It seems that Tesla Motors Inc. has some big plans for the near future. The latest move that Tesla has made is a $465 million low-cost Energy Department loan. If you are wondering what they are going to do with this amount of money, well find out that Tesla’s new plan is to build a factory in southern California to produce its $50,000 Model S electric sedan and a power-train manufacturing facility in Palo Alto. The Palo Alto facility will assemble electric motors, related vehicle control equipment and battery packs for Tesla’s own electric cars, as for automobile manufacturers too.

“This is an investment in our clean energy future that will create jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it will help build a customer base and begin laying the foundation for American leadership in the growing electric vehicles industry. This is part of a sustained effort to develop and commercialize technologies that will be broadly deployed throughout the American auto industry.”, said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Model S from Tesla will use no gasoline, produce no emissions and will have up to a 300 mile range. The production of the Model is will begin in 2012 and by the end of 2013 they hope that they’ll produce 20,000 vehicles per year. The $50,000 price is after a $7,500 federal tax credit. The goog news is that the Model S project and power-train manufacturing facility will produce more than 1,600 jobs, according to Tesla.
According to Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, from the beggining of the plant construction, it would take 24-30 months to produce the first Model S. Another interesting announcment from the CEO is that the company had produced its 1,000th roadster, less than two years after its first in February 2008.

Another great news is that the Energy Department said will make additional loans over the next several months to large and small auto manufacturers and parts suppliers. This is not a hard thing to do for them, considering that in the past they’ve already approved loans to ford Motor Co., Fisker Automotive Inc. and Nissan Motor Co. “The intense technical and financial review process is focused not on choosing a single technology over others, but is aimed at promoting multiple approaches for achieving a fuel efficient economy,” the department said.

Tesla Model S