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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

Why can't Tesla sell directly to consumers wherever it wants?

Our friends at Engadget, tech-obsessed sister site of Autoblog, have taken an in-depth look at the reason why it's so difficult for Tesla to sell its cars directly to consumers, the same way that Apple, for instance, can sell you an iPad at an Apple Store. As you're probably aware, the whole sordid affair can be traced back to dealer franchise laws, which vary dramatically state to state, all with the stated goal of protecting your local neighborhood car dealers from unfair competition. What sort of unfair competition, you ask? And from whom? Well, that's the heart of the matter, and it seemingly makes very little sense to the average consumer. Engadget puts it pretty bluntly: It's not really about Tesla, or electric cars. It's about money. It's an argument against competition that may or may not even manifest in reality. It's also a complicated issue, and one that doesn't have a simple solution. To wit, just as it seems unfair to keep Tesla from selling directly to consumers, it's also unfair, not to mention illegal, to shrug off and ignore rules and regulations that were concocted, debated and put into law as a protection to dealership owners, many of whom have been operating under said rules themselves for decades. Adding another wrinkle is the fact that nothing is preventing Tesla from using the established franchise-dealer model that every other automaker in the US also uses. Nothing, that is, other than Tesla itself. Want to know more? We can't promise that you'll really understand all the behind-the-scenes minutia and political wrangling that's gotten us to where we are now, but you will, at the very least, have an understanding of the issues at play after reading the article here. And when you're done, feel free to come on back and let us know what you think in the Comments.

Elon Musk buys James Bond's Lotus submarine, wants to install Tesla powerplant

Remember when we reported the long-lost-but-found-again Lotus Esprit submarine used in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me had sold at auction in London for $966,560 (well, $863,000 plus a 12-percent buyer's premium)? At the time, the buyer's identity remained a mystery, but Jalopnik has reported and confirmed that the man with money to burn is none other than billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of both Tesla Motors and SpaceX. What's even more shocking (maybe not for Musk) is that he wants to install a Tesla electric powertrain in it and make it transform into a road-going car.
The story of the submersible Lotus' journey from movie star to prized possession of the eccentric Musk is remarkable. After filming ended in the '70s, the car was shipped to Long Island, NY and placed in a storage container that was paid in advance by the studio for 10 years. After the money ran out, the contents of the container were sold off Storage Wars-style in 1989 and won by an area couple. It was shown in public on occasion throughout the years, but its value remained a mystery until the gavel fell in London last month. While far from the most valuable Bond car to be auctioned off (that honor goes to the Aston Martin DB5 used in Goldfinger and Thunderball, which sold for $4.6 million at auction in 2010), the Lotus submarine is definitely the most unique.
Also worth noting is that the Lotus sub is more than just a prop. Without the aid of CGI, the film's producers needed an actual submarine that looked like a Lotus Esprit, and so they hired a company called Perry Oceanographic in Florida to build it and hired former US Navy Seal Don Griffin to pilot the sub during the film.