Tesla Motors announced on Monday that it has built the first of its second-generation prototypes, and taken the electric sports car for its first test drive. That’s good news for the well-heeled drivers who have plunked down the $75,000 reservation fee for their 2008 model, although they’ll still have to cool their heels for months to satisfy their hankering for the hot, speedy electric car that goes 0 to 60 mph in four seconds.

While the company already sold it first two batches of cars, those 200 were first-generation engineering prototypes that were essentially hand-built. The second-generation cars, the so-called validation prototypes, look “pretty identical” to those, but actually have been newly engineered with an eye toward mass production, according to the blog of Malcolm Powell, Tesla's vice president of vehicle integration.

Tesla has changed nearly every part to ensure consistent quality in mass production and to make the car quieter and smoother, adding things like regenerative braking, better handling, and traction control, Mr. Powell writes.

The company says it will make 10 of these so-called validation prototypes by the end of spring. Four of the prototypes will be sacrificed in crash testing, with others slated for durability testing and marketing purposes. Mr. Powell warns that the validation prototypes still won’t be production vehicles, but says they are much closer to those final production vehicles.

Thilo Koslowski, senior automotive analyst with Gartner, said the second-generation prototype is an exciting evolution from the first. “It’s good to see Tesla is not a one-off type company,” he said. “This shows the company has the ambition to stick around and is committed to making this work. It will allow them to be a real manufacturer, not just an exotic car company.”