White Star: Made in Michigan?

[tonybelding]

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/011207/loc_2007011232.shtml

Article summary. . .

Tesla Motors is opening an engineering center in Rochester Hills, MI. A dozen engineers have been hired and the staff should grow to about sixty people this year. Martin Eberhard says, "We're deep into the engineering on White Star and staffing up like crazy. We're looking to hire chassis engineers, body engineers and suspension engineers, not so much on the power plant." Also, "If you want to hire good automotive engineers, you have to come here."

"The governor's also making us think about manufacturing White Star in Michigan. She is very persuasive," he said. "To be honest, we weren't thinking about Michigan before this for a variety of reasons."

Also noted: Tesla has orders for 270 Roadsters and will probably initiate a second round of fundraising later this year.

 

[DDB]

Wow. "Closing on the building next week" and "already hired a staff" says that they're serious about Whitestar being produced in MI. Excellent, I'm in Ohio! Really, $27 million in venture funding is peanuts. It's time Martin talk to some professionals who know how to raise some doe. Maybe incorporate a subsidiary to produce Whitestar and then do an IPO. They would make billions on the offering, I'd bet.

 

[doug]

Wow.  "Closing on the building next week" and "already hired a staff" says that they're serious about Whitestar being produced in MI.

No, I think it just means they're serious about putting an engineering center in MI, which just makes sense. As far as the actual Whitestar plant, I think (hope) Martin is just trying to use the Michigan offer to leverage his CA/AZ ones. I'm hoping it goes in Cali.


Here's another article:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070114/COL06/701140657

 

[Iz]

It's a positive to have several incentives from competing states. Regardless of where Tesla sets up shop there should be a pool of talent to tap. Michigan however will have a larger resource base just because of its history in the business.

This is all conjecture on my part but Tesla may be adverse to an IPO for reasons of who would have a controlling interest. It could be non-voting stock but voting stock would open them up to manipulation by oil and other auto companies. :

Thanks for the post. It's great to read about progress on the WhiteStar plans. Can't wait to get design details later this year or early next.

 

[tonybelding]

Also, going public would open them up to scrutiny and regulation by the SEC. If you ever studied the history of Tucker Corporation you'd have some idea why they might be wary of doing that.

Check it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_automobile