Tesla

Once a struggling Silicon Valley start-up, Tesla is a leading American automotive manufacturer of premium all-electric sports cars, sedans and SUVs.

Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning with a mission to accelerate the global adoption of battery-electric propulsion systems in vehicles. Elon Musk, the company’s chairman and primary investor, took over as CEO in 2008. The same year it released its first production model: the Tesla Roadster, a two-seater electric sports car built using the chassis of the Lotus Elise and redesigned and powered by a proprietary fast-charging lithium-ion battery pack and electric motor. Because the company eschewed the dealer-franchise model, customers reportedly had to join a “club” to order a Roadster.

After a series of production delays and financing struggles exacerbated by the “Great Recession,” Tesla released the Model S electric luxury sedan in 2012. The Model X battery-electric SUV followed. It had gullwing doors and was built on the Model S platform. To support the proliferation of EVs, the Fremont, Calif.-based company developed Supercharging stations to provide rapid recharging of its Tesla vehicles. The Supercharger network began as six 480-volt DC fast-charging stations in California and enabled the novel EVs to be used for long distance travel without “range anxiety.” Today there are more than 20,000 Superchargers globally.

Tesla also became a major proponent of self-driving vehicles and added its semi-autonomous capabilities to the Model S and Model X vehicles built in 2014 as an “over-the-air” update in 2015. These iterative updates to a vehicle post-purchase, rather than waiting for a new model year or significant refresh, were a first for the automotive industry. The mass-market appeal of self-driving EVs with high performance capabilities forced other manufacturers to accelerate their alternative fuel and autonomous technology product roadmaps. The debut of the Model 3 compact electric sedan and Model Y compact crossover completed Tesla’s original planned portfolio that together their names spelled ‘SEXY’ (S3XY).

In 2016 the company expanded into the energy market by purchasing SolarCity, a manufacturer and installer of photovoltaic (PV) systems founded by Musk’s cousins. In 2017, Tesla Motors, which now included SolarCity, was shortened to just Tesla. Through a joint venture with Panasonic, it manufactured and sold Powerwall batteries for electricity storage, solar roof panels and solar roof tiles for residential customers. It also built large-scale solar farms to support grid services for governments and utility companies.

Tesla is rapidly expanding global production with expansive Gigafactories in China and Germany in addition to plants in the U.S. In 2021, it plans to begin production of the Cybertruck, an electric full-size pickup truck, as well as a fully-electric heavy-duty Class 8 semi-truck.