Tesla Vies for "Car of the Year"

Source: courtesy of Tesla Motors The Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model S is up for another major honor. It is one of seven finalists for “Car of the Year” at the Geneva International Motor Show. If the electric vehicle wins, it would add to an impressively long line of accolades that has helped rocket its sales in the United States and helped to allow it to get beachheads in Europe and China.

According to the Car of the Year Committee, the finalists for the award include seven vehicles:

BMW i3, Citroen C4 Picasso, Mazda 3, Mercedes S-Class, Peugeot 308, Skoda Octavia and Tesla Model S.

Each must have sold at least 5,000 vehicles in 2013. The judges are 58 auto journalists from 22 countries. The Volkswagen Golf won the award last year.

The Tesla Model S has done particularly well in other competitions and in tests by organizations such as Consumer Reports. The car is not only the standard-bearer of electric energy power. The Model S also has been praised for its safety, comfort and acceleration. However, some of the praise has been undercut by two things. One is a few engine fires. The other is the lack of charging stations for the car’s engine, which may make it difficult to drive the Model S for any distance outside of large cities. Tesla has begun to build charging stations in reaction to the distance problem. And it awaits a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report on the safety of its engine.

Tesla’s success was confirmed by its fourth-quarter earnings. Tesla’s revenue reached $615 million, up from $306 million the year before. The company expects to sell 35,000 Model S vehicles this year, an increase of 55% from in 2013. The company also laid out its international plans:

The first Model S deliveries to China are scheduled for this spring. We plan to make substantial investments in China this year as we add new stores, service centers and a Supercharger network. Already, the Beijing store is our largest and most active retail location in the world

And:

In Germany and other European markets, we recently announced new, highly competitive leasing and financing options in collaboration with our growing team of global financial partners.

Finally:

Expansion into the right hand drive markets such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia will occur gradually over the year starting this spring.

A victory in the Car of the Year competition in Geneva would be one more piece of global publicity that will help a car company, already constrained to deliver vehicles due to manufacturing capacity, push demand even higher.