Tesla delivered the Roadster as its first production car.
The original Tesla Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise sports-car platform and used lithium-ion battery cells. Tesla began customer deliveries in 2008, making the Roadster the company’s first production vehicle and an early high-profile demonstration that an electric car could be fast and desirable.
Tesla was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Elon Musk joined as an early major investor and became chairman, while later leadership and engineering teams shaped the company’s expansion into mass-market vehicles.
The Roadster should not be confused with the Model S, which was Tesla’s first car designed and built from the ground up as a Tesla product. The Model S entered production in 2012 and helped move the company from a niche sports-car maker toward a broader electric-vehicle business.