Success of Tesla Motors paves the way for more clean energy investment

Tesla Motors is planning to triple the size of its charging station network. Creative Commons: Ming yen Hsu, 2011

Tesla Motors is making headlines again and again, proving the success and popularity of clean energy technology and defying conservative attacks that the clean energy sector isn’t worth government investments.

The stock value of the company broke $100 on Tuesday, shortly after the company also announced that it had turned a profit during the first quarter of 2013. A recipient of the U.S. Department of Energy’s federal loan program, it has paid back its loan nine years ahead of schedule – with interest that will be returned the American people.

Thursday, Tesla also announced that it is quickly and dramatically expanding the size of its free, cutting-edge EV charging station network, which gives Tesla drivers 150 miles of charge in only 30 minutes. Many of the charging stations will have onsite solar energy, making the charging stations both clean and autonomous from the grid.

While there are efforts to undermine Tesla’s success – including a bill in North Carolina to ban the sale of its vehicles – the company is surprising nay-sayers of clean technology and setting high anticipation for the release of a more affordable model for the general public, currently set for 2017.

Federal efforts in the U.S. to support clean energy innovation, such as electric vehicle technology, have been subject to high profile political attacks. During the 2012 presidential debates, Republican candidate Governor Mitt Romney said that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) clean energy federal loan program was bad policy, funding economic “losers.”

The DOE program, however, is successfully fueling the transition to a clean energy economy by making renewable energy projects financially sustainable and praised by the private sector.

Since its inception, the loan guarantee program has activated more than $20 billion in private capital, supporting the creation of over 60,000 jobs with just $2.5 billion of government investment.

In this program, the government provides support for renewable energy projects by guaranteeing that it will pay back a loan if the company is unable to do so.  This provides the assurance needed to attract private investors to the projects that would otherwise be stalled until more market certainty was created.   Solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, biofuel, energy efficiency, and new vehicle technology projects are all eligible for and benefit from these loans.