Stories

The Small Team That Built the First Tesla

A borrowed idea from AC Propulsion, a chassis from Lotus, a battery made of laptop cells and a near-fatal 2008 turned a two-person startup into a carmaker.

6 min read

The Sedan Tesla Bet Everything On

Between a Christmas Eve rescue in 2008 and an early loan repayment in 2013, the Model S took Tesla from near-bankruptcy to a profitable car company.

6 min read

Starman and the Roadster That Left Earth

On February 6, 2018, SpaceX's first Falcon Heavy carried Elon Musk's own Tesla Roadster, a mannequin at the wheel, out of Earth orbit and into a loop around the sun that it is still flying.

7 min read

Falcon Wings: The Doors That Defined, and Delayed, the Model X

The Model X's rear doors took more than three years to get from a Hawthorne stage to customers, cost Tesla a supplier and a lawsuit, and still became the car's signature from a Melbourne runway to a Florida launch pad.

5 min read

Inside the Model 3 Ramp That Nearly Broke Tesla

From reservation lines in 2016 to an assembly line under a tent in 2018, the Model 3 ramp tested Tesla's factory, its workers and its finances.

5 min read

From NUMMI to Cybercab: How Tesla Built Its Factories

A shuttered joint venture plant in California, a battery factory in the Nevada desert, and new plants in Shanghai, Germany and Texas turned a small carmaker into one of the world's largest manufacturers, and a factory in Mexico still waits.

7 min read

From Six Superchargers to the Continent's Plug

Tesla built a private fast-charging network for the Model S in 2012. Twelve years later its connector was an SAE standard, rival brands were plugging in, and the team that ran it had been fired and partly rehired.

6 min read

The Cybertruck: From a Broken Window to a Hard Sales Reality

Four years separated the Cybertruck's chaotic 2019 reveal from its first deliveries in Texas, and the truck that finally arrived met a market far smaller than the reservation numbers suggested.

6 min read