One of the most valuable automobile manufacturers in the world, Tesla Motors is valued at around $20 billion, which begs the question, does anyone have the cash to buy such a successful company?
Entrepreneur Elon Musk doesn’t hold on to every company he’s created, such as Zip2 and PayPal. Those companies were sold for millions, and have continued to be successful, even post-Musk. Other Musk startups, including SolarCity, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors could go the same way, depending on if mastermind Elon can keep the ball rolling. Tesla Motors’ ball is indeed picking up speed and, in spite of a couple of bumps in the road, is the most successful automobile startup, of any kind, in the last sixty years, but Elon Musk has said it’s not ready for sale… yet.
According to Praxis Trading veteran Yra Harris, General Motors might buy Tesla Motors in the next year or so, which could be a good thing. The Tesla Model S is one of the best-selling pure electric vehicles in the world, and General Motors has had limited success with the Chevy Volt extended-range electric vehicle, offering huge discounts, cutting into profits, just to make the sale. Adding Tesla Motors to the General Motors roster would certainly help supply the technology, and bring in profits, for future development.
Such an acquisition might be a good idea for General Motors, but I wonder what would happen to Tesla Motors, as a company, if the deal goes through. Tesla Motors is already wildly successful on its own and has big plans for the future already in the works. Additionally, General Motors doesn’t have that much success with electric vehicles as it is, given the past EV1 experiment and current Volt performance. If General Motors fiddles too much with the winning Tesla Motors method, we might as well kiss Tesla goodbye, right now.
Personally, I think Tesla Motors is best left to its own devices. After all, Elon Musk explained that automobile dealers selling electric vehicles side-by-side with conventional vehicles is basically a conflict of interest. How could a General Motors acquisition of Tesla Motors be any different?
Image © Joe Mabel [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
