Tesla is the American company best known for electric cars named after Nikola Tesla.
Tesla was incorporated in California in 2003 as Tesla Motors by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Its name honors Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor and electrical engineer whose work with alternating-current electricity helped shape modern power systems. Elon Musk joined as an early major investor and became chairman in 2004.
The company’s first production car was the Tesla Roadster, launched in 2008 and based on the Lotus Elise. Tesla later expanded its lineup with the Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y. Although Tesla now also makes energy-storage products, solar equipment, and charging hardware, its public identity remains strongly associated with battery-electric cars.
A common mix-up is confusing the company with Nikola Tesla himself, or with the tesla, the SI unit of magnetic flux density named after him. General Motors and Ford also produce electric vehicles, but neither company is named for Nikola Tesla.