Love 2 rent Teslas if ever possible or made some for the Rental market alone.

Is there any hope of an expansion to Europe?

Interesting that no charging stations Near or in Detroit.
That's hilarious.
But it is also interesting that Elon has hired a very talented designer, I forgot his name for the moment, but he is extremely good.
I witnessed his extreme excitement and enthusiasm over meeting Bob Lutz at the NAIAS.
Bob almost pulled it off but for the idiocy of Ed Whittacre.
The original Converj was a tad better being designed at the Vauxhall studios in England. But now it has been Hamaricanized sad to say.

So why are there no actual figures on numbers of cars sold or numbers of EV expected to be rolling off the production line? Are we talking 10 cars or 10000 cars or 100000 cars?

FREE charging??? Forever??? That's pretty impressive! I wonder how that fits into the business model. This project must have some very high level backers.

Richard Chesher - Tesla is planning on making 20,000 to 25,000 Model S's in 2013.

I am wondering about the amount of surface area needed for the solar panels. If these stations are getting real busy, it will need a lot of power!

re: warren52nz - The Free Super-Charging for the life of the car is not actually a huge loss leader for Tesla Motors. The free supercharging is only available to those buyers who chose a $2K upgrade for the internal charging hardware (let's assume there is some significant profit margin (~50%) in that upgrade)
Consider the following scenario: $0.12 / kWhr (current average retail rates in the US), 120kW charger (assume no losses) 400 miles per hour of charging on the SC network, 10,000 miles (average US leased car allowance) driven per year of which 25% - 35% are driven after SC network charging (most drivers will likely plug in at home overnight and take advantage of off-peak rates) and 10 years max life of car ownership (I don't know if used cars will be afforded the same free charging terms)
Total charging hours required: 250 hours to drive 100,000 miles Total charging on SC network: 75 hours (assume 30% of total) Total cost at retail rates: $1,080 USD (not adjusted for inflation)
Obviously the result is rather sensitive to the assumptions but even if 100% of driving was based on SC network charging, the total cost would be on the order of $3,600 less the profit on the original $2K package that gives you the free access to the SC network. In reality, I believe Elon Musk is rather intelligent and savy and I believe he is surrounded by other mental rock stars so I am willing to bet that he has done the math and considers the "free" SC network charging is a good investment.

what I want to know is, when will the self driving version be available that I book online to collect me from home and take me to my destination then go off to recharge itself. Gone are the days of Taxi drivers!

Great news!