http://teslafounders.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/stealth-bloodbath/#comment-317
I quickly read through this site a week ago, but the entries may have changed since then. It is created by one of the co-founders(not with the company now), and it seems there was a disagreement with the new CEO's about having a complicated/expensive 2-speed transmission or just using a single speed transmission with lower overall performance. There were probably other issues as well.
There was a managment shakeup of the company with many sudden layoffs of some of the original personel, and now it seems the final product release will (suprise) probably be delayed.
Let's hope it not more than a decade or so.
This car is a political milestone in the US being energy/politically independant, though some people would not like to see that happen.