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Why Tesla will need more loans to make it through 2013

It's fun to bet against Elon Musk and Tesla - that's the best reason we can find for so many people doing it even though the man, his company and his cars are still here and still very popular. The latest name inscribed in the column labeled "Skeptical of Tesla" is John Shinal at Market Watch who, in year-end commentary on Tesla's financials, says that the "carmaker's financials are reminiscent of a dot-com's." He does not mean that in the good way.
To be fair, Shinal isn't exactly betting against Tesla, he's saying that if you check the bottom lines, the only thing keeping Tesla alive is the hundreds of millions in Federal Department of Energy loans it has received. Based on its filings, he says the company has less than six months of cash on hand, hasn't produced as many cars as it promised and had to lower its revenue forecast for 2012, has had a "year of net losses and negative operating cash flow," and was underwater by at least $37 million at the end of the third quarter.
But Shinal's not done there, summarizing Tesla as an operation with "a poor habit of failing to deliver to customers the cars it has promised them, while simultaneously raising the prices of those yet-undelivered cars," and "a lousy level of customer service." He says there are more damning things to be found in Tesla's SEC registration settlement from September, but we'll have to wait for his next column to find out what those are. The takeaway, in Shinal's opinion, is that even though Tesla will keep getting money from the government, that investors have no business dealing in Tesla stock.

Feds decide against investigating Tesla Model S fire

Despite earlier reports, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced it will not be filing a formal investigation into the fire that engulfed a Tesla Model S earlier this month, as the agency says there was no evidence to suggest the fire was due to a manufacturer defect or that the car was in violation of government-mandated safety standards, according to Automotive News.
The NHTSA's decision whether to investigate was delayed, as the fire happened on the first day of the US government shutdown. AN reports that as of October 22, the administration was still "gathering data," according to a statement by Administrator David Strickland.
The October 1 fire that torched the critically acclaimed EV was started after an impact with a "large metallic object," according to multiple sources including the driver/owner. As we reported on October 3, despite the car-destroying blaze, Tesla maintained that the battery pack acted exactly as designed, by containing the blaze to just one of the battery pack's 16 modules, rather than sending the whole lithium-ion unit up in flames.

Tesla asks feds to investigate Model S fires, amends warranty to cover fire damage

As of the last official count, there are 19,000 Tesla Model S sedans on US roads. Three of those, as has been widely reported, have caught on fire after significant accidents. That means one in about 6,333 Model S sedans has caught fire, and none of those fires led to any injuries. By way of contrast, there were 172,500 gasoline-car fires in the States last year, which, according to the National Fire Protection Association, equals about one in every 1,450 vehicles on US roads.
In a move we'd describe as very baller, Tesla has amended the warranty to cover damage due to a fire, even if due to driver error.
Put more simply, as stated by Elon Musk in his latest posting on the official Tesla Motors blog, "You are more than four and a half times more likely to experience a fire in a gasoline car than a Model S! Considering the odds in the absolute, you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than experience even a non-injurious fire in a Tesla." While the assertion of dangerous lightning strikes may be just as spurious a correlation as those who claim the Model S is a burning inferno waiting to happen, the point is clear: You are quite unlikely to experience a fire in a Tesla Model S.