Transport & space · 2008

Tesla Roadster

Thousands of laptop cells give an electric sports car 390 km of range.

Delivered from 2008, the Roadster used about 6,800 lithium-ion cells for roughly 390 km of range. It proved commodity Li-ion packs could make fast, long-range EVs. Tesla built about 2,450 before moving to sedans.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 3

GM EV1 1996
Lithium-ion battery 1991
AC induction motor 1888

What it led to 1

Tesla Model S 2012

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Electric share of new car sales Latest: Battery electric: 16.5 % of new cars (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Lithium-ion battery cell price Latest: 78 $/kWh (2024 USD) (2024) Source: Our World in Data

Cost of memory and storage Latest: Memory: 1.09k $/TB (2023) Source: Our World in Data