The plan at Tesla Motors has always been to go beyond its first vehicle, the $100,000 electric Roadster, to make more-affordable electric cars--a plan that had come to depend on the startup receiving a hefty loan from the government. Today, the Department of Energy announced that it has approved that loan--in the amount of $465 million. The money could allow Tesla to bring its Model S electric sedan to market, as planned, by 2011.

The company said in a statement that $100 million will be used to construct a manufacturing facility for the company's electric power train (the battery, motor, and controls), which it plans to sell to other automakers. The rest will be used to engineer and build the Model S.

The base version of the Model S will sell for about $50,000. Tesla will offer three versions of the car with different ranges: 160, 230, or 300 miles. Even the smallest battery pack will give the vehicle more range than several planned electric cars from other manufacturers. Electric vehicles from Ford, Nissan, and Coda automotive, due out in the next couple of years, will have a range of about 100 miles.

Tesla has delivered about 500 of its Roadsters so far, and the company predicts that its Roadster division will be profitable this year.

The DOE loans are part of the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which was first signed into law in 2007 and appropriated last September. The DOE also announced today that it had approved a $5.9 billion loan for Ford, for developing advanced vehicles and retooling factories to make cars that use less gas. The DOE also approved a $1.6 billion loan for Nissan North America, which will be used to modify a factory in Smyrna, TN, to make electric vehicles and battery packs. Nissan plans to start selling an electric car in the United States next year, which will be made in Japan until the Smyrna plant is ready in 2012.

Tesla Motors, which makes the Roadster electric sports car, would like to start producing a new, less expensive electric vehicle called the Model S, which it unveiled in March. But it's having trouble footing the bill for a new manufacturing facility.

Now, as Tesla waits for a possible U.S. government loan, help has arrived from another quarter. The German automaker Daimler just bought 10 percent of the company, establishing a partnership that Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, in a press release, "will accelerate bringing our Tesla Model S to production."

Tesla and Daimler have been working on an electric version of the Smart Fortwo minicar for a few years now. Prototypes have been tested in London since 2007, and production of up to 1,000 of the cars will start later this year. Tesla hopes to start selling the Model S by late 2011. Already 1,000 people have signed up to buy it.

Credit: Tesla Motors

Yesterday, Tesla Motors, based in San Marcos, CA, unveiled its Model S sedan, a car that the company has been promising for years. The biggest change compared to the company's Roadster sports car, other than the appearance and price (the base price is half that of the Roadster), is the location of the battery. In the Roadster, it's difficult to reach, packed in tightly behind the driver. The Model S battery is mounted to the floor of the car so that it can easily be dropped out of the car and swapped for another battery. It sounds as though Tesla is preparing itself for the Better Place model, where a network of battery-swap stations makes possible long-distance travel between cities without the need to stop for hours to recharge. (Tesla claims a 45-minute recharge for the Model S, but that's not with a standard 120-volt outlet.)

The Model S will cost about $57,400, but then you can get a $7,500 tax credit from the government to offset some of that. But that's just the base price. Tesla will be offering three different battery-pack sizes. They'll have a range per charge of 160, 230, or 300 miles. The battery pack is probably the most expensive part of the car, so the 300-mile pack could make the car many thousands of dollars more expensive than the base price.

Offering three pack sizes could prove an interesting experiment. Some auto experts have said that people won't buy electric vehicles on a large scale because their range is less than that of gas-powered cars, which typically have a range per tank of over 300 miles. If Tesla has success with its 160-mile pack, it would help prove these experts wrong.

I saw the Model S electric motor on a visit to Tesla headquarters: it's larger and designed to deliver more power than the Roadster motor. But the bigger, heavier car won't accelerate quite as fast: it will take almost 6 seconds to reach 60 miles per hour, compared to the 3.9 seconds in the sports car. A sporty version of the Model S will accelerate to 60 miles per hour in about 5 seconds. (View a video of me testing the Tesla Roadster.)

It will also be networked: "A 17-inch touchscreen with in-car 3G connectivity allows passengers to listen to Pandora Radio or consult Google Maps, or check their state of charge remotely from their iPhone or laptop." I wonder how many more miles of range you can get by turning that big screen off.

The actual production of the Model S depends on Tesla getting a $350 million loan from the government.