Tesla seems well on it’s way to world luxury EV domination as its just announced plans to expand their retail stores to three new markets. All three will take place in the month of November, starting with an opening at the Bellevue Square center in Washington, followed by Oakbrook Center in Chicago and a Fashion Island store in Newport Beach, California.

Each of the outlets works in conjunction with service centers set up in the same locales. “Tesla is reinventing the way people buy cars, with stores designed to engage and inform prospective customers,” said Tesla CEO and Co-founder Elon Musk. “Located in high foot-traffic locations, Tesla stores are designed to introduce people to Tesla’s advanced electric car technology and show the benefits of driving electric. Tesla stores lay the groundwork for the distribution of Model S today and increasingly affordable electric vehicles tomorrow.”

Here we have the first Tesla video that shows a Model S and a Roadster driving side-by-side in sweet, silent unison. Both electric cars are a joy to look at and any new videos of the Model S in action are always appreciated.

Model S production is expected to begin in the middle of 2012 but electric vehicle fans are already hungry for 7-person seating EV sedan with its various models that have a range as high as 300 miles on a single charge and 120 mph top speed.

A video of the Tesla Model S Alpha has been released and we’ve got it embedded above for your enjoyment. The silver Model S looks slick handling the corners and the sound of nothing but the tires on the pavement is like music to an electric car enthusiast’s ears. Enjoy!

The Tesla Model S was first shown to the public in early 2009 and it has definitely wet the appetitie of many a green car aficionado since first seeing and hearing about it. While Tesla promised that an Alpha version of the Model S would be wheeling around in 2010, we hadn’t heard anything about it until now.

According to Autoblog Green, rumors are now circulating that the Model S Alpha is up and rolling around and just hasn’t been announced to the press yet.

It’s also reassuring to find out that some of the problems that often accompany developing cars, like the expected price increase for Fisker’s Karma from $80,000 to $95,900, The Model S is still expected to maintain its $57,000 price tag. Also of interest is the fact that the Model S battery pack will be fully swappable as a single unit.

Impressively, the Model S will also boast some impressive range options based on the battery package the buyer chooses. The ranges will include 160, 230 and 300 miles per charge. No word on the price difference for the various ranges but we will keep you updated as more info comes out.

Reuters has reported that Tesla Motors is on the verge of getting a new partner in the form of a big investment from Panasonic. The association of the two companies is nothing new as the Panasonic is already has a contract with Tesla as they will be the ones providing the lithium-ion batteries for the upcoming electric sedan, the Model S (pictured above).

While the Panasonic investment in Tesla hasn’t been officially announced, Reuters is reporting that the amount of capital being injected into Tesla Motors will be less than the $50 million that Toyota brought to it in May of this year.

As most people know, however, this early hit is entirely to be expected and doesn’t really factor into how one might expect Tesla to fair in the future. Any company with such intensive research and development and manufacturing processes is sure to take a while before turning a profit, especially one that just purchased a $42 million factory to produce its upcoming electric car the Model S. It’s likely that we’ll continue to see quarterly reports of loss for the next year or more.

Clearly investors aren’t phased by this report as the Tesla Motors (TSLA) stock prices hadn’t moved with this announcement and remain slightly below the opening price.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda recently let it slip that Toyota is currently creating an electric car that uses a Tesla battery pack. The interesting tidbit came out while he was answering inquiries regarding the Tesla and Toyota relationship.

While Toyota currently has a joint venture with Panasonic who is building their larger car batteries, Toyoda indicated that they are definitely interested in seeing what they can do with the Tesla 18650-format cells that are generally the type of battery found in laptops. By way of example, the Tesla Roadster battery pack uses 6,831 of these cells to power the electric sports car.

The likelihood of seeing Toyota cars using Tesla battery packs will all depend on how well they perform in these prototype tests which will look at the their ability to function past large scale accumulated mileage and extreme weather conditions.

It’s looking like investor interest in Tesla Motors might be stronger than originally expected as the number of shares to be made publicly available tomorrow was increased by 20% to 13.3 million.

Tesla maintains that it expects shares to sell for around $14 – $16 which could raise up to $200 million on its IPO. This will go along way to making sure that the Tesla Model S electric car (pictured above) sees the marketplace. The finalized Tesla stock prices should be announced tonight with the IPO hitting the ground Tuesday morning at 9:20AM EST.

The Tesla Motors stock will trade as TSLA on the NASDAQ. Will you be buying Tesla stock? Let us know in the comments section.

A previous report we brought you on how Tesla was teaming up with Toyota to build electric cars in California now needs to be slightly clarified. This recent update is based on a recent IPO statement from Tesla that states that although the two companies announced their intention to cooperate on Tesla Model S electric car development, they have not made any formal agreements to do so and may never at all.

While it still remains true that Tesla and Toyota will be sharing space at the NUMMI factory as well as some strategies, it definitely brings potential investors a dose of reality as Tesla prepares to be publically traded on the Nasdaq.

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger held a joint press conference today in which they announced that Toyota would be teaming up with Tesla to produce the Model S electric car in California.

Tesla Model S production will take place in the recently closed NUMMI factory in Fremont. Toyota, the previous owner of the factory, will invest $50 million for a private placement of Tesla common stock and will a production system and possibly some of Toyota’s suppliers.

Schwarzenegger, for his part, offered a sales tax abatement to Tesla for all capital equipment expenditures in retooling the factory. Tesla estimates put the value of the abatement at approximately $20 million over the course of three years or so.

Tesla stated that the Model S production will likely see the return of about 1,000 of the former Toyota factory employees as they look to produce about 20,000 Model S electric cars per year. Tesla also hinted at the possibility of increasing production to a point of requiring  10,000 workers.