Palo Alta, California based Tesla Motors Inc. will schedule its initial public offering to start trading on June 29, 2010. The company hopes to raise as much as $178 million from its 11.1 million shares that should sell between $14 to $16 per share. The electric sports car maker has not posted a porfit since its inception in 2003.

The company was named after the scientist Nikola Tesla, and is believed to still be the only company selling electric cars that are highway-capable in volume. However, the $290.2 million that the company has lost since 2003 has left it vulnerable, and raised considerable questions about its road to profitably, considering that it will stop production of its most successful car, the Tesla Roadster in 2011, leaving a gap before it rolls out its more affordable Model S sedan in at approximately $50,000.

In its relatively short history, Tesla has managed to sell only 1,063 of its Roadsters, that are priced at $109,000 ($101,500 after federal tax credits). The sleep electric sports car can accelerate from naught to 60 mph in as little as four seconds, and are based off a model designed by British luxury car maker, Lotus. Tesla, meanwhile managed to win the approval of $465 million in low-interest loans from the Dept. of Energy last year under the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program to finance its upcoming Model S sedan.

New York based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are believed to be leading the sale. Tesla will also sell $50 million worth of shares to Toyota in a private placement (a deal announced in May). Other leading investors includes Elon Musk, founder of Paypal Inc., who has spend as much as $70 million of his own money on Tesla, Daimler AG of Stuttgart, Germany, who invested $50 million in 2009. Google Inc.’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin have also invested considerably in the company.

Keep an eye out for ‘TSLA‘ on the NASDAQ ticker.

via WSJ