[smakz]

I would say no. The strongest analogy between Tesla and a recent IPO I see is Clearwire - similar circumstances, large capital intensive business with some hype behind the technology but no real revenues to back it up.

Getting into an IPO on day one is usually not a good idea unless the company has reliable revenue and there is a reason to expect 20-30+% growth near term (Google, First Solar,etc). Many ipos will look like Clearwire (and for example, American Apparel, Isilon, and to some extent Rackspace etc.), a IPO price which stays steady then a significant drop.

Tesla won't have a reliable revenue increase until 2012 as far as I can tell, which is a long time of stagnation which the market will not take kindly too, IMO.

[rjett]

I'm not familiar with Clearwire, but perhaps another useful analogy would be the stock of Vonage, which IPO'd in 2007 at $13ish I believe. Vonage wasn't profitable up until last year and their stock is at $2.47 as of today's close.