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"

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"