10 Facts About Tesla That Will Shock You

February 11, 2022

Tesla Motors, named after famed turn-of-the-20th-century inventor and electricity dabbler Nikolai Tesla, might be the most visionary automotive manufacturing company currently making cars. Their all-electric, sustainable-energy encouraging designs are not only earth conscious but luxuriously outfitted. The more the public learns about Tesla, the clearer it becomes that theirs is the future of the auto industry. Read on to find out ten surprising facts about the quickly-growing car company.

10. Tesla Wants To Do Away With Side Mirrors

The super-futuristic Tesla Motors is constantly questioning what has come to be accepted as standard in the vehicle industry, and that goes for the age-old safety measure, the side mirror. Try to picture a car without them, and likely something like Tron will come to mind. What Tesla has in mind instead of mirrors that stick out, can be broken off, and need to be pulled in when parking on the street is a set of cameras that will do the same work while taking up much less space. Notably, the lack of side mirrors would have the bonus effect of reducing the drag coefficient and increasing top speed.

9. The Tesla Model S Has The Most Cargo Space Of Any Car In Its Class

The Tesla Model S, which for all the world looks just like any other run-of-the-mill sedan, boasts an amazing 31.6 cubic feet of cargo space. Because it is an all-electric vehicle will a liquid-cooled powertrain (how cool is that?), the Model S has a front trunk, or a “frunk,” which can fit a whole adult person inside of it. Tesla also famously showed that the Model S has the capacity to fit a surfboard, a bike, and a 55” TV inside of it all at the same time.

8. Tesla Paid Back Its Government Loan Nine Years Early

In 2010, then-President George W. Bush signed into law a federal loan program called the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, or ATVM. Tesla was able to borrow $465 million of the $25 billion-dollar loan program designed to get fuel-efficient cars to consumers at a faster rate. In an unheard-of move, billionaire Elon Musk, who had caught flack for taking the money in the first place, repaid the loan nine whole years ahead of schedule. Now that’s a great guy to loan money to!

7. Tesla Is Owned By Elon Musk, Who Has Taken Three Companies Beyond $1B

Elon Musk has a knack for combining his business acumen with a keen sense of future design (not to mention a large investment pool) to skyrocket companies’ sales into the billion-dollar range. Thus far, Musk has laid his golden touch on PayPal, SpaceX (the company offering space flights for civilians), and Tesla. Musk has also turned his eye to the future of renewable energy with his solar panel company, Solarcity. With Musk at the helm, the future looks grand.

6. Elon Musk Only Spends Part Of His Time Working On Tesla

Speaking of Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and co-founder, it would seem that he is an incredibly busy man. It has been reported that Musk only spends at most fifty percent of his time with Tesla while he focuses the rest of his energy on other endeavors. Since the success of PayPal, all of Musk’s enterprises have had a decidedly futuristic, world-bettering bent. It seems that Musk wants to get as many projects off the ground as he can before it’s time to retire.

5. The Model S Is So Strong It Broke The Machine Testing Its Strength

The National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has minimum requirements for roof crush resistance for all street-legal vehicles. Most automotive makers set the minimum requirements as their goal, but not Tesla. The chronic over-achievers at Tesla made the roof of the Model S so strong that it not only more than doubles the required resistance, but it actually broke the machine that was testing it. In fact, the Model S has been given a perfect all-around safety rating.

4. Tesla Motors Is The Second Oldest Publicly Listed Motor Company

Even though the company was only formed in 2003, Tesla Motors has survived while some other staples of the American auto industry have folded on the public market. When GM went bankrupt, it had been publicly traded for over 40 years; Chrysler, which has had a history of ups and downs, went private for seven years before returning to the public market in 2014; Ford, the only motor company that has been publicly traded longer than Tesla, has been on the open market since 1956.

3. Teslas Are Built Nowhere Near Detroit

Though Detroit, Michigan is known as Motor City and has historically been ground zero for American auto manufacturing, Tesla Motors boasts as its headquarters Silicon Valley, California. Silicon Valley, of course, is known worldwide as the seat of computer and technology production. With Tesla’s marriage of technology, futuristic design, and automotive acumen, Silicon Valley seems an appropriate locale for the manufacture of the cars. There are some drawbacks to being so far from the infrastructure and resources of the Motor City, but Tesla aims to be in a class all their own.

2. The Model S P85D Received The Highest-Ever Consumer Report Rating

According to Consumer Report’s website, the Tesla Model S scored so high that it essentially “broke” the Consumer Reports ratingsystem. The ratingexperts raved about the P85D’s lightning fast and bizarrely quiet acceleration - it can go from zero to sixty in 3.5 seconds with virtually no sound and certainly no roar. It is so energy efficient that the Model S P85D gets the equivalent of 87 miles per gallon of gasoline with its electric engine. Since this test, the estimates have reached as high as 107 miles per gallon equivalency.

1. Tesla Has Made An Affordable Future Car

The Model 3, which comes in at a very affordable $35,000, was released in March of 2016. The brand thus far has been known for its luxury electric offerings, but with the Model 3, they now have opened up their vehicles to a much larger audience of consumers. The car boasts an amazing 200-mile range on a single battery charge, which more Supercharger stations coming all the time. A fun fact about the model’s name: originally, the car, which was set to be released between the Model S and the Model X, was meant to be called the Model E. In case we have to spell it out, that would make Tesla the sexiest car manufacturer on the market. As if they weren’t already.

MORE FROM AutoInfo