Tesla Stays Afloat: $40m secured by electric car maker

Tesla Motors has secured a $40m financial package that will keep the manufacturer of electric vehicles afloat. After failing earlier this year to assemble a $100m investment package, the Company will now try to make up lost ground, both in manufacturing its award-winning Roadster and in further developing the S-Model sedan at its R&D facility in San Carlos, CA.

At this time, the Company has filled fewer than five percent of the 1,200 orders for the $109,000 Roadster - a stable mate of the Lotus Elise, both being built in Lotus Cars' Norfolk, England, factory near the old RAF Hethel Aerodrome. The all-electric sportscar was the recipient of Time Magazine’s 2006 "Best Transportation Invention" award and was featured in a cover story that December.

The 248 horsepower motor produces very rapid, if relatively silent, acceleration, and the Company claims around a 250-mile range on a full charge. Tesla began deliveries in mid-March but has struggled with cash flow resulting in a number of layoffs.