Having amply documented Musk's shortcomings, we must give him his due: It was no small feat to convince the federal government of Tesla's financial viability, given his firm's recent struggles with liquidity and shakedown of customers for more money. It also must have been tricky to sell the Model S itself, given that Tesla has been showing off a "barely ambulatory" prototype, in the words of the Los Angeles Times.

And yet there's Tesla, mentioned in the same breath as automotive giants like Ford and Nissan as recipients of federal largesse. DOE convened a press conference confirming anonymously-sourced reports that the three companies will share an $8.5 billion stimulus fund for fuel-efficient vehicles.

Daimler's recent 10 percent stake in the company no doubt helped. Now Musk just has to build a $100 million powertrain factory and deliver an affordable electric sedan in less than two and a half years — or hope his new investors are as flexible about such deadlines as the rich California environmentalists who have funded him until now.

So it's nice that Musk has such lofty goals. Frankly, it's always been his forte. He leaves the "how to get there" to other, more little people. Like with an idea to build 100,000 cars per year by buying an idled assembly plant from a U.S. automaker. He'll leave the whole "design a mid-size sedan for it to build" to other people. Musk's an "idea man," ya know. And for an "idea man" the reality of building 100,000 mid-size sedans is kind of like trying to build a "kabillion" mid-size sedans — they're both impossible numbers when you don't even have a working design.

He also thinks gas should cost $10 a gallon. Hmm, we wonder why. Keep in mind it's not that we disagree with Musk, we just happen to believe it's also probably the price-point in which a $100,000 Tesla roadster becomes a good investment versus a sports car with similar performance. [CNet, Twitter]

Current Tesla shareholders have 30 days to choose, through a process known as a rights offering, whether to fund the debt, which is convertible, at a later round of financing, to shares. Tesla thereby avoids setting a new, presumably lower valuation for the company — almost a certainty if it had issued new shares, given Tesla's straitened financial condition. But the reality remains: Having raised $146 million in venture capital and tens of millions of dollars more from customers putting down deposits on the $109,000 Roadster, Tesla is now sinking into debt. In January, it may obtain a $200 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy — meaning that it will be borrowing more cash. $9 million in the bank now, with $240 million in debt to come: Tesla will soon resemble, in miniature, the stumbling Detroit giants it hoped to overturn.