Tesla Motors To Continue Building The Roadster After All

Tesla Motors announced via their newsletter on Friday that they plan on continuing production of their signature automobile into 2012:

“Responding to customer demand, Tesla has negotiated agreements with key suppliers that will increase total Roadster production by 40% and extend sales into 2012. In the coming year, you’ll find Roadsters in more countries as we expand to Australia and Asia. Customers in 23 countries have now taken delivery of their Roadster – last month we delivered the first Roadsters to Spain and Ireland.”

Initial reports from Wired’s Autopia had suggested that the company had suggested in SEC filings that it would stop building the roadster sometime next year ahead of a move to a revised version of the car in 2013. This may or may not have had something to do with Lotus’s planned revision to the Elise/Exige platform, as the Hethel, UK-based company provides the underpinnings (and more than a few styling cues) to Tesla’s current generation car.

The Roadster will remain Tesla’s only production car until the planned introduction of the Model S sedan at some point in 2012. If the company had been forced to halt production of the Roadster due to supplier issues, this would have left the fledgling company without a significant source of income for almost a full calendar year.