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Tesla Motors stock breaks $200 mark for first time

It seems not that long ago that the air had been let out of Tesla Motors high-flying stock price. The company didn't adequately thrill the market when it disclosed its third-quarter 2013 financial results last November and TSLA price plummeted quickly enough to trigger a temporary halt to short sales. Immediately after that, the infamous Tenessee CarBQ happened, adding to the loss of altitude. Shares that had been, at one point, worth as much as $193.37 spent the last half of November 2013 bumbling along in the $120 neighborhood. If you had chosen that low point to invest, we imagine you are wearing a very self-satisfied smile today. That's because the TSLA stock has more than reversed all previous losses and reached a high of $201.91. The most dramatic part of that rise came this week as the price saw a gain of $30. By the end of the day today, TSLA settled at $196.62, up just six cents from the close of trading yesterday. Whether or not the stock has been buoyed by anticipation of the upcoming fourth-quarter financial reporting – estimated to happen a week from now – is hard to say. Certainly the fears over future battery supply constraints have been calmed, and we expect the upcoming call to have even more concrete details about the giga-factory. If you think you know the reason for the recent rise, please feel free to share with the rest of the class in the Comments. Featured Gallery Tesla Model S View 24 Photos News Source: NASDAQ Green Tesla Electric tsla nasdaq

Ford files trademark application for 'Model E'

In early December, Ford filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for the name "Model E." Historically, Ford never produced a Model E, and while automakers are known to file for trademarks they never use, some have wondered if the application might be used for a concept car.
Based on other recent events, though, it could be a legal move. In 2000 Ford sued an online start-up called Model E over the similarity of that name to Ford's industry-shaping Model T, but the judge dismissed the case citing lack of proper grounds. In August 2013, Tesla applied for trademark registration for Model E, and at the time, Ford said it would review the application. Tesla actually made two applications for Model E, one for automobiles and structural parts therefore, the other for "providing maintenance and repair services for automobiles," and there are plenty of theories about what the name could be applied to.
The Published for Opposition date for Tesla's applications is December 31, 2013, after which anyone who thinks they'd be harmed by Tesla being granted the trademark gets 30 days to register their issues. This is just speculation, but Ford's application - which was filed for automobiles only - might be about protecting what it sees as unwelcome encroachment on the name Model T, protection it wasn't able to enforce before when the stakes were only online and much smaller.

Akerson calls for GM tech to stymie Tesla

Electric vehicle maker Tesla has had some good days lately as sales of the Model S have exceeded expectations as much as the company's profits, thanks in no small part to innovative thinking that has resulted in mass sales of ZEV credits to other manufacturers, free charging stations, 90-second battery swaps and manufacturer-owned dealerships. All of this has the attention of General Motors, who views Tesla as a disruptive force to the auto industry and as a threat to the 104-year-old automaker.
Case in point: GM recognizes that Tesla must be doing something right if it can sell more of its $69,900 Model S sedans than the $39,145 Volt. So what is GM doing about it? Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson assigned a small team to study Tesla so the company won't be caught off guard in the future. In an interview with Bloomberg, Steve Girsky, GM vice chairman, said, "History is littered with big companies that ignored innovation that was coming their way because you didn't know where you could be disrupted."
GM was one of those big companies at one point, and it hasn't quite broken that mold. It has struggled to move on from the old, inefficient practices of its past, leading Akerson to chide employees at a recent conference in Houston because so many in-house patents had failed to be commercialized and implemented in GM designs. This, of course, resulted in a huge research-and-development budget that was wasteful. But Akerson knows that GM must rely on innovation and a tight focus on technologies that customers want if it is to be profitable and survive in the long term.