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Posts Tagged ‘Tesla Motors’

Plane Crash Kills Three Tesla Employees, Takes Out Power In Palo Alto

A small Cessna twin-engine plane crashed in East Palo Alto today, killing three Tesla Motors employees and taking out power in parts of the city. The plane took off from Palo Alto airport and reportedly hit some electrical lines. The names of those who were on board have not been released. The plane was registered to Doug Bourn, a senior engineer at Tesla. It is not clear if he was the “high ranking official at Tesla” piloting the plane or if he was even on it.

Nobody on the ground was injured, but two homes caught on fire, including one used as a day care center. Fortunately, the day care center was empty at the time of the crash.

Eric Savitz at Barron’s has been blogging updates about the accident all day. It appears to be responsible for a widespread power outage in Palo Alto, which affected Facebook’s offices and many startups. For example, power is still out at TechCrunch HQ in Palo Alto (although our site is still up because our servers are not there).

The plane was headed to Los Angeles and was an older Cessna 310 manufactured in 1976.

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Three Tesla execs reported dead in Palo Alto plane crash — CEO Musk not involved

[Update: Tesla CEO Elon Musk was not involved in the plane crash this morning, according to a reliable source who has been in contact with his assistant since the accident. However, the plane's passengers may have been on their way to meet with him on the site of his spacecraft manufacturing firm SpaceX. Musk told Fox News that this is the "worst day in Tesla history."]

A small passenger plane piloted by a top executive at Tesla Motors crashed into a house in East Palo Alto, Calif. before 8 a.m. this morning, killing the pilot and two other passengers — all employees at the electric car company, which Tesla has confirmed, according to automotive blog Jalopnik. No names have been released, but the company says an official statement will be released soon.

Identified as a 1976 twin-engine Cessna 310, the plane took off from Palo Alto’s tiny commuter airport and was on its way to Hawthorne Municipal Airport outside Los Angeles. It didn’t get far, crashing into electric power lines and exploding in the nearby neighborhood only minutes later. Observers at the scene remarked that the fog was particularly heavy over the region today.

The plane, said to be owned by Tesla senior electrical engineer Doug Bourn, was registered to Air Unique, his jet company in Santa Clara, Calif. It has not been confirmed that Bourn himself was on the plane.

The accident has caused a city-wide blackout for the last several hours, but no other fatalities or injuries have been reported. Water and phone outages have also been reported.

Notably, the Hawthorne airport is also the site of  SpaceX, the spaceship manufacturing company owned and operated by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk. The company is preparing for a March 22 test launch of its Falcon 9 cargo space vehicle, which could be used to supply the International Space Station as soon as next year. A lot is riding on the craft’s success, considering how much emphasis President Barack Obama has placed on outsourcing space programs to private companies.

Our source mentioned that the plane’s passengers may have been flying to meet with Musk, who is in Southern California working on SpaceX, where he has been spending more time and attention recently. Hawthorne is also home to some Tesla operations.

The house the plane struck doubles as a daycare center for more than 20 local children, but was fortunately empty at the time of the crash.

This was supposed to be a happy day for the electric car startup, with Musk receiving the 2010 Automotive Executive of the Year Innovator Award from DNV Certification.

We will update this story as more details become available.

[Image via LALate News]

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Facebook, Tesla And Solyndra Dominate SecondMarket Transactions In January

Last month SecondMarket published data on private company stock sales that they helped complete in 2009. They’ve now released last month’s data as well.

A total of a little more than $13 million in sales occurred, with the average transaction size of around $2 million. There continues to be very strong demand for consumer products and services startups (which includes companies like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, etc.). But the sellers are spread out more evenly across all categories, particularly consumer, IT, Healthcare, energy and cleantech.

36% of the transactions were sales of Facebook stock, and we’ve heard from independent sources that sales are being completed for as high as $40 per share (or a $17.6 billion valuation). That’s a substantial price increase from less than a month ago. Tesla took 29% of the transactions, and sales of Solyndra stock were 28% of the total. Gridpoint rounded the group out with 7% of the total.

The complete report is below, and you can download the pdf here.

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Downey, Calif. says yes to Tesla Model S Plant

Downey, Calif. is one step closer to becoming home to Tesla Motors‘ pricey new assembly plant. The City Council voted earlier this week to approve a memorandum of understanding with the Industrial Realty Group, the company that manages the 80-acre tract of land that Tesla is considering.

Currently used by a film and television production studio, the property would be home to the EV company’s Model S manufacturing facility — a factory that could bring up to $365 million in investment to the local area. That’s how much the company said it would allocate from the $465 million low-interest loan package it received from the U.S. Department of Energy earlier this year.

According to the Downey Council, the plant could result in $20 million in extra tax and utility revenue, on top of 1,200 to 1,500 new jobs. As part of its deal with the Industrial Realty Group, the city will pay the firm $8.7 million to lure Tesla to the area, money that could prove well worth it.

The electric vehicle company has been scouting for a plant site for months now. Its CEO, Elon Musk, had been adamant from the start that he wanted it to be in California — an interesting choice when competitors like Fisker Automotive have located much of their manufacturing operations in cheaper locales, including Asia.

It still hasn’t confirmed that Downey is its choice for the plant. The deal between the realty group and the city — which owns 20 acres of the land in question — would only make it easier for Tesla to choose it. But Downey mayor Mario Guerra insists that it’s pretty much a done deal.

Still, maybe the town shouldn’t get it’s hopes up. The company has previously been in pretty serious talks with San Jose, Calif. and Albuquerque, N.M. So until it actually inks a deal with Downey, no assumptions should be made.

Tesla is running out of time, however, and needs to get production rolling at its new facility fairly quickly to hit its late 2011 deadline for the Model S’s release. The company plans to sell each for $57,400, or about $50,000 after government tax breaks.

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IPO talk revs up for Tesla Motors

Rumors are swirling today that Tesla Motors is seriously considering an initial public offering sometime soon. The talk has been tracked to two anonymous sources, who say the six-year-old company could cash in big on the battery-powered car trend before electric and hybrid models from companies like General Motors, Mitsubishi and Nissan make it to market.

Tesla has officially denied the prediction, calling the IPO chatter “rumor and speculation.” That said, going public in 2010 would give the San Carlos, Calif. company several distinct advantages. First, it would solidify its position as the electric car player to watch. It’s already been casually anointed as the leader by industry observers and the Department of Energy, which granted it $465 million in stimulus funds in its first round of low-interest loans for advanced transportation projects. Second, it could use the sale to raise money to get its hotly anticipated Model S sedan out the door by its 2011 due date.

Tesla is one of several cleantech companies anticipated to go public as soon as next year. When A123Systems shocked the market with its blockbuster IPO in late Sepember (its share price jumped 50 percent on opening day), many analysts, including the Cleantech Group, said that the biggest public offerings in 2010 will probably come out of the green sector. In addition to Tesla, solar system maker Solyndra — which received $535 million in loan guarantees fro the DOE in March — and smart grid communications provider Silver Spring Networks have also been named as likely candidates.

Tesla filing to go public would cap off a year of consistent wins for the company, which began with Daimler taking a 10 percent stake ($50 million) in May. After that, it nabbed the millions of loans from the DOE, followed by $82.5 million from Daimler, Aabar Investments and Fjord Ventures in September. It declared profitability in July and purchased space in thePalo Alto-based Stanford Research Park for its new headquarters and smaller assembly operations. On top of that, it opened swanky showrooms in New York, Seattle, Munich, and other major markets.

The company has now raised $783 million from a wide-ranging field of investors including Compass Technology Partners, Valor Equity Partners, Capricorn Management, Google (and its founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page), JP Morgan, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Technology Venture Partners and of course its CEO Elon Musk.

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Tesla Motors IPO coming ‘any day’ now, says report

Word on the street — and by that we mean Reuters — is that Tesla’s looking to go public with the company “any day.” The luxury electric car make, whose Roadster still goes for a cool $109,000, would be the first US auto company to offer an IPO since Ford way back in 1956, says MSNBC. Quite a notable event, indeed, but earlier comments by Tesla investors (via Autoblog Green) suggest “any day now” might be any time between now and September 2010.

Filed under: Transportation

Tesla Motors IPO coming ‘any day’ now, says report originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tesla founder quietly dismisses lawsuit against the company, Musk

Remember that time, way back in June, when we told you that former Tesla Motors exec Martin Eberhard was suing the company and its chief (a certain Mr. Elon Musk) for sundry offenses, including forcing him out of the company, wrecking his car, and besmirching his good name? According to the San Jose Business Journal, the suit was quietly and unceremoniously dropped on August 7 at the request of Eberhard. Of course, the most likely explanation for this turn of events (besides Eberhard’s suddenly finding his Zen and deciding to drop out of the material world for a life of quiet contemplation) is a settlement of some sort. Maybe he’s getting that coveted roadster after all? According to The Register, a Tesla spokesperson refused to “speculate on why Eberhard dropped his suit.” When pressed for a follow-up, the same site received an automated reply: “I am on vacation”.

[Via The Register]

Filed under: Transportation

Tesla founder quietly dismisses lawsuit against the company, Musk originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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