One of Silicon Valley's rumour websites had an interview with a disgruntled Tesla Motors employee who claims they are not delivering cars. That makes a great headline, except the Tesla Motors fan club website shows 11 of the Tesla Roadsters were shipped this month.  
 
The hybrid sports car comes stock at $109,000, which doesn't include the $5,000 reservation fee that starts the order process and guarantees the price. For those who wish to lock in a production slot and a delivery timeframe, another $55,000 must be paid. There has always been the problem of cost overruns and production delays for the Roadster.  
 
Tesla has delivered more than 30, and less than 60, Roadsters despite taking over 1,200 orders. The numbers always become vague depending on whether counting sold and delivered all-electric Roadsters or those also being assembled.  
 
Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of the electric car start-up, said that he expects to close a financing round of over $20 million from existing investors as soon as next week. Musk, who became a billionaire by founding PayPal, said that he would personally ensure that the San Jose, California company would have enough cash to deliver all of its orders.  

Musk is a very busy person whose interests include space exploration as CEO and CTO with Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), an American space-transportation startup company. SpaceX is a large organization with a head count of over 500 employees in July. They are working on a NASA contract to Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launches. The contract is said to be worth between $20,000 and $1 billion, depending on the number of missions awarded. The contract covers launch services ordered by June 30, 2010, for launches through December 2012.  
 
Muck was ecstatic after the successful launch and orbit of his Falcon 1 on September 28th. The only other orbital launch vehicle to be privately funded and developed was the Pegasus, first launched in 1990. The Pegasus, however, requires a large aircraft as its first stage.  
 
In July, the then CEO of Tesla Motors, Ze'ev Drori, said production will start to ramp up leading toward a monthly rate of over 100 cars in December of this year. At that time, they had raised over $105 million in private funding. In September, Tesla Motors announced they were building a manufacturing plant in San Jose, California. Then, Governor Schwarzenegger and the State of California also made it clear that they wanted to keep Tesla manufacturing in California. It was announced that Tesla will also be eligible for at least $1 million in Employment Training Panel Workforce Development Funds to train employees. Tesla Motors has secured $100 million in private-equity financing, and the federal government has come forward with $150 million in loan guarantees.  
 
Just after the manufacturing plant announcement, there were rumors around Silicon Valley that Tesla Motors was a candidate for take over by Ford Motors. We could not see any financial logic in that one, because, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's firm said on October 21st they had sold part of their stake in Ford Motor Company. Kerkorian took millions of dollars in losses on that investment which was a major turn about from the optimistic expectations of less than five months ago. Other investors followed Kerkorian's lead and sold their Ford shares amid a drop in the overall market.  

But like established automakers worldwide, Tesla has been hit hard by the financial markets near collapse in October. When Tesla failed to secure a $100-million investment round earlier this month, Musk cut 24 percent of the company's work force and delayed development work on a battery-powered electric sedan, known internally as the "Model S." A few photos of the tail section of the sedan were leaked to the press, but few have actually seen the single rolling prototype.  

In a blog posting on Tesla's Web site on October 15th, Musk wrote that the goal is to be cash-flow positive within six to nine months. He said further they must continue to ramp up their production rate, improve Roadster contribution margin and reduce operating expenses. At the same time, they must maintain high production quality and excellent customer service. Sounds to us just like every other auto manufacturer's goals.  
 
Some highly skeptical Silicon Valley analysts insists that Elon Muck was a less than successful manager while he had the reins at PayPal. One of them went so far as to pass along comments from a PayPal employee that Musk’s version of his success was a fiction believed by no one else.  

If these comments are near to being factual, what is in store for Tesla Motors? They just might well be living the old proverb: 'may you live in interesting times'. X