Martin Eberhard provides further details Tesla Roadster design changes

Over on the Tesla corporate blog CEO Martin Eberhard has put up a post elaborating on some of the design changes to the Roadster that led to its weight gain in going from first prototypes to validation prototypes and on to production. In developing new cars most companies today do a lot of simulation before building prototypes. That goes a long way toward getting the basics down but there are a still a lot things only get found in real world testing.
As I wrote in this article a couple of months ago a lot time, effort and miles go into getting a car ready for production. The fact that we are hearing that Tesla has made design changes as a result of testing, is actually a testament to the work they have done. There was a time in the not so distant past when a certain Hethel, England-based manufacturer along with many other small makers would regularly ship cars to customers that fell apart in normal use due to a lack of testing. Even though this Roadster won't go as far as originally intended, the fact that we know now and can see the reasons why show that Tesla is serious about this business. It also bodes very well for WhiteStar. The lessons learned from this first effort will surely be applied to the sedan earlier in the program and should result in a better car.

[Source: Tesla Motors]