Tesla has announced the company will be slowing down production plans for the Tesla Model S sedan project until the government forks over some dough. This is just part of the news coming out of Tesla Motors, which also announced that they've demoted their CEO (and replaced him with main benefactor Elon Musk) and will be making serious cutbacks to their staff. In a blog post Musk said:
Tesla is absolutely committed to development of our next generation vehicle, to be unveiled early next year. However, we are going to reduce activity on detailed production engineering, tooling and commitments to suppliers until our Department of Energy loan guarantee becomes effective.
Our translation below the jump. If they cut back on production engineering, tooling and commitments to suppliers, they are essentially saying they'll show off their prototype but will make no more production plans until they get a federal loan guarantee for their plant in San Jose. This, like everything, is being blamed on the Financiapocalypse. This actually follows up on some news we heard way back in January that the Whitestar/Model S was toast, despite having seen the Model S mule. Look for a prototype soon and, depending on the market, a production car at some point in the future... maybe. For more on the Valley implications of this check out Valleywag's coverage [Souce: Tesla Motors]