Tesla delivered its first production car, the Roadster, in 2008.
The Tesla Roadster was a battery-electric sports car based on the Lotus Elise platform. Tesla began delivering the first customer cars in 2008, making the Roadster the company's first production vehicle. Its lithium-ion battery pack and claimed range helped demonstrate that an electric car could be fast and desirable as well as efficient.
Tesla was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Elon Musk joined as an early investor and became chairman; he later became the company's chief executive. The Roadster project began before Tesla's later mass-market models, including the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y.
The Roadster's production ended in 2012 after roughly 2,450 vehicles had been built. It should not be confused with the second-generation Roadster announced by Tesla in 2017, which had not entered regular production at the time of the source article's coverage. Tesla's market value is separate from the number of cars it has produced.