GM has proven to not have a viable business model, that's why the Feds have refused another round of bailouts unless they restructure their business model before they get a third round of bailout money.
Tesla is asking for an expansion loan. They have a viable, profitable, and attractive expansion plan by producing another model that will bring in profits. Unlike GM that (by their own confession) builds small cars to either break even or at a marginal loss, Tesla can be profitable and pay back the loan. GM could never pay back their loan, that's why they've been denied the third round of tarp fund. Anybody that thinks Tesla doesn't deserve the loan (which is not the same type of loan in the first place) is not being fair. Tesla is the next GM. GM should die because a bunch of idiots are running that company.
For those that say that Tesla is going to make a car that few can afford, let me remind you that GM wants to make a high end Escalde for nearly $100K. Who can afford that? That's their plan to get themselves out of trouble, a $100K Escalades? Oh, Tesla model S is projected for under $60K. Their next model should cost even less. What does GM have? Nothing. Again, I say let GM die and let the innovative companies with real plans and products take up the slack that GM will leave behind. Maybe when GM and Chrysler are gone, better cars can finally be brought to market without the huge lobbying efforts to stop them.

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How many cars did GM build last year? How many did Tesla? One is in the millions, the latter is in the hundreds.
How many employees do each of them have? How many pickups and vans and CUV's did Tesla build in the past 12 months? None?
Don't bite off your nose to spite your face.

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@ziv

That is part of the problem. You cannot measure success counting your number of employees, the number of items you produced etc. Success is whether you are profitable and fiscally strong or not. GM owes more money than Tesla ever will. On that note, Tesla is becoming profitable as we speak, while GM stays inefficient.

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Generald Mismanagement build 10000000000000000000000 factories/plants and have 10000000000000000000000 jobss yet still requires GOVERNMENT bailout. Allegedly (For legal purposes lol) . That's just sad. Unprofitable, uncompetitive, this combination will only lead to liquidation, and when you ahve that much production capacity, you will rip the market apart. It's better to have thousands and thousand of small profitable companies than one giant unprofitable company. The overall economy will be much more stable when there is lots of competitions and profitable, rather than a few with lack of focus, like GM, Chrysler, and Ford (I do give Ford credit for restructuring their massive debts in the most hostile environment everrrr...I give Alan mully 2 thumbs and 2 toes up)

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GM may very well go into bankruptcy, but what will really anger most Americans is that GM Asia and GM South America are making a ton of money. The problem is that in the US and to a lesser degree in Europe, they have made horrible choices in their efforts to build cars. They thought they could safely make unrealistic deals with the unions in order to avoid strikes, and now the pension & health care plans are strangling the company.
That is why a GSB may be in GM's best interest, shave off Hummer and Saturn, then start from scratch with the UAW. The only things the US makes in any numbers are food, oil, coal, jet aircraft and cars, I would hate to see a substantial portion of our production shifted to foreign auto makers. Tesla may make a thousand cars next year, and maybe 10,000 in a few years. The rest of GM's lost production would be built by Toyota and Honda. We don't need to lose that production, but we also don't want to reanimate a dead company, like GM was under Wagoner.

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I dont know whether or not i'm arguing with a wall, but look here. GM makes inefficient vehicles, that uses fuels, import fuels. Lets say they are back on their feet and then what, Thank god or what ever is up there, but crude oil is only 50 a barrel whats going to happen if we let them[GM] revive their production and crude jump to 150 again. We will export trillion and trillion of dollars out of this country. So what if Honda and Toyota pick up market share, if we invest in advance technology today, and if we give Tesla the equavilant of GM's bailout, we probally have a global company in no time. PUT IT THIS way, if TESLA have GM production capacity...Toyota and Honda can eat their #$%#$ing hybrid. GM is over, let it go, It's time for a new guy a cool guy to take over. If Tesla can produce as much as GM, the world over will by our product, Chinese, Russian, European...etc will line the street from here to New York, the reasons why I said that is because they're paying a lot more for fuels than American does.

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Minny, I agree with you on a lot of what you are saying, I want Tesla to build hundreds of thousands of cars asap, but destroying GM doesn't help America unless it is impossible for GM to build cars that America wants and needs. They have made a huge start with the Cruze and the Volt, if they can survive long enough to build them. Tesla will take years to build up their production numbers, so if GM fails, the only winners are Toyota and Honda. I guess that makes me a wall. Grin. And in the short term, say 3-6 years, the Tesla will be limited by the price of the battery. Even with a $7500 tax credit the Volt will be expensive at $39,000 less $7500 tax credit or $31,500 net. The Tesla S will be even more of a rich mans toy at $56,400 less $7500 or $49,900 net, and it will always have the range irritation liability, fast charging is too damaging, and too slow, so far. Tesla can't replace GM's quantity of sales for years, because the Tesla cars are going to be too expensive for quite a while.
But you are right that GM doesn't build enough quality high mileage cars. The Malibu hybrid just isn't good enough, or inexpensive enough.
GM is a national asset, and letting them go into an uncontrolled bankruptcy is like tossing the baby out with the bath water. Let them find an executive team that has a plan to build cars Americans want with high mileage and high quality, at a decent price,with the executives, the bondholders and the UAW all taking a haircut, and the loans will be worth it. If GM goes back to concentrating solely on gas guzzlers, they will die, and they know that now. Even an MBA fool can see where oil prices are going.
Don't let your understandable irritation with GM blind you to the fact that there are significant parts of the corporation that are worth preserving, for a host of reasons.

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I do agree with you that GM is a national asset, but we are American. We are a capitalist society, we don't do bailout - Jefferson probally roll over in his grave right now. I know you love GM, i do too, i used to think their cars are really cool especially the corvette, but you know I just couldn't help to think. OUr childrens, and grandchildrens are paying for this bailout right now, we are American, we are capitalist, we don't do bail out, government should not interfere....at alllll. To be honest GM makes alot of cars that are rich man toys too. Cadillac, Hummers, i hardly think the average Joe can afford those. From what you wrote I can tell you a patriotic guy buy this is not a patriotic time. Swift action is needed to make America Powerful again and that's by invest fully in company like Tesla, and you know what they're not asking for a lot of money, seriously a Fraction (one tenth of one tenth...i'm undervalueing...trust me)of what the government gave to GM, and Detroit. Oh yeah and check this out, an average car have about 5000 parts, and half, less or more of that is what made up in the engine. So i mean, seriously, if Tesla get the money that we gave to GM, they can build their car alot faster, come on dude see the great big picture, TESLA vehicles proablly have half the parts, even less than that, and the way an electric engine work, it can be assemble by machine rather than human. We can dominate the auto industry like we do in the higher end electronic industry, this is America...no bailout. That's not what our founding fathers want, if they we're alive today, they probally start a riot. It's like a great father, you don't want you kids to fall but when they do, they should learn to get up, cause next time when your not there they won't know how to get up. Let them fall, let make them an example for that our future generation can look back and realize I should not relly on my governmetn I should learn to protect myself...so I don't end up like the European

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You and Richard in FLA got it spot on. The Obama administration is not stupid. They are going to give capital to the company with the best business plan and execution.

I would be very, very concerned if I were Lexus, BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes. They have nothing to compete against the Tesla Roadster or Model S. Who in their right mind would purchase a boring $65K Lexus over a Model S when it becomes available? That is one beautiful green car.

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@ Joe B.

BMW is developing Hydrogen cars (Honda is as well) which fits into our current transportation model better than pure electric. Porsche now almost fully owns VW who owns Audi, Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, etc etc. VW will be the number 2 car maker in the world this year, beating out GM. They make petrol and diesel cars that get better gas mileage than most things offered in the states but they realize that the US has been brainwashed by companies like GM so they dont offer the full line here. Lexus is a subsidiary of Toyota, who is the number one car manufacturer for a reason: Theyve made affordable reliable cars for years. While I dont think Hybrids are the future, they are sure cost effective for consumers.

Bottom line is, you cant look at the subsidiaries and say "OOH they're boned!" when they arent the ones making the money for the company.

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Lutz is right. Look at the vehicles sitting on the lot right now - small cars aren't selling. SUV's and larger cars are selling. I personally won't buy a small car as my primary vehicle. I have 3 kids and I actually want to fit more than two suitcases into my trunk. People can wax poetic all they want about the need to move toward small fuel efficient cars. But outside of LA and NY, people need bigger cars. That's something that the cheerleading "green" media doesn't get or doesn't want to get. So Detroit continues to build and sell cars that the perpetually angry greens hate.

Loan me $80,000 and I'll buy a tesla. Until then, Tesla is a boutique manufacturer, and Elon Musk is a DB. For all the problems that GM and the others have inflicted on themselves by catering to the unions, selling themselves too short in the capital market, and overextending their supply and production lines, they make cars that the average person in the country can buy. When the Tesla becomes affordable even for someone making $75,000 a year, then we can talk about how much Tesla is helping the state of fuel efficient vehicles.

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lmao @ bailers "small cars aren't selling"

More efficient cars (that tend to be smaller) ARE selling, they're just not the ONLY seller as when gas prices were high. SUVs sales are still nowhere near rebounding, and the only reason they're posting higher sales is because of discounts around 40-50% - definitely not sustainable. If SUVs (GMs cashcrop) were actually selling well then GM would in much better health...they're not. In fact, the only reason gas prices are depressed is because of a severe global recession. A year from now, when economic conditions improve, gas will again around $4 and they won't be able to even give SUVs away...again. If GM execs listened to you, a year from now they'd be looking at bankruptcy again.

GMs in this situation because of idiots like you, who equate anything efficient with "small", who think everybody in the world outside of NY and LA wants a gas-hog SUV. If this was true then it would be the foreign automakers going broke. And union contracts did not make GM management decide SUVs were always to going to be the top seller into infinity so they should base their entire business model around it. Union contracts didn't make GM decide to sell off their EV1 patents to Chevron, at around the same time Toyota was coming out with the Prius (it lost money when it first came out too). In case you still haven't figured it out, ITS A FAILED BUSINESS MODEL, ONLY GOOD IF YOU WANT TO GO BANKRUPT.

And the telsa Model T costs $50,000 not $80,000 so get your facts straight. If you include the gas savings and reduced costs for maintenance, its even lower. You don't even know what you're talking about.

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@Bailers

I don't want to buy a "small" oil burner either, where is the innovation and excitement in that? I'm criticizing GM for their lack of vision among other related issues. If GM puts a new EV on their dealers and price it right, you bet it would spark a lot of interest. They don't want to do this because of existent inventory, it would mean further looses on those "small" cars and SUVs + big cars (great sellers lol) they already have. But as sad as it is, this is not in their best interest, therefore they rather twist the reality and tell you that there is simply not interest in efficient cars. So my question is, how can you attest to something you haven't tried?

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Polo - The Tesla Roadster is $100,000. The proposed Model S is $50,000 but is not currently available, or even a timetable on when it might be. There is no model T, so let me be the first to say EPIC FAIL. Get YOUR facts right, or stay at the kiddie table. I said loan me $80K because I'm willing to pay about $20K for a small car, so I'll need to be subsidized for the rest before I buy a Roadster. A lower lifecycle cost doesn't mean a lower purchase price either.

Tohe,
I agree with you, but the fact is that GM can't make money off of the Cobalt, but they can on the Trailblazer. Toyota gets some benfit of having a "cool" car to drive in the Prius, even though someone could buy a Fit or Civic Hybrid for less and get about the same benefit. I too wish that GM had been inovative earlier, I'd love to be driving a Volt right now or even a Cruze. Or a Venture One for that matter. But that's not the reality. The reality is acres of small cars sitting unsold on test tracks around the world, on the docks at Port of Los Angeles, and on dealer lots. I don't think they are seriously saying there isn't interest in small cars, just that they can't make enough money off them to stay in business.

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@Bailers

Here is the video I was referring to, you can judge for yourself:

http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=3447668&referralPlaylistId=3f678a717f97ef1e78fff11e96c984c75116d98d

Disclaimer: I don't watch Fox News and definitely don't endorse them. But I do enjoy their Fox Car Report.

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