Tesla is planning to move from its current San Carlos, California headquarters to a $250 million San Jose, California facility, construction beginning in 2009. The reason? The Model S, an all-new 4-door 5-passenger zero-emissions luxury sedan powered by a lithium-ion battery pack. Unlike the Tesla Roadster, which is built in partnership with Lotus in the U.K. and based on a stretched Elise platform, the Model S will ride on a platform developed by Tesla.

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Tesla announced the production of the new Roadster today setting March 17th as the regular production date. The announcement was made by CEO Ze’ev Drori on his corporate blog. The Roadster will be built through 2008 and they are projected to produce 100 each month.

As reported by Autoblog:

Tesla’s president and CEO, Ze’ev Drori, made the announcement today on his corporate blog that production of the Roadster has officially begun. Tesla originally set a date of March 17th for “regular” production of the Roadster, and the folks in Hethel have met that obligation today. From here, Tesla intends to get started on its retail efforts, with both a Los Angeles location and a Menlo Park facility for sales and service for the 600 roadsters expected to be built over the course of 2008. Tesla is hoping that they’ll be able to produce around 100 Roadsters each month, up from its current level of one to five cars per week. All the models being produced this year have already been spoken for, so any orders that come in will be sold as 2009 models.

Gallery: First Drive: Tesla Roadster

[Source: Tesla]

Originally by Damon Lavrinc from Autoblog on March 17, 2008, 10:56am