23 Years of Tesla

Teslahubs · Birthday Edition

The story behind the badge on your car — from a name on a piece of paper to the most exciting cars on the road.

It started with a name

Before the cars, before the factories, there was a name — Nikola Tesla, the inventor whose AC induction motor lit up the modern world. A century later, two engineers borrowed it for a company with one stubborn idea: an electric car you’d actually want to drive.

Nikola Tesla, circa 1890 — the inventor behind the name.

Two founders, one idea (2003)

On July 1, 2003, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded Tesla Motors in California. Everyone told them electric cars were slow, ugly, and short-range. They set out to prove every single one of them wrong.

The bet that almost broke them (2008)

After Elon Musk led the early funding and stepped in to run the company, Tesla shipped its first car — the Roadster. It hit 60 mph in under four seconds and ran on laptop batteries. That same year, the financial crisis nearly bankrupted the company. It survived by a matter of days.

The Tesla Roadster — the company’s first car.

The car that changed everything (2012)

Then came the Model S. Not a science project — a full-size luxury sedan that out-accelerated sports cars and forced the entire industry to scramble. The world stopped laughing.

The lineup you know today

Model X. Model 3. Model Y. Cybertruck. What started as one impossible Roadster became the cars in millions of driveways — including yours.

And then there’s you

23 years later, Tesla isn’t just a car company. It’s a community of people who saw it early — and made it their own. That’s the badge on your car. That’s you.