About Tesla
No car company of the last half-century has rattled the industry like Tesla. Founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, with Elon Musk arriving as chief investor and later chief executive, it set out to prove that electric cars could be fast, desirable and practical. The Lotus-based Roadster of 2008 made the point, the Model S of 2012 rewrote the rules of the luxury sedan, and before long every major automaker was racing to build batteries, chargers and software of its own. Whatever one thinks of the company or its boss, the modern electric car is largely its invention.
Tesla's playbook broke with Detroit tradition at nearly every turn: direct sales instead of dealers, cars that improve through over-the-air updates, giant castings that replace dozens of stamped parts, and a proprietary Supercharger network so effective that most rival automakers in North America adopted its plug, now standardized as SAE J3400. The cheaper Model 3 and Model Y turned the company into a volume manufacturer, and the Model Y became the best-selling vehicle in the world in 2023. Critics have long pointed to uneven build quality, aggressive claims about self-driving and a chief executive whose politics have polarized buyers.
Recent years have been more turbulent. Sales slipped as aging models met fierce competition, especially from BYD and other Chinese makers, and Tesla ended production of the Model S and Model X in 2026, converting their Fremont lines to build Optimus humanoid robots. The company's attention has shifted toward autonomy, with its Robotaxi service and the steering-wheel-free Cybercab, while the Cybertruck, the Semi and the long-promised new Roadster carry the product story. Tesla builds cars in California, Texas, Shanghai and Berlin and sells them worldwide.
The news here covers everything from deliveries, earnings and price cuts to recalls, software updates, Full Self-Driving releases, factory news and regulatory fights, along with the endless stream of analyst opinions and stock-market drama that surrounds the company. It also tracks Supercharger expansion, battery technology and the rivalries with BYD, Rivian and the legacy automakers, all of which make Tesla perhaps the most closely watched, most argued-about car company on the planet.