I am very pro electric vehicles but the President is doing the tax credit wrong. For his desire to tax the rich, his tax credit only helps the rich. Married filing jointly, you need at least a $100,000 income to get the full credit; make $80,000 you will lose about $2,000 of the credit..which can not be carried over and is last tax credit.

EPA now has a test method to measure battery energy stored in the vehicle. The original rules are based on manufacture claim; use EPA's numbers. Some PHEV will lose credits like the Volt.
If the tax credit is raised or not, the incentive should be based on a MSRP of $27,500/$30k and then reduce the tax credit for each additional dollar of price. Aim to get cars priced for mainstream, not the wealthy.

Only the uninformed media is guessing that GM will use A123. LG Chem makes a pouch cell the same size as A123, although it is rated at about 25% less energy which might explain why the initial 100 mile range is down to 80 something. GM uses LG chemistry in Volt so all the testing has basically been done.
We will all know come this Fall.

I follow Automotive News which reports weekly on next week's planned production. They have never shown more than about 400 or so planned for any week. Last week 3/11 thru 3/18 was planned to be 408 with 4190 built since 1/1/13. What Blankenship said was deliveries for last 3 weeks. Apparently there have been some supplier issues and some cars were not shipped or were shipped without parts?
Also Tesla never said they would have a profitable quarter only that they would be cash-flow positive. I am looking for a lot of excuses for a poor 1st Qtr showing which based on last year's reports says that R&D and Sales/Mrktg are spending equal to the costs of goods sold. That is not sustainable. There are quality issues creeping into Owner's blog

And why should we believe this will happen based on their track record?

I am sure Tesla is working this diligently. Please update us when the new software is installed.
I agree that you should have a SOC gage readout option based in 100% being the 85, 60 or 40kWh battery pack. Tesla may not wan to do that because reading in their 2012 Form 10-K annual filing to SEC & investors, Tesla's battery and extended battery warranties do not include charge capacity as part of it. If loss of capacity turns up as an issue to customers, like it did with Nissan this past summer; Tesla can say too bad not cover in our warranty.

Interesting observations you share. Thank you. One issue I was told was that in the Roadster the Wh/mile was only based on currents to the motor which does not include heater, thermal management or accessories loads. How is it done in Model S? I hope they have improved this.
One reason that the Volt my take more early regen is that even fully charged the battery is at about 80% SOC so it may be able to handle more regen since it won't over charge the batteries.

The really important SPEED question is, how fast can Tesla dig themselves out of a mountain of debt and start making money so they can be sustainable? 5 years and never made a dime!

Musk has really no idea about what he talks. The car makers use a "safer" chemistry than Musk's laptop computer batteries. Even Panasonic's new 18650A NCR, battery which is what Tesla is using is better but still has raw Li metal in the cathode. NO ONE IN AUTOMOTIVE WILL USE THIS TECHNOLOGY SINCE FAILURE MODE IS CATASTROPHIC! Hit one on these batteries with hammer and flames shoot out, penetrate a cell with metal and it burns very hot! Tesla is playing the odds game, but eventually they will have a "thermal incident." It may be an severe accident, it may be a software glitch, it may be a bad battery electronics issue but it will happen.
Current car companies use Li iron phosphate or Li manganese oxide which don't exhibit these issues.

Interesting article. What I find interesting is that Tesla owners are fanactical about their cars. Anyone one paying a $100k & waiting 6 months is not going to complain unless it is something serious.
How do you get into your Tesla if there is a problem with the 12V system? You can't get to anything inside the vehicle?
I have been critical of Tesla because there is too much they don't know, that they don't know. But the recent issues with Beoing & their battery fires w/ the same battery chemistry that Tesla uses (the only car company using Li Cobalt Oxide)gives me further concerns. What happens if the charger, or BMS fails or a clich in software causes a battery over charge? Failure mode is deadly. Just wait, it will happen.

I think looking at the stock price is a poor way to evaluate a company's success or future. Our financial system should be changed to force investors to be long term focused. If you buy a stock you should be required to hold it for a year or longer, not buy it one minute and sell it a microsecond later. This short term thinking is causing us to make decisions not good for the public.
That said, you can look at Tesla's financial data and see the problem. They are building a $200,000 car that they are selling for $100,000. No wonder people love it. Their sales and marketing costs were greater than their sales, their long term debt keeps growing by $100-200M per quarter, they had to sell $200M in new stock to be cash positive. Winner?