The new CEO of Tesla Motors, Michael Marks, has sent out a letter to all customers on their waiting list confirming that Tesla’s engineers have recovered of most of the range that had been lost to weight increases and other engineering changes. The Roadster has now been validated on the EPA combined cycle with a range of 245 miles (252 city and 236 highway) per charge. They have also made structural improvements with one of the validation prototypes now having passed the side impact test that caused problems for an earlier version.

However, prospective buyers will have to wait longer for their cars. Tesla’s updated production schedule will see them only building a small number of production cars by the end of this year with the first fifty being delivered in the first quarter of 2008. Once production increases they plan to produce a further 600 cars by the end of the 2008 model year.

>> Further details and wallpaper images of the Tesla Roadster