It looks like founder Elon Musk is taking over CEO duties from Ze’ev Drori, the CEO who just last year took over for Martin Eberhard. This will actually be the 4th CEO change Tesla Motors has had in a years time. Drori won’t be leaving the company though, he’ll be re-titled “vice chairman”. Layoffs are also expected.

Originally, the word was 100 or so staff members would be laid off, but the Tesla press people are saying that’s not totally accurate. No hard numbers yet, but I imagine it’ll be less than 100.

Musk was spending less time at Tesla so that he could concentrate more on his SpaceX program. With these recent Tesla troubles, it looks like he’s done with SpaceX for the time being.

Tesla started shipping out Roadsters earlier this year, and they’ve decided to focus on coming out with a fully electric sedan, called Model S, toward the end of 2010. The release date should coincide with the Chevy Volt. Where the Volt uses some gas to power a generator that charges the batteries, the Model S is 100% electric. The Model S, however, will cost about $20k more than the Volt.

It’s a high stress time for Tesla, no doubt. Hopefully for them, these internal squabbles won’t impact the eventual deadline of their new models.