The Tesla Roadster became the first production automobile to use a lithium-ion battery pack when it launched in 2008.
Tesla began customer deliveries of the Roadster in 2008. The two-seat electric sports car used thousands of cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells in a large battery pack. This approach gave it substantially greater range than many earlier battery-electric vehicles.
The Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise’s platform, although Tesla made extensive changes to the body, chassis, and electric powertrain. Its development showed that an electric car could be positioned as a high-performance vehicle rather than only as a low-speed urban runabout.
The Roadster was not the first electric car, nor was it the first car to contain any lithium-ion cell. Its distinction concerns a production automobile using a large lithium-ion battery pack as its main energy store. The Nissan Leaf, launched later, was a more affordable mass-market electric car.