Dell January 21, 2010
The $465 million fedeal loan Tesla Motors qualified for last summer has become real.
The EV manuacturer completed the last of the requirements laid on it by by the feds and Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that the company will get the low-cost loan.
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Tesla says federal loan will enable it to build factory for 2012 production of Tesla S sedan.
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Proceeds are to be used to refurbish and outfit a factory for production of the Tesla Model S electric sedan and to build an electirc powertrain assembly plant at its headquarters complex in Palo Alto, near Stanford University.
Although a location for the Model S plant hasn't been announced, Tesla is believed to be looking at several vacant facilities in Southern California. Government offiicals in the city of Downey late last year prematurely announcd that they were about to do a deal with Tesla, but they subsequently backtracked and there has been no word since then.
Tesla, which now buikds the $109,000 Tesla Roadster, says the Model S sedan is scheduled to go into producton in 2012. A prototype was shown to the media last spring.
Tska Chairman Elon Musk said at the time that the $57,400 Model S (base price, before a $7,500 federal tax credit) would use lithium-ion batteries and come with several battery pack options with ranges of 160, 220, and 300 miles - depending on customer needs and budgets.
Tesla's apparent rival in the exotic electrified vehicle market, Fisker Automotive, last week received government approval of a $528,7-million loan to purchase and outfit a forner GM factory in Deleware for production of a new "family oriented" extended-range plug-in hybrid sedan to be priced at about $48,000 before the federal tax credit.
Unlike the Fisker which will sometimes use a gasoline engine to generate electricity to drive the car, the Tesla S will run purely on power from batteries charged from the commerical power grid.
The freeing of federal funding means we might actually see some of these new electric-drive vehicles on the streets before mid-decade.
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