Tesla Motors, RIP?

I occasionally see Teslas whizzing about my neighborhood, and even more rarely, stalled (crashed?) and holding up traffic, but I'm not sure if their current difficulties can be tied to the credit crunch.

A blog post by Musk on Wednesday blamed the credit crunch for the decision.

"These are extraordinary times,'' Musk wrote. "The global financial system has gone through the worst crisis since the Great Depression, and the effects are only beginning to wind their way through every facet of the economy. It's not an understatement to say that nearly every business will be impacted by what has unfolded in the past weeks, and this is true for Silicon Valley as well.''

Certainly Detroit's problems began long before this current crises -- they've been spending too much to produce bad cars for decades now -- but Teslas are primarily a toy for the very rich and I don't think equity fueled Silicon Valley has been impacted much by debt deflation. It is possible that the cars just aren't working, and investors are saying that Tesla either needs to get its act together, or they're going to pull the plug.