Economically, it does not make sense to buy a Tesla Roadster. You can buy a lot of gas with the cost overage, compared to other vehicles.

The only reasons you would buy one, would be to (1) be the first on the block to have one, (2) you are filthy rich and you have to have one of everything, or (3) you are well off to rich and you want to promote the technology by giving a bucketload of money to Tesla Motors, the philathropic thing to do.

I don' think the Tesla S will strike the country's imagination because of the cost barriers. Americans as a whole are practical people.

If Tesla comes out with a mass production model, at the price that they want to sell it at ($ 57,400), I still believe that the pricing is way over what most people can afford. The recession atmosphere will have its effect.

Tesla Motors can only hope that they can use all of the loan money they have received from the government ($365 million in federal loans to build a plant for its Model S, an all-electric sedan, which perhaps includes a $100 million from the Dept. of Energy) and its support from Abbar Investments (which bought out the Daimler Chrysler share) will hold it up until an adequate market develops.

And they will have to pay their loans.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/148468-daimler-sells-40-of-its-stake-in-tesla-motors-to-aabar-investments

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