Tesla is top selling luxury sports car in California

[JayBird]

Quite the success story forming once again in California (how do they get all the ingenuity talent?) but good to see something "green" actually making green.

Tesla only sells one model -- and other carmakers should feel lucky, in California at least.

Palo Alto-based Tesla's Model S electric car captured 12 percent of the luxury sports car market in the first half of 2013, according to sales figures reported by the California New Car Dealers Association. Those figures were first cited by AllThingsD.

The Model S outsold the Audi A6 and the Lexus GS. The electric vehicle sold 1,097 units in June alone, more than Porsche, Volvo, Cadillac, Jaguar, Buick and Land Rover during the month, AllThingsD noted.

It has been a good summer for Tesla. The company recently announced it would require additional factories in other parts of the U.S., as well as in Asia and Europe in the long term, thanks to demand. It also just scored a pretty impressive safety ranking from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and it looks like the company has something new up its sleeve - it's trying to trademark the term "Model E".

http://m.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/2013/08/tesla-is-top-selling-car-in-california.html?ana=e_jac_rdup&s=newsletter&ed=2013-08-27&u=TRw0oGj+1To03lfSCUuPGg02a8ea14&t=1377606047&r=full

Company: TSLA

So Tesla, there is this place called Jacksonville with a great port, excellent rail connections, and prime choice of open space in several developing industrial parks. Perhaps it would be a great place to locate a new factory for the southeast/Caribbean/Latin America markets???

(Edit: This paragraph removed due to containing proprietary information.) I'm still learning the ins and outs of the Sunshine Laws as they pertain to government employee email. Thank you to the MJer who brought this my attention.

[spuwho]

With the Saft battery facility here, you may be on to something.

[Captain Zissou]

I was just in CA and I saw dozens of these cars. Seriously, they were everywhere. I actually saw 1 in jax on Sunday. I'm glad to see they're doing well.

[FSBA]

[CityLife]

Kicking myself right now. Almost bought Tesla stock in my IRA a few months back and would be up 4x right now. That's a year of retirement income already. Oh well.

Great idea on the factory here...perhaps someone at One Spark could reach out to have them as an exhibitor next year. Not that they need the money, but it would be good free marketing for them.

[JayBird]

Great idea on the factory here...perhaps someone at One Spark could reach out to have them as an exhibitor next year. Not that they need the money, but it would be good free marketing for them.

Good idea

[CityLife]

Quite the success story forming once again in California (how do they get all the ingenuity talent?) but good to see something "green" actually making green.

No coincidence that California has the best state university system in the country, along with great private schools like Stanford, Cal Tech, USC, and Pepperdine. Look at the US News Rankings below compared to Florida. I know the rankings are somewhat flawed, but they are the closest thing to an accurate school ranking these days. If you compared the amount of research and development in the two states, I'd imagine there is even less parity.

Private Schools
#6. Stanford
#10 Cal Tech
#24 USC
#54 Pepperdine

State Schools
#21 Berkley
#24 UCLA
#38 tied UC Davis
#38 tied UC San Diego
#41 UC Santa Barbara
#44 UC Irvine
#77 UC Santa Cruz

In Florida, Miami is #44, UF #54, and FSU #97. USF is 170 and UCF is 174. 

[JayBird]

Aah good point, something to shoot for when attracting new business to Jacksonville "Bring your creative minds".

[fsujax]

i work with someone here in Jax that drives a Tesla, she loves it.

[Lunican]

$71,000 seems like a lot of money for a car.

[CityLife]

$71,000 seems like a lot of money for a car.

You get a $7500 federal credit for buying. The net cost is $63,750 minus gas savings. Still a lot of money, but a drop in the bucket for the type of people who buy luxury cars.

[JayBird]

$71,000 seems like a lot of money for a car.

You get a $7500 federal credit for buying. The net cost is $63,750 minus gas savings. Still a lot of money, but a drop in the bucket for the type of people who buy luxury cars.

Exactly, a $71k sticker is at the bottom end of the luxury market. Especially considering this was in California which is the only state where +$50k sports cars outnumber minivans. (Well at least back in 2007)

Also part of this could be contributed to the fact that California has strict emissions laws and they will only get more strict (greener) so maybe part of this can be contributed to people thinking of what will be allowed 3, 4, 5 yrs from now

[CityLife]

Here are all the incentives in California for people who buy Tesla's.

http://www.teslamotors.com/incentives/US/California

Here are incentives for people in Florida who buy Tesla's.......

http://www.teslamotors.com/incentives/US/Florida

I also wouldn't underestimate how many people there are in California who would pay a little extra for a car just to change the world for the better. That is the only reason I was interested in buying Tesla stock, but it turns out it would have been a sound investment too.

[simms3]

You can't hear Teslas at all on the road.  I think they're great and all, but as a pedestrian/non-car owner, they are more harmful to me than a diesel pickup truck.  I'm actually not kidding - electric cars with no noise scare the crap out of pedestrians, need to be more alert than ever when jay-walking (we all jay-walk, don't say "just wait for signal").  And yes, it seems like 1/3 of the cars in SF now are electric/silent hybrids.  I know nothing of pedestrian signals, just that myself and others I know are more vigilant than ever (this isn't much of a problem in SoCal where everyone drives anyway).

[spuwho]

Teslas are great cars, great engineering. But the BTU's to manufacture it will never be made up by BTU's it will save through operating.

I asked a Toyota engineer how many years a Prius would take to recover its energy cost, "42 years". 

Save the world, perhaps not, but a step in the right direction, most definitely!