The superb Tesla Model gets one step closer to production as the company releases pictures of the car in Alpha phase of development.

It’s amazing how a bunch of geeks from Silicon Valley could come up with such a nice design. It looks like the iPhone4 of the automotive world! Honestly, a car this good-looking should have an AMG V8, not some Toyota-developed laptop batteries.

One would imagine the reason it’s taking them so long to release the actual production model, is because they’re having some difficulties arriving at the claimed range of 300 miles or 480 km for it. That said, they’ve already clarified the 300 miles model is a top of the range, expensive model. Cheaper ones will have 230 and 160 miles. We think the last one is more realistic. Top Gear will be more than happy to test it for Tesla!

If I ever buy this car, I’d rip the batteries out and put a Merc’s 6.3 liter V8 in it. Oh yea!