Tagline: Burn rubber, not gasoline
An American high-tech company that manufactures sports electric vehicles. The first car company in Silicon Valley. Models produced Tesla Motors (since January 2017 - simply Tesla), are in no way inferior to their gasoline counterparts. That's just much easier to manage, less noisy and environmentally friendly.
The idea of creating an "electric supermobile" came up with the engineer Martin Eberhard (Martin Eberhard). One day he wanted to own a sports car, with not too high appetites for fuels and lubricants. He was well versed in batteries, but not in cars, otherwise he would not have set himself such a task. Fuel economy and high speeds are incompatible things. Learning that the automotive industry was unable to satisfy his desire, Martin decided to develop a car himself, powered by another source - lithium-ion batteries.
The project required a lot of money. The engineer has been looking for sponsors for a long time. And those were found: Elon Musk from PayPal and famous couple Google - Sergey Brin (Sergey Brin) and Larry Page (Edward Page), known for their weakness for everything innovative and unusual. Thanks to their support, in 2003 a new company was founded, named after the great Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla, who developed his own electric car model back in 1931*.
The company was co-founded by another engineer, Marc Tarpenning.
The first electric car was based on the production gasoline model Elise, the company Lotus Cars. It's just that the filling has been radically changed. For example, the place where the engine used to be, housed 6381 miniature batteries. Such a complex system required a special cooling system. Founders Tesla, as you know, did not understand cars, and therefore began to lure specialists from the same Lotus Carswhich nearly ended in scandal. In total, the company at that time employed about a hundred people.
The first model is Tesla roadster - capable of developing 100 km / h in 4 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of 210 km / h. The charge is enough for 400 km. run. You can “refuel” an electric car using an ordinary outlet. The car first went on sale in June 2006 for $100,000. Among the buyers is such a celebrity as Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The company's future plans are to establish mass production of models available to the average buyer. Tesla Motors is confident that electric vehicles are the future.
*) According to the legend, so unconfirmed by anyone, but not refuted, Nikola Tesla's electric car (it was a modernized Pierce Arrow) did without batteries. Instead, some mysterious box with two protruding rods was used, which, according to the inventor, drew energy "from the ether." Contemporaries did not believe the inventor, and he, offended, destroyed his creation. However, the inventor was a very extravagant person, and he could well fool people, while the power source was simply cunningly disguised. Although…