Reuters is reporting two uncited sources that Tesla Motors – best known for their electric sports car – is planning to file S-1 IPO documents “any day” now. I’ve seen the cars in person and it’s an amazing piece of engineering. In fact, I’ve seen it go from 0 to whoknowshowfast on Hwy 280 just outside of their Menlo Park dealership and it’s a speed demon: super silent, super fast and super expensive. The base price for the only model they ship starts at $109,000 and Tesla plans on introducing a $50,000 model sometime in 2011. Over the summer, Tesla moved from their old San Carlos office into a new office space in Palo Alto which will enable them to hire more people and grow. Also, the government – as part of their promotion of green/clean tech – granted Tesla a loan of $465 million this was in addition to GM’s $50 million investment in exchange for a 9% stake valuing the electric motor company at $550 million.
I’m not really sure why Tesla Motors would be looking for an IPO exit so soon considering they were profitable as recent as July in addition to the cash infusions by the U.S. government and investors. They aren’t hurting for cash and they have plans to expand to other markets including Toronto, London (UK) and other various metropolitan cities. As such, I doubt Tesla will be filing IPO papers any time soon and wouldn’t expect to see them listed until their second model that sells for $50,000 ships to the public.