After Audi, it’s Chrysler’s to turn its guns on Tesla, only this time, it’s not about a sales report from a news agency, but it regards a press statement made by the maker of the battery-powered Model S.
On Wednesday, Tesla announced that it paid off in full a $465 million loan that the Energy Department made in 2010, nine years earlier than scheduled. In the statement, the California-based company also added, “Following this payment, Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.”
The Chrysler Group took issue with the last statement, and rightfully so, as it repaid the loans it received from both the U.S. and the Canadian governments in full in 2011 – something we also forgot to mention in our report.
In a blog entry on the company’s official website, Gualberto Ranieri, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications at the Chrysler Group, wrote:
“On May 22, 2013, Tesla, a California-based EV manufacturer, said it has repaid a DoE loan adding: ‘Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.’
The information is unmistakably incorrect. It’s pretty well-known that almost exactly two years ago – May 24, 2011 – Chrysler Group LLC repaid (in full and with interest) U.S. and Canadian government loans more than six years ahead of schedule.
Question: short memory or short-circuit?”
Ouch…
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