EV Journalist spends beautiful holiday weekend holed up reviewing Tesla IPO documents, film at 11

(May 31, Mountain View, CA) - EV Journalist David Herron was found this Memorial Day weekend staring his computer and mumbling about how big Tesla Motors might become if their deals with Toyota and Daimler pan out. Or maybe the deals could go awry and Tesla would die. To David this seemed like a big story, one which needs to be told, despite the cost involved in missing the beautiful weather outside.

Tesla Motors and Daimler agreements revealed in IPO documents is a million boring details about Daimler's investment in and partnership with Tesla Motors. It appears that Daimler bought an amount of control over Tesla and might use that control to create electric vehicles, buy parts from Tesla, and help Tesla to build the Model S. Or that Daimler might use it to stall Tesla's development or prevent Tesla from partnering with other companies.

Tesla's IPO filings reveals details of the NUMMI plant purchase reveals another million boring details about the purchase of an auto assembly plant. Fremont CA maybe used to have manufacturing work but the rise of Silicon Valley remade the area into an R&D center, not manufacturing center, with the NUMMI plant being one of the last remnants of the manufacturing past. Tesla however needs a manufacturing plant and it appears that Tesla and Toyota may be entering into partnership agreements similar to the ones Tesla has with Daimler. However the agreements made with Daimler appear to require that Daimler sign off on any agreements with any other auto manufacturer.

Tesla, Toyota, Daimler, Elon Musk, and a messy divorce delves into how the divorce of Elon Musk and Justine Musk might affect Tesla. Agreements between Tesla, Daimler and the US Dept of Energy are making several requirements on Tesla, among which is that Elon Musk remain as CEO and retain at least a 65% ownership stake. But Justine Musk is demanding 10% of Elon's Tesla shares. Hurm. Very tricky.

How much of the NUMMI plant will Tesla use? The NUMMI plant is very big and has a capacity of perhaps 500,000 vehicles per year production. And Tesla is gonna buy the whole thing? Say what? What are they going to do with that big of a plant? How could Tesla possibly use any more than a corner of the place? It's possible that Tesla and Toyota will enter into agreements to develop several electric cars, some of which might be under Toyota brands. I wonder what Daimler thinks of this.

The New United Motor (NUMMI) plant, Fremont, CA And just for completeness, an overview of the NUMMI plant.

We now see David posting a final article and heading out the door to do something more interesting.