Tesla calls new investment 'endorsement'

San Carlos, Calif.-based electric car maker Tesla Motors said today it has raised an unplanned $82.5 million private equity investment, led by new investor London-based Fjord Capital Partners and including Daimler, Aabar Investments and other undisclosed backers.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made the announcement this morning at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad told the Cleantech Group today from Germany that Fjord’s investment marks a tremendous endorsement for Tesla, which turned a profit for the first time in July and announced plans to move its corporate headquarters and power-train manufacturing to the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, Calif. (see Tesla Motors sidesteps former CEO's lawsuit).

“We were not actively soliciting another round, but several prospective investors approached Tesla very interested in gaining an equity stake in the company,” Konrad said. “They came to us, so to speak.”

Fjord is under the leadership of founders Michael Obermayer, a former senior partner and director of McKinsey & Co., Arild Nerdrum and Xavier de La Rochefoucauld.

Fjord is a specialized European private equity manager that invests in the clean energy sector on a global level, including investments in Norway’s Carbon Limits, which helps clients to monetize carbon benefits, and Portugal wind developer Iberwind, which acquired assets from Babcock & Brown last year.

Fjord invests growth capital in renewable and low-carbon companies and projects, targeting developers and developments, including restructuring opportunities, Konrad said.

She said Daimler and Aabar jointly invested in Tesla's Series F round in order to maintain their current joint ownership stake of roughly 10 percent of the company. Other investors did not want to be disclosed (see Daimler takes 10-percent stake in Tesla Motors).

Daimler invested $50 million in the electric car maker earlier this year, and then sold $2.7 billion of newly offered shares to Aabar Investments, the fund of the Abu Dhabi government. The sale made Aabar Daimler’s largest shareholder.

Then in July, Aabar bought 40 percent of Daimler's holding in Tesla in order to further develop alternative energy vehicles (see Early-stage tech dominates week's cleantech deals and Abu Dhabi fund takes 4 percent of Tesla Motors).

Tesla also delivered the keys of its 700th vehicle today, an electric blue Roadster Sport, to German law student Lennart Hennig. The announcement comes a week after the company opened its first regional sales and service center in continental Europe, in Munich.

Today, Musk and Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen also unveiled a production version of the company’s second-generation Roadster and the even higher-performance Roadster Sport supercar, while the company's Model S made its European debut. Musk is scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Cleantech Group's 26th forum, taking place in San Francisco in February (see details of the forum here).

Konrad said Tesla plans to use today’s funding primarily to accelerate its retail strategy on a global level, as the company gets closer to producing its Model S sedan (see Tesla electric-sedan photos leaked). Tesla has said it plans to begin producing the seven-passenger vehicle in late 2011.

The company has already opened stores in California, New York, Seattle, London and now Munich. Later this year, she said the company expects to open stores in Chicago, Florida, Washington, D.C., Toronto and Monaco.

In June, Tesla received a $465 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to help finance a manufacturing facility for its Model S sedan and to build a facility to manufacture battery packs and electric drive trains for its vehicles and those of other automakers (see Who is next for $17B in DOE auto loans?).

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