Tesla CEO Elon Musk plans to reveal the Model S sedan later this month
It’s challenging to keep up with the folks at Tesla, the Silicon Valley start-up that would like to revolutionize the automotive world with its electric powertrain technology.
In recent months, the automaker has made a number of unexpected zigs and zigs. It delayed some projects due to cash constraints, abandoned a development center, in suburban Detroit, replaced senior executives. And, now, it seems, Tesla is abandoning plans for a brand new “greenfield” plant near its base in San Carlos, California, despite hefty state incentives.
Instead the company is now hunting for a ‘brownfield” site somewhere in northern California that could be converted to automotive production, said Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad.
Tesla had announced in September that it planned to build a new Silicon Valley production plant. However, after looking over the regulations for the loan program administered by the Department of Energy, the so-called section 136 program, Tesla decided it would be in a better position to qualify for the loans – it has asked for $480 million from the DOE – if it renovated an old industrial already occupied by abandoned factories, Konrad explained.
According to the Tesla spokeswoman, the start-up hasn’t settled on a site, yet, but the company is confining its search to the San Francisco Bay Area and northern California. “There are a surprisingly large number of site in this area,” she said.
Last September, just before the financial crisis shut down the U.S. economy, Tesla had unveiled plans for a brand new plant that would occupy an 89-acre site in San Jose. Tesla was expected to achieve gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for the factory, which was roughly 20 miles from the current headquarters in San Carlos, minimizing inconvenience for more than 250 employees.
The plant was being designed to produce the Model S, Tesla’s zero-emission, five-passenger luxury sedan, which is to be powered by a lithium-ion battery pack. The Model S was expected to have a base price of about $60,000 and get about 240 miles per charge with exceptional performance. The first sedans originally were expected off the assembly line in late 2010.
The Tesla Roadster, a zero-emission, all-electric, two-seat sports car now on sales in the United States and Europe is assembled at a Group Lotus PLC factory in the United Kingdom, but the car’s battery pack is installed separately in another Tesla plant in Menlo Park, California. Roadster production will remain in the U.K., Tesla officials have said.
Tesla is expected to unveil the prototype for the Model S sedan later this month but needs $100 million in government loans to insure the project moves ahead, according to Tesla founder Elon Musk.
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