We took quite a few cars for test drives and we had a lot of fun doing that. However, sometimes test drives go wrong and there’s no fun in that. After some time ago we saw a Dutch journalist wrecking an Audi R8, this time we have a Tesla Roadster crashed by one of their own. Apparently, a Tesla sales director took a passenger for a demonstration in southern France last Wednesday, when he lost control of the car and crashed it. Beside the fact that the car was going around 100 mph (160km/h), the road was also wet and the visibility was poor. Though the car looks pretty banged up, both passengers survived: the driver suffered a broken hand an minor bruises, while the passenger was released from hospital after some investigations.

Photo Gallery: Tesla Roadster crash in France

Read More: "Tesla Roadster crashed in France"

In a recent interview for Business Week, Elon Musk, Tesla Motors’ CEO talked about how the current economic situation is affecting Tesla. After Musk got more involved in the company where he’s also an investor, the Tesla Roadster proved to be quite a success, with 1,200 back orders for the $100,000. However, the future’s not so bright. Musk’s dream of creating more affordable electric cars is currently going through some rough times. After some time ago he announced that the company’s planning on going public next year, after securing verbal commitments for $100 million in private capital and federal loan guarantees geared at jump-starting development of alternative vehicles. However, after the United States has been hit hard by the credit crunch, investors tried to impose tougher terms, and the negotiations are currently not going so great. Musk, who was the co-founder of PayPal and has a current net worth of more than $300 million, had to invest more from his own money to keep the company’s development plans alive.

Still, the $60,000 Model S sedan, which was scheduled to enter production in 2010, was postponed. And this could mean big trouble for Tesla, analysts say: “If the market wants [electric cars] in the number Tesla is talking about [..] a larger auto company will bury them on cost.” Many auto industry giants, including GM, Toyota, Nissan or Daimler currently have an electric car in development, and Tesla can’t keep up with them.

Read More: "Tesla Motors not doing so great"

Yesterday, San Jose authorities approved the lease of nearly 90 acres of city-owned land and Tesla Motors announced that they’re planning on building a $250 million facility in California, where they’ll assemble the upcoming Model S electric sedan. Tesla was planning on building the plant in New Mexico, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer worked out a tax break for the Silicon Valley company. Actually, Arnie is such a big fan of the project that he, along with several other celebrities, like George Clooney and Kelsey Grammer, allready placed their orders for the Roadster.

According to Tesla, the new facility will create around 1,000 jobs and will produce 1,500 Roadsters starting next year and 15,000 Model S, after the electric luxury sedan will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2010. Though the Model S will be priced at around $60,000, Tesla’s CEO Ze’ev Drori announced that they’re also planning on creating cheaper and more affordable electric cars, that could appeal to a larger audience. “It is our intention to service the entire market [..] We are not a niche player. We are going to work down the road on cars which will be substantially less expensive again.”

Read More: "Tesla chose California for its Model S electric sedan production"

Looks like Tesla Motors is becoming a pretty attractive destination for highly qualified personnel and a threat to the other carmakers. After yesterday we wrote about Franz von Holzhausen, which resigned from Mazda and was hired by Tesla, today we found out about Deepak Ahuja, which is Tesla’s new chief financial officer. Ahuja stepped away from Ford, where he was the controller for the company’s small cars product development program.

Tesla Motors CEO, Ze’ev Drori said: “Deepak’s experience as CFO of multibillion-dollar business units with global sourcing and manufacturing operations makes him the ideal person to lead our finance organization through the company’s next period of rapid growth [..] The addition of another seasoned auto industry executive to the senior management team at Tesla demonstrates that Tesla is focused on combining the best of what Detroit and Silicon Valley has to offer in building the next great American automobile company.”

Read More: "Tesla continues its hiring spree"

Last week, on July 31, Franz von Holzhausen resigned his position as Mazda’s head of design at Mazda North American Operations and is now in charge at Tesla Motors. Von Holzhausen, which has an impressive resume, has been with Mazda since 2005 and Holzhausen is responsible for Mazda’s series of great concepts, which include the Ryuga, Hakaze, Taiki and Furai. Before working for Mazda, he was the one that designed the Pontiac Solstice and the Saturn Sky for GM and he also had an instrumental involvement in the New Beetle concept project for VW.

At Tesla Motors, he will be in charge with two new projects, the Tesla Model S (a $60,000 electric sedan) and a new affordable electric car, priced below $30,000. The decision to hire von Holzhausen is a part of Tesla’s plan to move design in house (the Tesla Roadster was designed by Lotus). Franz told CarDesignNews that “It’s going to be an exciting adventure […] I’m looking forward to working at a new startup company that doesn’t have the confines of a large OEM.”

Read More: "Tesla Motors ’steals’ Mazda’s head of design"

In case you haven’t heard, the Tesla Roadster is the first electric sports car to enter production soon. Finally we can say good bye to all the ugly little cars and save the planet in a stylish and sporty way. But untill you can make your deposit for the car, you can see how it performs in the crash tests. Even though they were unplanned ! Looks like the first Tesla crash took place in San Francisco. Fortunatelly nobody got injured, but the poor car got squashed between a Mercedes and a Toyota Camry. That’s a shome, considering that only nine Tesla cars were manufactured so far. You can see for yourself in the photos what happened.

Would you buy one ?
Read More: "The first Tesla crash happend in San Francisco"

Yesterday, at the San Mateo Superior Court in California, Tesla Motors filed suit against Fisker Automotive. Henrik Fisker, the creator of the Fisker Karma, was hired last year by Tesla to design its upcoming electric sedan, called WhiteStar. According to Tesla, the reason Fisker accepted this job was “to gain access to confidential design information and trade secrets, then announced a competing vehicle”.

After the Tesla Roadster was successfully launched, the company announced that next year or in 2010 they’ll also introduce an all-electric passenger sedan, priced somewhere between $50,000 and $70,000. Apparently, after Tesla found out that Fisker is about to create a competitor for the WhiteStar, they’ve fired him, decided to dump his original design and started working on another one.

So far, no official reaction from Fisker, but stay tuned because we’ll keep you informed in this interesting case.

Read More: "Tesla Motors to sue Fisker"

We’ve got good news for Europe. Though Tesla was planning to bring the Tesla Roadster to Europe someday, we didn’t know exactly when that was going to happen. But today, InnovationBeat reaports that Darryl Siry, VP of marketing, sales and service at Tesla, announced that, because of the dollar losing ground to the Euro, they’ll bring the Roadster to Europe earlier than planned.

The reason for this action is that the Tesla Roadster’s components are sourced abroad and a lot of the construction is being done in Hethel, England. And with the dollar getting very weak compared to the Euro, selling the car to Europe as fast as possible will provide the company a better balance between income and cost currencies.

Still, considering that all the 900 models that’ll be produced this year are already taken, Europe will see its first Tesla Roadster next year. We don’t know yet what countries will get the car first, but InnovationBeat says that, because of the tax incentives offered on low-emission vechiles, Norway and Sweden are favorites.

Though production started last week, Tesla is currently building just one car per week and will keep it like this for a month or two. “We’re doing intensive quality control along the way,” Siry said “We’ll ramp it up to two a week, then five a week. That’s normal. You only ramp up one you’re satisfied everything is up to quality.”

Priced at $98,000, Tesla hopes to produce and sell about 1,800 units next year and they also plan on presenting a four-doors sedan in 2010.

Read More: "Tesla Roadster heading to Europe"

Who would’ve thought that, about two years ago, when the first Tesla Roadster prototype was unveiled, that this day will come? Because yesterday, March 17th, was the official day the Tesla Roadster production started. And that’s not all, because Tesla also announced that they have orders for all the cars that will be produced this year (about 900 units) and already started taking orders for 2009.

Tesla also wants to expand their range of electric vehicles and in 2010 they’ll present a new car, a five passenger sports sedan. Congratulations to Tesla and we wish them all the luck, because they really got a great car.

You can read the full press release after the jump, plus you can read here Mr. Ze’ev Drori’s (Tesla’s president and CEO) thoughts on this great moment in Tesla history.

Read More: "Tesla Roadster production starts"