IPO Or Not, Tesla Won't Survive As Independent, Analysts Say

By John Voelcker

John Voelcker

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Tesla Model S and Roadster

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Quick, name the last automaker to go public before yesterday's Tesla Motors IPO. Stumped?

It was Ford Motor Company. The year was 1956.

Perhaps buyers of Tesla Motors stock [NSDQ:TSLA] were optimistic because they had little context to assess the comapny. Tesla's stock soared from its offering price of $17 to close at $23.89 by the end of yesterday, meaning Tesla Motors is now worth $2.2 billion.

Not bad for a company that's sold just over 1,000 cars and lost almost $300 million in its seven-year life.

"The hard work starts now"

Now what? We asked a pair of industry analysts to react to the results of Tesla's IPO and offer their opinions on what lies ahead for Tesla Motors over the next two or three years.

Two themes emerged:  First, in the word's of PRTM's Oliver Hazimeh, "The hard work starts now." In other words, Tesla has more than a few hurdles ahead in getting its Model S electric sports sedan into production by 2012 (or perhaps later).

Second, neither analyst expected Tesla to remain independent.

Both agreed that the brand's only long-term future lay in being acquired by an existing global automaker that offered the manufacturing expertise, component sets, and economies of scale Tesla desperately needs to have any hope of future profitability.

Tesla Model S Sedan

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"Not a car company"

Aaron Bragman, of IHS Global Insight, closely follows auto-industry news and uses his firm's econometric models to project vehicle demand into the future and comment on current events.

He says he's "not all that bullish on their prospects as a business case," and adds bluntly, "Tesla's not a car company; they have no expertise in automaking," since Lotus did much of the fundamental design work on the 2010 Tesla Roadster electric supercar.

Lotus also builds that car for Tesla, which claims the Model S midsize electric sports sedan it hopes to launch by the end of 2012 will be a clean-sheet design, using a basic platform that can be adapted for a variety of models, including a cabriolet, a crossover/SUV, even a van.

Competition at their heels

Oliver Hazimeh, of PRTM, covers the supply chain for the components of electric-drive vehicles--lithium-ion cells, electric motors, power electronics--as well as assessing the many market demand projections made by others.

He notes that Tesla remains a tiny niche player in the competitive global luxury car market. Unlike the Roadster's first-in-the-world position, he adds, the Model S will face all-electric entries from several global competitors by the time it arrives in 2012 or 2013.

Tesla Motors and Toyota logos

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One challenge, he suggests, is for Tesla to figure out "what it wants to be when it grows up" in, say, 10 years. It has "quite a bit of brand equity" already, but it needs to understand how to position itself: Is it a tiny-volume player? An early-adopter icon? Or can it really ramp up to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of electric cars a decade hence?

The second challenge is how the company will achieve the economies of scale to let it make money on volumes of 20,000 Model S cars a year. "At the end of the day," says Hazimeh, "what saved their IPO was the Toyota deal."

New partner Toyota clearly offers a wealth of manufacturing expertise, product engineering skills, and a global parts bin second to none, all of which Tesla desperately needs.