If GM is too big to fail, then Tesla must be too small to succeed.

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Yes, if they can do it, then there's nothing at all to hate on.

The problem is that they can't do it.

They can't even deliver on a model that has been teased for how long now? The Tesla Roadster tease makes the Camaro tease look like child's play. In the meantime, all they do is fire people and gobble up not only private funds, but taxpayer funds as well.

Only one man in history was ever so skilled, and Elon Musk might just give him a run for the money.

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They may not have the best management in the world right now, and Elon Musk may or may not be the antiChrist, but I wish the company well and hope they succeed with their endeavors. As long as they don't dig themselves into too much of a hole financially, I see no reason why the Model S should be mere vaporware when they've already succeeded against incredible odds.

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Yes, I was referring to the time it took to get the car after you put down a deposit. As far as development time goes, it was still far longer than it should have been, seeing as it uses not only a chassis that was already sorted out, but also the technology was supposed to be commonly commercially available, allowing for an affordable, consumer-oriented performance car.

Performance? Yes. Everything else? No.

Additionally, any car company that asks for additional deposit money does not strike me as being a viable company any more than the mistakes that GM, Chrysler, and Ford made, which are partially responsible for getting them into the situation that they are in.

I live in LA, and I have yet to see a single one, oddly enough. Usually in downtown you see five brand new models the day they come out.

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Sure, harp on them for their bad business practices (the whole raising the price, taking deposits for a car they might not be able to build, etc), but at least acknowledge that they are delivering on the Roadster. It's not like last year when they only "delivered" a handful of cars to big investors; if it was still at that point, I'll agree with your statement.

And for the Camaro comparison, they unveiled the Roadster in mid 2006 and began regular delivery (I'm not counting the "deliveries" they made in early 2008 since those were only a handful and to mostly early investors) to customers in late 2008. The Camaro concept was unveiled in early 2006 and delivering is just starting now.

In between, the Camaro had a crap load of promotion from commercials to prominent appearances movies. The Tesla was only hyped mainly by the press and made only a few low key appearances in movies (a couple of seconds in Who killed the Electric car and in the background of one scene in Iron Man). So the Camaro is still much worst in the teasing.

On the street presence thing, I've personally seen a Tesla Roadster on the streets, not for a special event or anything, but on the streets. And we've seen a couple of instances here on Jalopnik where they appear randomly in photos of other cars, so it's not like they aren't out there being driven.

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You are correct.

They have Tucker beat by approximately 217 cars.

Since you bring up the point of development time and the fact that both the Roadster and the Camaro were introduced in 2006, let's talk about that a little. The Tesla Roadster is based off of a platform that already existed. The battery technology, which is by far the most complicated aspect of developing an electric car, was supposed to be a commercially available, off-the-shelf product. The only thing that hadn't been completely developed at that point was the two-speed transmission. And it took them two years after having demonstrated the technology integration in the prototype care and having set up a production plant.

The Camaro, on the other hand, was co-developed with an entirely new platform, from scratch, and will have taken 2.5 years to go from concept to production. Granted, one could bring up the issue of funding as a result of corporation size. And one would step into their own trap. The Tesla Roadster had a proportionately greater amount of funding than did the Camaro, without having to worry about the corporate quagmire of GM.

And again, it took them two years to screw together a production car, and this after a series of management debacles that were as bad as GM. Thus far, I'm not impressed. They have only begun actual series production of their first model this year, and are already claiming that they have enough capacity for a second model? I doubt it. They can profitably sell the cars at less than 60k? Nope. Only because of government subsidies, and only as long as they last. Tesla is drinking out of the bailout funds just as GM is, but at least GM isn't using it to actually produce a car that has no profitability potential in any context, because there are no real economies of scale for such a small number of cars that are still priced far out of the range that the average American can afford.

And, it's okay to rip the Big 3 for their woes, but Tesla is the savior? My ass.

It is a tease. It is not particularly green in any way. It's viability as a business is worse than GM. Their ethical practices are in fact significantly worse than GM.

And yes, it is only the press that has hyped the Tesla Roadster. It also only the press that has hyped the Camaro or any other car, because that is the function of the press.

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You're not making any sense. It's an ELECTRIC car, of course it's less bad for the environment than a fossil-fuel burning car. Please provide links to actual analysis that shows otherwise. Every study I've ever read states otherwise; here's WWFs. (Putting your fingers in your ears and going "Nyaah nyaah, electricity comes from coal, batteries are toxic, enviros are idiots" doesn't count.)

You don't like Tesla, and when your original hyperbole ("can't even deliver") is shown false, you come up with new stuff. Hater. Whatever.

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