Musk Takes Over as Tesla CEO; Electric Sedan Delayed til 2011

You’ll hear this officially soon, but Elon Musk, one of the founders of Tesla Motors, is taking over as CEO. Ze’ev Drori, the CEO who took over for Martin Eberhard last year, is becoming vice chairman.

Layoffs are also expected.

Musk will become the third CEO of the company. Tesla began shipping Roadsters earlier this year and is now trying to come out with a fully electric sedan toward the end of 2010. The sedan, called Model S, will come out at the same time as the Chevy Volt. The Volt uses a little gas – a gas generator inside the car charges the battery while driving – while the Model S will use none. The Model S, however, will cost around $60,000, or $20,000 or so more than the Volt. The difference in the price in part can be attributed to the cost of the larger batteries fully electric cars need and the mass manufacturing know-how that GM has.

UPDATE: Tesla has formally announced the changes. Along with swapping CEOs, it has also said that the Model S will be delayed until around mid-2011. Thus, Tesla will follow GM—yuck—barring further changes at GM. Musk is also the fourth CEO if you count interim head Michael Marks.

Musk has repeatedly said that he wants to spend less time at Tesla so that he can concentrate on Space-X, his rocketry company. So much for that. Musk had a somewhat acrimonious relationship with Eberhard toward the end, in part because of repeated delays to the release of the Roadster. Drori was able to stem many of the delays.