Ben, you've got to read articles more carefully. The "picture illustration" is attributed to "Larson", a regular contributor to R&T of "educated guesses" of future car design. The article is just about Tesla building the Model S. Lots of chatter over at
Tesla Motors Club Forum - Powered by vBulletin with supposed denials by Tesla employees that the pic is from them.
It seems to me like the venture capitalists involved in the shutdown of the Detroit office forced Tesla's hand to do something to stop the bad press.
The Model S is supposed to hit the street in 2010 from a facility that they haven't even broken ground on yet. They are going to build that car from scratch, not on a Lotus rolling chassis. Good luck to them.
When was the last SUCCESSFUL car company startup without a major manufacturuer supporting them?