70 Fun Facts About Tesla

Nikola Tesla is best known for his contributions to which electricity supply system?

His AC induction motor and polyphase patents, licensed by Westinghouse in 1888, became the backbone of the modern grid and put him on the opposite side of the 'war of the currents' from Edison.

In which present-day country was Nikola Tesla born in 1856?

Smiljan was then in the Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire.

Which company licensed Tesla's polyphase induction motor patents in 1888?

Westinghouse used the system to win the contract to harness Niagara Falls.

At which 1898 New York exhibition did Tesla show a radio-controlled boat, his 'telautomaton'?

It was one of the first wirelessly controlled vehicles ever built. Some spectators suspected a trained monkey inside.

In which Rocky Mountain city did Tesla set up a high-altitude experimental station in 1899?

He was studying the conductivity of low-pressure air and produced artificial lightning bolts that reportedly knocked out the local power station.

What was Wardenclyffe Tower, built on Long Island in 1901-02?

It was demolished in 1917, and a museum campaign bought the site in 2013.

Which financier backed Wardenclyffe in exchange for a 51 percent share of any wireless patents?

After the project collapsed Tesla kept writing to Morgan for money, and after Morgan's death he tried his son Jack.

Which rival beat Tesla in December 1901 by transmitting the letter S across the Atlantic?

Tesla believed Marconi's system copied his own patents. The U.S. Supreme Court partly vindicated Tesla's radio patents in 1943, months after his death.

Which famous author became a close friend of Tesla in middle age and spent time in his lab?

A photo shows Twain holding one of Tesla's glowing lamps.

Where in New York did Tesla live from 1934 until his death in 1943?

He had left a trail of unpaid hotel bills, including at the Waldorf-Astoria, where he once wined and dined investors. He died there in January 1943 of coronary thrombosis.

In his last years Tesla spoke of a special bond with what kind of animal that visited him?

He fed the birds in Bryant Park daily and said one injured white pigeon visited him and that he loved her 'as a man loves a woman.'

In 1960 the tesla was adopted as the SI unit of what?

Slovenian engineer France Avčin proposed the name. The older CGS equivalent is the gauss; one tesla equals 10,000 gauss.

Roughly how many patents did Tesla obtain worldwide?

They ranged from an improved DC generator to the induction motor and radio-frequency devices. He signed away many of them for stock and lost control of them.

In what year did Tesla design the resonant transformer now known as the Tesla coil?

He used it to produce high-voltage, high-frequency currents for his lighting and wireless experiments; today it is a science-museum staple.

At which 1893 event did Westinghouse show off Tesla's AC system, helping win the Niagara Falls contract?

Edward Dean Adams of the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company sought Tesla's advice, and Westinghouse got the job of building a two-phase AC generating system.

Which two men incorporated Tesla Motors in July 2003?

Eberhard was CEO and Tarpenning CFO. A 2009 legal settlement lets five people, including Musk, Wright and Straubel, call themselves co-founders.

How did Elon Musk originally become involved with the company?

He put in $6.5 million of the $7.5 million Series A, using money from selling his PayPal stake, and became CEO in 2008.

The first-generation Tesla Roadster was built on the chassis of which British sports car?

About 2,450 were sold in more than 30 countries. It was the first highway-legal production EV with lithium-ion cells and a range over 200 miles.

Tesla's 2010 IPO made it the first American car company to go public since which automaker in 1956?

Shares debuted on the Nasdaq on June 29, 2010, at $17.

From which automaker did Tesla buy the former NUMMI plant in Fremont for $42 million in 2010?

NUMMI had been a GM-Toyota joint venture. The Fremont Factory remains Tesla's first major assembly plant.

Which Tesla won Motor Trend's Car of the Year in 2013?

The sedan entered production in 2012. Its 2021 refresh added the three-motor Plaid version.

Which Tesla is known for its 'falcon wing' rear doors?

The SUV was developed from the Model S platform and began production in 2015.

Which Tesla is described as the best-selling electric vehicle of all time?

Presented in March 2019 as the company's fifth production model, the crossover has sold more than two million units.

The Cybertruck's angular body panels are made of what material?

Unveiled in November 2019 at Tesla's design studio next to SpaceX headquarters, its look drew comparisons to low-polygon computer models. Deliveries began in 2023.

What voltage does the Cybertruck's low-voltage electrical system run on, unusually for a car?

Most cars use 12-volt systems. The higher voltage feeds steer-by-wire actuators, pumps, wipers and the touchscreen with thinner wiring.

Which SpaceX rocket carried Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space in February 2018?

The car, with a spacesuited mannequin called Starman at the wheel, was the test flight's dummy payload and now orbits the Sun.

Which Japanese electronics company agreed in 2014 to invest in Tesla's Nevada battery Gigafactory?

The plant near Sparks was estimated to cost $5 billion and makes battery cells and packs.

Gigafactory Shanghai, begun in 2019, was notable as the first Chinese car plant to be what?

Previous foreign automakers in China had been required to operate through joint ventures.

Which vehicle did Gigafactory Berlin begin producing in March 2022?

The plant broke ground in February 2020 in Grünheide, near Berlin, over the objections of local environmental groups.

Which solar company did Tesla acquire in an all-stock deal in November 2016?

The roughly $2 billion purchase, of a company run by Musk's cousins, moved Tesla into solar panels and roof shingles.

To which city did Tesla, Inc. move its headquarters in 2021?

The company moved from Palo Alto in 2021 but kept expanding in California. Giga Texas builds the Cybertruck and Model Y.

When was Tesla's Supercharger network introduced?

It launched with six California stations as the Model S entered production, and is now the largest fast-charging network in the world.

What is the name of the humanoid robot Tesla first showed off in 2021?

Also called the Tesla Bot, it was first shown as a person in a spandex suit dancing on stage in 2021.

When first introduced in 2014, Tesla's Autopilot referred to what?

The early hardware came from Mobileye. Musk's promises about the system's capabilities have drawn regulatory scrutiny ever since.

In July 2020, Tesla gained what distinction among car companies?

It first passed a $1 trillion valuation in October 2021, the sixth U.S. company to do so, though it lost its EV sales crown by the end of 2025.

How much was the pay package for Elon Musk that Tesla shareholders approved in November 2025?

He receives it over ten years only if he hits specific targets. Musk had first joined the company with a $6.5 million investment.

Which Class 8 truck did the company begin producing in 2022?

PepsiCo took the first deliveries. The Cybertruck pickup followed in 2023.

Which newsmagazine named Nikola Tesla one of history's 100 most significant figures in 2013?

He had also appeared on the magazine's cover in 1931 for his 75th birthday, with congratulations from Albert Einstein.

Per Tesla's autobiography, what did the Edison Machine Works manager call his promised $50,000 bonus?

Tesla quit soon afterward. The episode is a favorite in the Edison-versus-Tesla mythology, though only Tesla's account survives.

Tesla claimed his 1930s 'death ray' could bring down how many enemy planes at 250 miles?

Plans found in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade in 1984 described charging tungsten or mercury slugs to millions of volts and firing them through vacuum tubes.

In which city is the Nikola Tesla Museum, holding his archive, located?

Its archive of his papers turned up the plans for his 'teleforce' weapon in 1984, decades after his death.

What sparked Tesla's interest in electricity as a teenager, by his own account?

At the Higher Real Gymnasium in Karlovac he could do integral calculus in his head, which made teachers think he was cheating.

Tesla's father Milutin worked as what?

His mother, who never had a formal education, made her own tools and could recite Serbian epic poems; Tesla credited his memory to her.

Tesla's high-school teachers suspected him of cheating because he could do what in his head?

He graduated from the gymnasium in Karlovac in 1873 at 17, then nearly died of cholera.

Which disease left the 17-year-old Tesla bedridden for nine months?

His father, who had wanted him to be a priest, promised him an engineering education if he recovered.

Tesla studied at a technical college in which Austrian city, leaving in 1878 without a degree?

He passed nine exams in his first year, then fell apart; one biographer suggests gambling and womanizing got him expelled.

In 1881 Tesla became chief electrician of a new telephone exchange in which city?

He arrived to find the exchange still under construction and worked as a draftsman in the telegraph office until it opened.

Before emigrating to America, Tesla installed lighting for the Continental Edison Company in which city?

The manager who oversaw that work, Charles Batchelor, brought him to New York in 1884.

After his first company's backers abandoned him in 1886, Tesla was reduced to what job for $2 a day?

He later called that year a time when his education 'seemed to me like a mockery'.

Tesla's 1888 licensing deal for his induction motor paid $60,000 plus a royalty of $2.50 per what?

He later tore up the royalty clause to keep the cash-strapped licensee afloat during the panic of 1890.

Tesla's 1893 'Egg of Columbus' used a rotating magnetic field to make what stand on end?

The stunt explained the principle behind his induction motor to a public that had never seen polyphase power.

What disaster struck Tesla's South Fifth Avenue laboratory in March 1895?

It destroyed years of notes, models and demonstration pieces; he told the Times 'I am in too much grief to talk'.

Which millionaire put $100,000 into the Nikola Tesla Company, funding his 1899 high-altitude experiments?

Tesla told reporters he planned to send wireless signals from Pikes Peak to Paris.

In 1899 Tesla claimed to have received strange signals that the press concluded came from where?

He wrote them up in a 1901 Collier's Weekly article called 'Talking With Planets'.

Tesla's bladeless turbine, first shown on his 50th birthday, eventually found commercial use in what?

He licensed the idea to a precision instrument company after tests at up to 5,000 horsepower went nowhere.

In 1912 Tesla proposed wiring schoolroom walls with high-frequency electricity in order to do what?

New York's schools superintendent provisionally approved the electric 'bath' plan.

Tesla's 1928 patent, one of his last, was for what kind of vehicle?

He imagined the tilting biplane selling for under $1,000; it was never built.

Tesla appeared on the cover of Time in 1931 to mark what occasion?

The party went so well he made it an annual press event, serving dishes of his own invention and increasingly baffling claims.

In 1937 the 81-year-old Tesla broke three ribs after being struck by what on a New York street?

He refused, as he had all his life, to see a doctor, and never fully recovered.

Which MIT professor examined Tesla's seized papers and found nothing 'hazardous'?

In a box supposedly holding part of the death ray he found a 45-year-old resistance box.

Which New York mayor read the eulogy at Tesla's 1943 funeral?

The service was held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine three days after his body was found.

In his later years the vegetarian Tesla lived on milk, bread, vegetable juices and what?

He also fired a secretary for being overweight and sent staff home to change their clothes.

Where did Tesla build its first Roadsters in 2008?

Production took place in the service bays; the Roadster was the first highway-legal production EV to use lithium-ion cells.

How large was the US Department of Energy loan Tesla received in January 2010?

The Loan Program Office money supported US-made clean energy manufacturing; Tesla's IPO followed later that year at $17 a share.

Who succeeded Ze'ev Drori as Tesla's CEO in October 2008?

Marks had been interim CEO in 2007; Musk had by then put $70 million of his own money into the company.

Which German carmaker bought a stake of under 10% in Tesla in May 2009?

Daimler sold 40% of the stake to Abu Dhabi's Aabar within two months and cashed out the rest in 2014 for a reported $780 million.

Which car did the Model Y outsell in early 2023 to become the world's best-selling car?

It was the first electric vehicle to claim the title.

At what share price did Musk's 2018 tweet say he was considering taking Tesla private?

The 'funding secured' claim proved false; the SEC fined Musk $20 million and forced him to step down as chairman.

Tesla's Megafactory near Lathrop, California, builds which product?

The site was a former JC Penney distribution center acquired in 2021.

What do the numbers in Tesla's 4680 battery cell name refer to?

Introduced in 2021, the 46 mm by 80 mm cylindrical cells are built by Tesla itself and used in the Model Y and Cybertruck from Gigafactory Texas.