Venture capitalist says investing in Tesla is less risky than other in automakers

http://ee2020.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/venture-capitalist-says-investing-in-tesla-is-less-risky-than-other-in-automakers/

Venture capitalist says investing in Tesla is less risky than other in automakers
aprill 24, 2010 ·

From DOE investments to venture capitalists, there is a lot of money flowing into the green car industry these days. On the whole, this is good, because moving the transportation sector off of oil is a long and expensive proposition. Just getting started is a huge task.

Over at C-Net, Stephan Dolezalek or VantagePoint Venture Partners talks about how this generous pile of cash is causing some people to worry about a green tech bubble. Some investors are still smarting from the tech bubble, but VantagePoint – which has invested in Tesla Motors, Better Place and other companies in the renewable energy industry – is not shying away. Whether or not green companies succeed with their IPOs (and Tesla has already started down the IPO road) will go a long way to set the mood for the industry as a whole. Dolezalek is confident Tesla, at least, will be fine. He told C-Net:

Tesla has real revenues, a real product. Now, it’s going to work on a new product–a four-door sedan–so yes, there’s some technology risk in this model. But that’s no different than the risks of any car manufacturer. So I think as a category, in a lot of ways, the risks are lower because companies have more meaningful products and technologies than lot of what we saw in the 1990s.

Another recent IPO in the green car space was battery company A123 Systems. Dolezalek’s opinion of how that has turned out so far: “that’s OK, not great.” There’s more, including thoughts on how government funding affects the playing field, here.

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