Tesla Roadster 10 Yr Anniversary: A Trip Down Memory Lane

It’s been nearly a decade since the first unveiling of the Tesla Roadster, the car that started the electric car revolution. Tesla began in the mind of Martin Eberhard, an engineer at Wyse Technologies. He and Marc Tarpenning joined forces in 1997 to create NuvoMedia, a company working on digital reading devices. In 2000, they sold the company to Gemstar TV Guide for $187 million. Three years later, they would start Tesla Motors after obtaining funding through a variety of sources, and appoint Eberhard as the company’s CEO. The most notable investor of them all would be a young entrepreneur by the name of Elon Musk, cofounder of PayPal, who became the controlling investor in Tesla, funding the large majority of the Series A capital investment round with personal funds.

Though more of an investor and Chairman on Tesla’s Board of Directors at the time, Musk still took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level. Musk led design of the Roadster’s carbon fiber body, power electronics module, and many of the components that would eventually be used in Tesla’s first production electric vehicle.

Although the cast of characters leading the company has changed over the past 10 years, the idea that unified their efforts has not — showing the world how to stop using fossil fuels for transportation. At the unveiling, Elon Musk was already talking about global warming, a topic that received very little attention at the time.