LOS ANGELES, California (CNN)  -- While automakers lay off staff and shut down plants in response to the economic downturn, one automaker announced Thursday that it will open a manufacturing plant in the United States, potentially creating hundreds of jobs in the area eventually chosen. Tesla unveils its Model S sedan, with a base price of $57,400. The manufacturing plant will be in California. Tesla Motors, maker of a high-end electric sports car, says it will build an all-electric sedan in Southern California. Thursday's announcement was made in Hawthorne, California, where Tesla unveiled the Model S sedan at a base price of $49,900, after a federal tax credit of $7,500. That's less than half the price of its first model, the Roadster. Started in 2003 and bankrolled by PayPal millionaire Elon Musk, Tesla has attracted investments from the Silicon Valley elite, among them Google founder Larry Page. It is widely believed that the Model S sedan will be built near the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation facility in Hawthorne. That aerospace company, more commonly known as SpaceX, was founded by Musk in 2002. SpaceX recently won a NASA contract to deliver cargo to the international space station when the space shuttle program is retired next year. That contract, worth $1.6 billion, was won over such industry mainstays as Boeing and Lockheed. The promise of a high-performance, all-electric vehicle became a reality with the startup's first model, the Tesla Roadster, a car with the look, speed and price tag -- a steep $109,000 and up -- that rivals other high-end, high-performance vehicles. Recently though, the economic downturn has forced Tesla to delay production of their would-be flagship Model S until 2011. They've also had to lay off more than 80 workers, which is about 25 percent of the company's staff. Nonetheless, Tesla predicts it will manufacture 20,000 Model S vehicles a year. That would make it more of a mass-market vehicle than the Roadster; only 1,200 of which are produced yearly. The company faces many challenges, the foremost of which is convincing consumers to pay almost $50,000 for an all-electric sedan when they could pay thousands less for another brand of upmarket sedan or a gas-electric hybrid.

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Tesla says manufacturing plant will be in California; hundreds of jobs possible. The all-electric Model S sedan will go for a base price of about $50,000. Tesla's challenge: Will consumers pay that much for a car in recessionary times? The company hopes to make 20,000 Model S sedans a year.

Bedraggled, hungry and dazed, the refugees arrived on the shores of Thailand after fleeing one of the most repressive governments in the world -- the hard-line military regime in Myanmar, also known as Burma. This picture provided to CNN is said to show refugees being towed out to sea by the Thai army. But a CNN investigation has uncovered evidence that for hundreds of Rohingya refugees -- members of a Muslim minority group -- abuse and abandonment at sea were what awaited them in Thailand, at the hands of Thai authorities. Extraordinary photos obtained by CNN from someone directly involved in the Thai operation show refugees on their rickety boats being towed out to sea, cut loose and abandoned. One photo shows the Thai army towing a boatload of some 190 refugees far out to sea.  Watch the backstory on the investigation ». For days, accusations have been carried in several regional papers that the Thai army has been systematically towing boat-loads of Rohingya refugees far out to sea and setting them adrift. The army denied it, and the Thai government has launched an inquiry. CNN's investigation -- based on accounts from tourists, sources in Thailand and a Rohingya refugee who said he was on a boat towed back out to sea -- helps to piece together a picture of survival thwarted by an organized effort not just to repel arriving refugees, but to hold them prisoner on shore, drag them in flimsy boats far out to sea and then abandon them.  Watch CNN's investigation into reports of refugees being set adrift ». Three tourists recently voiced concern to CNN over what they had seen -- and in some cases photographed -- near Thailand's tourist areas. One tourist provided CNN with photos last week of refugees detained by Thai authorities on a beach near a tourist site, with the refugees prone on the sun-bleached sand while guards stood nearby. "Whenever someone raised their head or moved, they [guards] would strike them with a whip," said Australian tourist Andrew Catton. A CNN crew traveled to a remote stretch of the Thai coast four hours north of the tourist island of Phuket to investigate the growing reports that the Thai military was secretly detaining Rohingya refugees before towing them out to sea and setting them adrift. In an isolated beach area, debris including sandals and campfire remnants indicated that large numbers of people had been there but were nowhere to be seen. The crew then traveled to a nearby island, where residents reported that refugees who had escaped were living in the jungle. In one hamlet, villagers had captured a Rohingya man they believed had been living in the jungle for days. The refugee, who identified himself as Iqbal Hussain, told CNN he was on one of six boats in a makeshift refugee fleet that arrived in Thailand in December. He said all six boats with their refugee cargo were towed back out to sea in January, and five of the six boats sank. His boat made it back to shore, and he hid in the jungle for days until nearby villagers captured him. In broken English and using sign language and drawings, he described what happened to the other men on the boats:. "All men dead," he said, putting the number of dead at several hundred. The Rohingya, a persecuted minority in Myanmar, have been fleeing their country in rickety boats for years, in search of a better life. In Thailand, many instead have found deprivation and the possibility of desertion far off shore, according to the CNN investigation. The source who provided CNN with photos of refugees in a boat being towed out to sea stressed that the Thai army had given the refugees food and water, but he also confirmed that the boats had been pulled for more than two days into international waters before they were set adrift. His account directly contradicts briefings by senior Thai army sources who denied any such operation was undertaken. A source in the Thai military, after extensive questioning, did confirm to CNN that the Thai army was operating a dump-at-sea policy. But the source defended it, insisting that each boatload of refugees was always given sufficient supplies of food and water. That source claimed local villagers had become afraid of the hundreds of Rohingya arriving each month, and that they were accusing the refugees of stealing their property and threatening them. CNN asked the government for comment and was told that an investigation was being launched and that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has plans to call an emergency meeting once the country's foreign minister returns from Cambodia. Panitan Wattanayagorn, a government spokesman, gave no timeline for the foreign minister's return or the emergency meeting. He did say the government is taking the matter very seriously.

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CNN finds evidence hundreds of Rohingya refugees abandoned at sea by Thai army. Photos show refugees on their rickety boats being towed out to sea, cut loose. The army denies setting refugees adrift; Thai government has launched an inquiry. Rohingya have been fleeing persecution of the hard-line military regime in Myanmar.