The electric car is older than the car as we know it. Many New York taxis at the end of the 19th century, Ferdinand Porsche's 1898 Lohner-Porsche, the Detroit Electric beloved by early-1900s women drivers — all were electric. With the 1908 Ford Model T, cheap petrol, longer range and the electric starter motor handed the race to internal combustion. For a century electric experiments stayed niche (GM EV1, 1996-99: lease-only, then recalled and crushed) or remained expensive enthusiast projects. This changed in the 21st century when three forces converged: a 97% fall in lithium-ion battery cost from 1991 to 2020, the rise of the software-defined vehicle, and climate policy.

Tesla Motors, founded in 2003, was initially a project of Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning; Elon Musk led the $6.5 million Series A in 2004 and became chairman by 2008. The first car was the Tesla Roadster (2008-2012, ~2,450 units), built on a Lotus Elise chassis and powered by 6,831 laptop-style 18650 cells. The Roadster proved the concept; the Model S redrew the industry. Musk, by then also running SpaceX, treated the car as a software product: a single large touchscreen, overnight over-the-air updates, retracting door handles, an all-aluminium body, and the battery laid flat beneath the floor (which is why a trunk plus front trunk, the 'frunk', became possible). The 'signature series' Model S cars handed out at the 22 June 2012 Fremont delivery ceremony went to early Roadster investors from 2007-2009 — the photos of those red sedans lined up at the factory record one of the rare transitional moments in automotive history.

What truly broke the mould was the ecosystem. Charging — 'range anxiety' — could not be solved at home; long-distance travel needed fast top-ups. In September 2012 Tesla launched the Supercharger network in California with six stations; by the end of 2024 over 6,700 stations and more than 60,000 stalls worldwide turned EV ownership from a freestanding ecosystem into a coherent service. The Model 3, unveiled in 2017, pushed beyond the luxury segment into mass market: 100,000+ pre-orders in its first year, the world's best-selling electric car by 2023. Tesla grew from 100 cars a year in 2008 to 1.8 million in 2023; its market capitalisation crossed $1 trillion in 2021, larger by itself than Toyota, VW, GM, Ford and Stellantis combined.

The wider effect was on Tesla's rivals. In China BYD moved from PHEVs to pure EVs from 2008; by 2023 it overtook Tesla in global EV sales. Volkswagen, after the 2015 'Dieselgate' scandal, put electrification at the centre of its strategy with an €80 billion investment programme to 2025. In Norway 89% of new cars sold in 2024 were fully electric; the share crossed 25% in China and 15% in the EU. The United Kingdom legislated a 2030 ban on new internal-combustion passenger cars, the EU set 2035 (softened somewhat at end-2024 but the frame held). Open criticisms remain: the ethical and environmental cost of lithium, cobalt and nickel extraction; whether grid capacity can scale fast enough; the crashes and lawsuits around the inflated claims of Tesla's driver-assist systems (Autopilot/Full Self-Driving). Even so, 22 June 2012 sits with Ford's moving assembly line (1913) and the Volkswagen Beetle (1938) as a turning point in automotive history: the red sedans that rolled out of Fremont that morning marked the beginning of the end of the internal combustion engine's hundred-year monopoly.