Tesla, Inc. (formerly Tesla Motors, Inc.) is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company based in Palo Alto, California. The company specializes in electric vehicle manufacturing, battery energy storage from home to grid scale and, through its acquisition of SolarCity, solar panel and solar roof tile manufacturing. Tesla Motors was founded in July 2003 by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The company’s name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. The next three employees were Ian Wright, Elon Musk, and J. B. Straubel, all of whom are retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders of the company. After 11 years in the market, Tesla ranked as the world’s best-selling plug-in as well as best-selling battery electric passenger car manufacturer by cars sold in 2019, both as a brand and by automotive group, with a market share of 17% of the plug-in segment and 23% of the battery electric segment.
Tesla Model S