Electric automaker Tesla Motors just announced that it has paid back the nearly half a billion dollars the Department of Energy lent it in 2010. According to a company press release, today’s wire transfer of $451.8 million dollars follows two other payments in the last year and a half. U.S. taxpayers could see a $12 million profit, in addition to a thriving company employing thousands.

The loan was offered in 2009 through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program, which began during the Bush Administration in 2007 and was funded in 2008. The program has resulted in $34.4 billion in loans and the creation of roughly 60,000 jobs.

This announcement, hinted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday via Twitter, follows the company’s first profitable quarter and Consumer Reports rating the Model S a 99 out of a possible 100. Tesla also outsold similarly-priced gas-powered cars created by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.

Tesla’s history has not always been as bright as its future looks now. In 2010, Musk said his investments in Tesla had essentially dried out his personal fortune, stating in a court filing that he “ran out of cash.”

Musk also said that “Tesla will do well as long as we make good products…. To say a car company is the best way to get a return on your investment is absurd, though Tesla will do well for its shareholders.”

Apart from achieving profitability, the full repayment of Tesla’s loan was made possible by “a portion of the approximately $1 billion in funds raised in last week’s concurrent offerings of common stock and convertible senior notes.”

Musk, Tesla’s initial primary investor and CEO, thanked the Energy Department, Congress, and the American taxpayer, saying “I hope we did you proud.”

Credit: AutomobileMag.com

Tesla Motors Company is coming off a very good week. On Wednesday, the company reported that it had sold more electric vehicles than any other automaker during the first quarter of the year, and turned a profit for the first time in its 10 year history.

On Thursday, Consumer Reports — the famously austere purveyors of customer satisfaction surveys and product testing for all manner of consumer goods — announced that Tesla’s Model S roadster outperformed every other commercially-available vehicle in their annual battery of stress tests, scoring a 99 out of a possible 100:

The Tesla Model S outscores every other car in our test Ratings. It does so even though it’s an electric car. In fact, it does so because it is electric.

Built from the ground up as an EV, this car’s overall balance benefits from mounting the battery under the floor and in the lowest part of the body. That gives the car a rock-bottom center of gravity that enables excellent handling, a comfortable ride, and lots of room inside.

The reviewers didn’t stop there. So thorough was the performance of Tesla’s flagship car, the magazine went on to describe the Model S as one of the best cars they’ve ever tested in its nearly 80 year history: “So is the Tesla Model S the best car ever? We wrestled with that question long and hard. It comes close.”

Tesla’s score of 99 is the highest for any hybrid or electric vehicle, and tied for the highest rating awarded to any car in the history of the magazine. The market for 100 percent electric cars has lagged behind the rest of the industry, hindered in part from the perception that the cars weren’t reliable or practical for everyday use. But coupled with the quickening expansion of high-speed charging stations in the most highly trafficked parts of the country, the endorsement from Consumer Reports could further expedite Tesla’s growth.

Lest critics think that fancy sports cars always sell well, it turns out that Tesla outsold the similarly-priced cars that drink gasoline created by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.

Sales of the company’s luxury sedans have steadily grown in recent months and the company is now on track to sell an estimated 21,000 cars by year’s end. Tesla believes that one way the company will sell more cars is to be able to sell them directly — not through a dealership. It is asking states that currently bar manufacturers from doing this to change their laws so that Tesla could sell cars to, say, Texans in Texas. A recent bill passed by a North Carolina Senate committee would ban the direct sale of automobiles, which would be a huge step backward for the company, which has sold 80 cars in the state.

Tesla’s recent growth and profit are nice, but the company needs to grow a lot more if it plans to displace more of the gas-guzzling vehicles currently on the road. Two things will help:

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After a difficult first year in 2011, during which Chevrolet sold a mere 7,671 Volts, sales of the vehicle shot up to a respectable 23,461 car sales for 2012 — driven largely by consumer demand reacting to high gas prices. According to the Washington Post (hat tip to Treehugger) that surge looks likely to continue: General Motors will be upping 2013′s production to 36,000 units.

Able to run on electrical or gasoline power, the Volt — along with other hybrids, electric vehicles, and fuel-efficient cars — has helped boost job growth in the automotive sector in the face of a sluggish economy. This happened despite a storm of right-wing contempt for fuel-efficient automobile technology over the last few years, which focused largely on the Volt as a symbol of President Obama’s (largely successful) attempts to give the American automotive industry a chance to retool itself and get back on its feet.

Since then, overall hybrid sales increased 50 percent in 2012 from the previous model year, sales of plug-in electric vehicles tripled, and GM itself captured 7 percent of the hybrid market — up 2 percent from the year before. And now the company is looking to bulk up its Volt production by 20 percent:

General Motors Co. is planning to build as many as 36,000 Chevrolet Volts and other plug-in hybrids for worldwide delivery this year, 20 percent more than in 2012, two people familiar with the effort said.

GM is planning to build 1,500 to 3,000 of the fuel- efficient vehicles a month, said the people, who didn’t want to be identified because the target isn’t public. GM sold about 30,000 Volt and similar Opel Ampera cars globally in 2012, said Jim Cain, a company spokesman, who declined to give a target for this year.

Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson has struggled to compete against more successful alternative-power vehicles such as Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius. The CEO originally touted the Volt’s gasoline-and-electric system as the technology of the future and forecast global Volt sales of 60,000 in 2012, before settling for half that amount.

The 36,000 target is “probably a doable number,” Jim Hall, principal of consultancy 2953 Analytics, said. “It will have a full calendar year in Europe” and GM will probably sell more this year now that the Volt is eligible for the car-pool lane in California, he said.

Admittedly, these numbers remain behind GM’s previous hoped-for targets. It still lags Toyota, which boosted its hybrid sales 70 percent in 2012 over the previous model year, dominating the market with 892,519 sales of its various Prius hybrid models worldwide. The Prius starts at $24,200 — and a subcompact Prius model sells for $19,080 — which undercuts GM’s $39,145 four-seat Volt.

So good news for electric and hybrid cars as a whole, and thus for fuel efficiency and the environment. But less so for the Volt itself.

Still, the Chevy Volt has several factors going in its favor. It was selected as 2011′s North American Car of the Year — with 92 percent of those surveyed telling Consumer Reports they would buy open again. Meanwhile, fuel standards are set to require 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, technological moves on the horizon promise to make the car’s lithium ion battery technology lighter and more efficient, and there’s every reason to think high gas prices are here to stay.

According to the New York Times, a new deal between automakers Honda and Acura and solar developer SolarCity may give a big boost to the already-rapidly burgeoning solar leasing market.

Solar leases, or solar power purchase agreements, are one of the new innovative tools for encouraging solar deployment. Basically, instead of purchasing a solar array outright, the customer plays host to a developer’s solar system in exchange for an agreement to pay a pre-determined fee structure for the electricity over a set period of time. That allows the developer to acquire a new income stream, and most likely the benefits of renewable energy tax credits.

Meanwhile, the customer gets the electricity for a price that’s often slightly below the going market rate. Perhaps more importantly, they avoid many of the problems that have bedeviled solar installations, such as the up-front installment costs, the permitting process, and the performance risk. As a firm with assets, the developer is generally in a far better position to tackle those hurdles than individual solar customers.

As the Times reports, Honda and Acura will offer their customers home solar systems at little-to-no upfront cost via the partnership with SolarCity, the largest player currently in the solar leasing market. (Honda and Acura will also offer their dealers preferential terms to lease or buy SolarCity’s systems on a case-by-case basis.) So SolarCity gets new capital and a massive new customer base, Honda and Accura get a cut of the returns, and customers get an added promotional deal to lease their homes to SolarCity’s systems and purchase its electricity:

The deal, in which Honda will provide financing for $65 million worth of installations, will help the automaker promote its environmental aims and earn a modest return, executives said. It could also open the door for more corporate investment in solar leasing companies, which has largely been limited to a small cluster of banks to provide capital for their projects….

The program will give Honda and Acura customers an extra $400 discount on top of SolarCity’s normal promotions, which they can use to sweeten the terms of the solar contract, like eliminating the escalation of the monthly payment. Honda projects the fund can finance as many as 3,000 systems on homes and 20 for its dealers. If the program catches on, Honda plans to expand it.

The growth of solar leasing has been one of the biggest recent drivers of the United States’ solar market — even more so than increases in cell efficiency — putting new arrays on government buildings, public and private schools, and private businesses and homes.

A new report from GTM Research found that solar leases are now available in 14 states — comprising over 50 percent of the new residential solar capacity in California, Arizona, Colorado, and Massachusetts, and rapidly gaining market share in the ten others. GTM Research anticipates the solar leasing market will rise from $1.35 billion in 2012 to $5.7 billion in 2016.

“I don’t think that by finding Honda buyers you’ve homed in on the perfect solar customer,” Shayle Kann, vice president at GTM, told the Times. But since car owners are more likely to have the income and credit history to qualify for solar leasing, “there’s enough overlapping between the demographics that you’re better off than the general population.” The initial program will be available in 14 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, and the District of Columbia.

Apparently, Honda originally proposed the partnership with SolarCity in order to supply solar installations for its hybrid and electric vehicle customers. But when encouraging solar deployment seemed to promise more overall carbon emissions cuts than simply selling electric vehicles, they expanded the program to all customers — including those who’ve just clicked through its web sites as opposed to actually buying a car. Honda and Acura are hopeful the project eventually helps integrate solar power with electric vehicle recharging.

General Motors had a record-breaking year for fuel-efficient autos in 2012.

The company became the first American auto manufacturer to sell more than one million vehicles with a 30-mpg fuel rating. And due to a surge in demand from Califorina, GM tripled sales of its electric model, the Chevy Volt.

Motor Trend reported on the year end sales figures:

Chevrolet posted the biggest sales gains of any GM brand last year, with total volume up 4.3 percent year-over-year. Several models made enormous leaps in sales volume: the Sonic compact, for instance, finished December up just 4.3 percent, but a strong year helped push the car to a 415-percent overall gain compared to its first year on sale. The Chevrolet Volt, too, saw sales leap 206 percent from just 7671 units in its difficult first year on the market to a respectable 23,461 cars in 2012. Despite a significant drop to just 1293 sales last month, the Colorado small pickup posted an 18.7 percent annual sales gain. And the Equinox crossover enjoyed a 7.5-percent boost to 19,551 December sales and ended the year up 13.1 percent.

The surge in demand for the Volt capped a tumultuous 2012 for electric vehicles. In 2011, manufacturers fell well short of their sales targets. And as criticisms mounted last year, it seemed like automakers had to spend more time defending electric vehicles than actually making them.

As one of the most prominent automakers getting into the electric vehicle market, GM took a lot of heat from conservative politicians, bloggers, and Fox News pundits about its Chevy Volt. The car was called “crappy” and labeled an “exploding Obamamobile” by commentators looking for an opportunity to attack President Obama’s investments in clean technologies.

Tired of the barrage of attacks, former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz — a Republican who once called climate change “a crock of shit” — lashed out at his fellow conservatives for spreading fear and cracking jokes about the car: “This is an unfortunate, knee-jerk reaction…Folks, it’s pure fiction. Please get it out of your heads,” Lutz said.

Although GM is still below its sales targets for the Volt, the company is promoting its latest sales figures as proof that more Americans want fuel efficient and electric cars.

The average price of gasoline in the U.S. last year was the highest ever recorded, boosting consumer interest in fuel-sipping automobiles. With more fuel-efficient models available from automakers, sales increased substantially — up 13 percent over 2011 sales.

“The U.S. light vehicle sales market continues to be a bright spot in the tremulous global environment,” said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of LMC Automotive, an industry analysis firm, to the Associated Press.

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration finalized new standards that will increase the average fuel efficiency of America’s cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The Natural Resources Defense Council says those fuel standards could save consumers $68 billion in fuel costs each year after 2030, when the mileage targets have been met.

by Erin Auel and Matt Kasper

The Tesla Model S, the company’s first full-size sedan, won the 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year on November 12, garnering a unanimous vote from the panel of judges. This is the first electric car in the 64-year history of the auto industry’s most coveted award.

“We’re going to look back and see this as a point at which the gears of history really turned,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

It’s important not to read too much into this specific award. While electric vehicle demand continues to grow, the market has been choppy and companies still need to make important cost reductions in order to dramatically expand sales. But it does illustrate the outstanding performance and design of electric vehicles hitting the market — many of which are built in the U.S.

And as consumers get more comfortable with electric vehicles, hybrids, and smaller cars generally, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that sales of cleaner, “greener” cars are increasing due to shifting demands.

With high gas prices at the pump, fuel efficient vehicles and have remained resilient. In addition, the average fuel economy of new passenger vehicles for model year 2012 reached its highest average of 23.6 miles per gallon this year. This led the NRDC and Baum & Associates to declare that the 2012 model year was “The Year of the Green Car.” Here’s why, according their analysis:

• Model year 2012 fuel efficiency for new vehicles hit an all-time high. The sales-weighted average fuel economy of new passenger vehicles for model year 2012 was 23.6 MPG, up more than 1 MPG from the previous record high of 22.5 MPG set in 2011.  This was the single biggest one-year increase in MPG in the past five years. Calendar year-to-date 2012 fuel efficiency is even higher:  an average of 23.8 MPG through September.  (Fuel economy data is derived from the research of Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle (University of Michigan) at http://www.umich.edu/%7Eumtriswt/EDI_sales-weighted-mpg.html.)
• Higher average fuel efficiency for model year 2012 is a good thing for the American auto industry, rather than a reflection of falling sales. Auto sales for the 2012 model year reached 14.1 million units, an increase of more than 10 percent (1.7 million) from the previous model year.  In the recent past, major increases in fleet fuel efficiency were generally marked by rapid decreases in vehicle sales.  For example, the three-year period from 1980 to 1982 saw increases of 3.3, 1.3 and 0.6 MPG respectively, but vehicle sales declined by 2.5 million, 750,000, and 820,000, respectively.  Similarly, over the two-year period from 2007 to 2009, fleet fuel efficiency jumped 1.8 MPG, but annual vehicle sales dropped by over 5.7 million.  The uncoupling of rising average MPG and falling auto sales in model year 2012 was due in large part to much wider availability of vehicles with higher fuel economy.
• The number of high-MPG vehicles available to consumers is rising rapidly. Popular vehicle nameplates with improved efficiency more than doubled from model year 2009 (28) to model year 2013 (61).   Fewer than a third (17) of the model year 2013 vehicles with higher MPG are compacts or subcompacts, contrary to the assumption made by many that the only high MPG cars are “small cars.”
• Hybrids and plug-in electric car sales are on track to top half a million units for the first time in a calendar year (2012) and a model year (2013). This strong performance directly debunks the linked (and equally mistaken) notions that (1) consumers don’t want higher MPG vehicles and (2) there is no demand for the high-end technology that powers the highest MPG-vehicles.

After decades of manufacturing and employment in decline, the U.S. is seeing significant job growth anchored by a revival in advanced clean vehicle innovation and manufacturing. A wide range of businesses, from large auto-supply companies to small start-ups, are meeting increasing demands for fuel efficient technologies and electric vehicle components. The final fuel-economy and carbon-pollution standards for 2017 to 2025 will also continue to spur innovation, production, and job creation in the auto industry.

But for many consumers, the $7,500 federal tax credit incentivizes the purchase of electric vehicles. The Congressional Budget Office reported in September that the tax credits for electric vehicles aim to make the initial purchase less burdensome for consumers and therefore make these cars more competitive.

Ensuring that the U.S. is a global leader in electric and fuel-efficient vehicles will result in job-growth, consumer savings, and greater competitiveness in the world market. The auto success story demonstrates that the American industry can achieve dramatic cuts in oil demand and carbon pollution; however federal lawmakers must get behind this vision and find additional ways to support the transition to a cleaner economy.

Erin Auel is an intern on the Energy Team and Matt Kasper is a Special Assistant for the Energy Team at the Center for American Progress