A corporate reshuffle and worker lay-offs evidently hasn’t been enough to reverse Tesla Motors’ woeful financial fortunes, and the electric car manufacturer now reports that the future of its much-anticipated Model S sports sedan may be under threat because of it.

Tesla says that without a $400 million USD slice of the US government’s $25 billion green car fund, it won’t be able to finish construction of a new $250 million manufacturing facility in California.

“We can’t move forward with that without a major amount of capital,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “If we don’t get any government funding, then what we need to do is we need to wait until the capital markets recover, which could be a year or two years from now.”

If financial aid can be secured, then Musk estimates Tesla could sell up to 20,000 of its Model S by 2011-2012, each with a price of around $57,499. Without the aid, production could be delayed indefinitely. A decision has yet to be made on how much of the green car fund (if any) Tesla will receive.