Mid East Sov. Wealth Fund Buys 4% of Tesla to Develop Electic Cars

Her is a great tidbit for all you "big oil killed the electric car" fans (which is probably 0 who read this..)

The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund has bought 4% of the electric car company Tesla. Technically, they bought it from Daimler, who had owned 9%. Aabar investments already owned a chunck of Daimler, so this probably gives Daimler some extra (and friendly) financing while still allowing them to go ahead with plans to use Tesla's electric drive and battery pack tech.

The kicker is this:
"the fund indicated an intention to pursue joint projects in low emissions transportation"

The intresting part is of course that the SWF's of the middle east have all been created using oil money, but are all independent (or mostly so) from that oil money. Their goal is to ensure the long term wealth of the region from the money generated now. It is a wild idea to anyone in the US - but the basic strategy is to save up now and invest it so that the weath grows. Of course, one could say that in the US we would use it to make more money, right now, but most SWF's are there for the long-haul, to ensure stability and such like. It is certainly a better option than the African model of natural resources weath use.

So, oil money is now funding the Silicone Valley golden child car company. Interesting to see how this one plays out - my expectation is still that Tesla has a hard time reaching general acceptance.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

This is just disgusting....

Top 10 Ways to Not Suck at Driving