TESLA

HISTORY: Founding (2003–2004) The company was incorporated as Tesla Motors, Inc. on July 1, 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.[9] Eberhard and Tarpenning served as CEO and CFO, respectively. Eberhard said he wanted to build "a car manufacturer that is also a technology company", with its core technologies as "the battery, the computer software, and the proprietary motor".[11] Ian Wright was Tesla's third employee, joining a few months later.In February 2004,the company raised $7.5 million in series A funding, including $6.5 million from Elon Musk, who had received $100 million from the sale of his interest in PayPal two years earlier. Musk became the chairman of the board of directors and the largest shareholder of Tesla.[9][12][10] J. B. Straubel joined Tesla in May 2004 as Chief Technical Officer.[9] A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five – Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk, and Straubel – to call themselves co-founders.Roadster (2005–2009)

Main article: Tesla Roadster (first generation) Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.From the beginning, Musk consistently maintained that Tesla's long-term goal was to create affordable mass market electric vehicles.The company's strategy was to start with a premium sports car aimed at early adopters and then move into more mainstream vehicles, including sedans and affordable compacts. In February 2006, Musk led Tesla's Series B venture capital funding round of $13 million, which added Valor Equity Partners to the funding team.Musk co-led the third, $40 million round in May 2006 which saw investment from prominent entrepreneurs including Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and former eBay President Jeff Skoll.A fourth round worth $45 million in May 2007 brought the total private financing investment to over $105 million. Prototypes of Tesla's first car, the Roadster, were officially revealed to the public on July 19, 2006, in Santa Monica, California, at a 350-person invitation-only event held in Barker Hangar at Santa Monica Airport. In August 2007, Eberhard was asked by the board, led by Elon Musk, to step down as CEO.Eberhard then took the title of "President of Technology" before ultimately leaving the company in January 2008.Co-founder Marc Tarpenning, who served as the Vice President of Electrical Engineering of the company, also left the company in January 2008.In August 2007, Michael Marks was brought in as interim CEO, and in December 2007, Ze'ev Drori became CEO and President.Musk succeeded Drori as CEO in October 2008.In June 2009, Eberhard filed a lawsuit against Musk for allegedly forcing him out. PO, Model S, and Model X (2010–2015)

First deliveries of Model S at the Tesla Factory in Fremont, California, in June 2012 In May 2010, Tesla purchased what would later become the Tesla Factory in Fremont, California, from Toyota for $42 million,and opened the facility in October 2010 to start production of the Model S.On June 29, 2010, the company became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO) on NASDAQ, the first American car company to do so since the Ford Motor Company had its IPO in 1956.The company issued 13.3 million shares of common stock at a price of $17.00 per share, raising $226 million. In January 2012, Tesla ceased production of the Roadster, and in June the company launched its second car, the Model S luxury sedan.The Model S won several automotive awards during 2012 and 2013, including the 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year,and became the first electric car to top the monthly sales ranking of a country, when it achieved first place in the Norwegian new car sales list in September 2013.The Model S was also the best-selling plug-in electric car worldwide for the years 2015 and 2016. Tesla announced the Tesla Autopilot, a driver-assistance system, in 2014. In September that year, all Tesla cars started shipping with sensors and software to support the feature, with what would later be called "hardware version 1".In April 2015, Tesla entered the energy storage market, unveiling its Tesla Powerwall (home) and Tesla Powerpack (business) battery packs.The company received orders valued at $800 million within a week of the unveiling. Tesla began shipping its third vehicle, the luxury SUV Tesla Model X, in September 2015, at which time it had 25,000 pre-orders.