Tesla Motors is an American automaker and energy storage company co-founded by Elon Musk, Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning, JB Straubel and Ian Wright, and is based in Palo Alto, California. The company specializes in electric cars and their powertrain components and also produces battery charging equipment. Tesla Motors is named after the great electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla. The Tesla Roadster uses an AC motor descended directly from Nikola Tesla's original 1882 design. The Roadster, the company's first vehicle, was the first production automobile to use lithium-ion battery cells and the first production EV with a range greater than 200 miles (320 km) per charge. Between 2008 and March 2012, Tesla sold more than 2,250 Roadsters in 31 countries. Tesla stopped taking orders for the Roadster in the U.S. market in August 2011. In December 2012, Tesla employed almost 3,000 full-time employees. By December 31, 2015, this number had grown to 13,058 employees, and to over 30,000 (of which 25,000 in US) after acquiring Grohmann and SolarCity in late 2016.
Tesla first gained widespread attention following its production of the Tesla Roadster, the first electric sports car, in 2008 which was the 1st phase of the companies own step-by-step plans to replace the combustion engine car with electric. The company's second vehicle, the Model S and 2nd phase, an electric luxury sedan, debuted in 2012 and is built at the Tesla Factory in California. In Q1 2013, Tesla released its stock profits for the first time from its NASDAQ ticker symbol. The Model S was the world's best-selling plug-in vehicle in 2015 and its global sales achieved the 150,000 unit milestone in November 2016, four years and a five months after its introduction as tesla wanted to build its base, custom and trust before even thinking about making profits. As of November 2016, the Model S ranks as the world's all-time second-best-selling plug-in after the Nissan Leaf. The Model S was then followed by the Model X, a crossover SUV. Tesla's next vehicle is the Model 3, which was unveiled in March 2016 and is slated for release in 2017 with a price at US$35,000 before any government incentives.
As of December 2016, Tesla Motors has sold over 186,000 electric cars worldwide since delivery of its first Tesla Roadster in 2008, making the electric carmaker the second largest global plug-in car manufacturer after the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Musk, the CEO, has said that he envisions Tesla Motors as a technology company and independent automaker, aimed at eventually offering electric cars at prices affordable to the average consumer andd to be the biggest car manufacturer by 2020. Tesla has a network of high-powered Superchargers located across North America, UK, Europe and Asia for Tesla vehicles. The company also operates a Destination Charging program, under which shops, restaurants and other venues are offered fast chargers for their customers. Although Tesla operates a number of production and assembly plants, the company's most iconic facility is the Gigafactory 1 near Reno, Nevada, where Panasonic builds 21-70 cells for Tesla batteries. Tesla also manufactures the new Tesla Powerwall which is set for release in 2017, Powerpack batteries, and solar panels (in varying form factors) for home and industry applications, There are currently 96 Tesla Dealers and Galleries in the US, 222 in the world. Tesla SEO Elon Musk once has commented that this number will likely roughly double by the end of 2017 as the company starts delivering Tesla Model 3 pre-orders.
Solarcity
On August 1, 2016, Tesla Motors announced in a joint statement with SolarCity it would be acquiring the company in an all-stock $2.6 billion merger. Tesla's mission since its inception has been to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. As part of Elon Musk's "The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan", Tesla sought to expedite the world's move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy. The announcement cited operational and cost "synergies", and integrated products would be realized with the merger. The action was approved by antitrust regulators. More than 85% of unaffiliated shareholders from Tesla and SolarCity voted to approve the acquisition on November 17, 2016. Tesla's 2017 goals are to launch a new car, open a large battery factory, and "perfect autonomous driving." In November 2016 Musk called the merger a "no-brainer" for SolarCity. He said that it was an accident of history that Tesla and SolarCity were two separate companies before the merger. SolarCity was founded by Musk's cousins.
Tesla glass
In November 2016, the company revealed that they have created a Tesla glass technology group. The group is developing the glass that will be used in the Solar City roof tiles that were announced in October 2016. The group will also develop and manufacture the roof glass for the Tesla Model 3.
The Powerwall and Powerpack are rechargeable lithium-ion battery stationary energy storage products manufactured by Tesla, Inc. The Powerwall is intended to be used for home energy storage and stores electricity for solar self-consumption, time of use load shifting, backup power, and off-the-grid use. The larger Powerpack is intended for commercial or electric utility grid use and can be used for peak shaving, load shifting, backup power, demand response, microgrids, renewable power integration, frequency regulation, and voltage control. Announced in 2015, with a pilot demonstration of 500 units built and installed during 2015, production of the product was initially at the Tesla Fremont factory before being moved to the under construction Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. The second generation of both products was announced in October 2016.
Tesla started development in 2012, installing prototypes at selected industrial customers. In some cases, PowerPacks have saved 20% of the electrical bill. Tesla originally announced the Powerwall at the April 30, 2015 product launch with power output of 2 kW steady and 3.3 kW peak, but Musk said at the June 2015 Tesla shareholders meeting that this would be more than doubled to 5 kW steady with 7 kW peak, with no increase in price. He also announced that Powerwall deliveries would be prioritized to partners who minimize the cost to the end user, with a Powerwall installation price of US$500. When originally announced in 2015, two models of Powerwall were planned: 10 kWh capacity for backup applications and 7 kWh capacity for daily cycle applications. By March 2016, however, Tesla had "quietly removed all references to its 10-kilowatt-hour residential battery from the Powerwall website, as well as the company's press kit. The company's smaller battery designed for daily cycling is all that remains." The 10 kWh battery as originally announced has a nickel-cobalt-aluminum cathode, like the Tesla Model S,[ which was projected to function as a backup/uninterruptible power supply, and had a projected cycle life of 1000–1500 cycles.
In October 2016, Tesla announced that nearly 300 MWh of Tesla batteries had been deployed in 18 countries. The Powerwall 2 was unveiled in October 2016 at Universal Studios' Colonial Street, Los Angeles, backlot street set and is designed to work with the solar panel roof tiles to be produced by SolarCity.
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