Elon Musk’s car company was founded in 2003 in San Carlos, California, and  was named for Serbian-American inventor, futurist and engineer Nikola Tesla, who created the induction motor that ran on alternating-current (AC) power in 1887. 

Tesla, Inc.  is an American automotive and energy company based in Palo Alto, California. The company specializes in electric car manufacturing.  Tesla was founded in July 2003, by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, under the name Tesla Motors. The company's name was derived from physicist Nikola Tesla.

 

Headquarters Palo Alto, California, United States

roadster  2008-2012

The Tesla Roadster is a battery electric vehicle (BEV) sports car, based on the Lotus Elise chassis, that was produced  from 2008 to 2012. The Roadster was the first highway legal serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells and the first production all-electric car to travel more than 320 kilometres per charge. It is also the first production car to be launched into deep space, carried by a Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018.

Tesla sold about 2,450 Roadsters in over 30 countries. The car can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h 3.9 seconds and has a top speed of 201 km/h.

Tesla Roadster (youtube.com)

model s  2012-present

The Tesla Model S is an all-electric five-door liftback sedan. Tesla manufactures the Model S at the 500,000 m2  Tesla Factory in Fremont, California.

The Model S was styled by a team led by Franz von Holzhausen, who previously worked for Mazda and was based on the Mercedes Benz CLS 4-Door Coupe for the overall design.

 The Tesla Model S was the top-selling plug-in electric car worldwide in 2015 and 2016.

Tesla Model S (youtube.com)

model 3  2017-present

The Tesla Model 3 is an electric four-door fastback sedan. According to Tesla, the Model 3 carries full self-driving hardware, with periodic software updates adding functionality.

The base Model 3 delivers an EPA-rated all-electric range of 438 km and the Long Range version delivers 576 km.

In 2020, Tesla produced over 450,000 of the Model 3/Y chassis automobiles. The Model 3 was marketed as being more affordable to more people than previous models by Tesla.

Tesla Model 3 (youtube.com)

2003-now