A decade ago, almost no-one had heard of Tesla – today, everybody knows of the brand. But the headlines around the pioneering US giant are polarising – yes, the company is the leading electric car manufacturer in the market with much innovation behind it, but it is also the car maker that many love to hate.
Much of this is due to the fact that Tesla is led by a figure who has attracted his own controversy. While calling himself a co-founder, Elon Musk did not start Tesla but he has masterminded the phenomenal growth of the brand, earning many enemies along the way. Now he’s earning even more working for the country as a whole, as effectively the right-hand man of US president Donald Trump.
Tesla is feeling the effect of Musk’s government work, while also attracting more basic criticism for its becoming dated range and new models that are yet to appear years after they were announced. And at the same time, its status as the electric vehicle standard bearer is under sustained attack, with Chinese brand BYD leading the way.
More than ever, observers are asking whether Tesla – anything but a normal car company – can keep ahead of the increasing pressure on its position, or whether its decline will be as fast as its rise…
So who or what is Tesla?
A fact that may surprise many is that Elon Musk did not found Tesla. The company, with a name playing tribute to AC electricity pioneer Nicola Tesla, was the brainwave of engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Musk came on board eight months later when he masterminded the first tranche of investment, and took the role of chairman.
In 2008 Musk added the role of CEO, at the same time as Tesla started building its first car, the Roadster. By this time, the two founders were both out of the company, and lawsuits followed. Over the first year Tesla delivered 147 cars, with the funding to build them including $70 million put in by Musk.
In 2010 Tesla went public, the first US car firm to go onto the NASDAQ stock exchange since Ford in 1956, and purchased a plant from Toyota in California. Here, it started making the Model S saloon, which launched in 2012 and was an immediate success. In 2015 and 2016, it was the world’s best-selling EV despite also being the most expensive.
No surprise that when Tesla launched its third model, the Model X, SUV in 2015, some 25,000 eager buyers pre-ordered it. But this success was dwarfed by the company’s first mass-market more affordable model, the Model 3, which launched in 2016 on the back of 325,000 paid deposits. The unprecedented level of demand, however, resulted in production pressures, a heavy investment in robotics on the production line actually making things worse. Only once these issues were solved did the Model 3 really make its mark, topping global EV sales for four straight years between 2018 and 2021.
Tesla also gave itself a major advantage with potential customers by setting up its own high-powered ‘Supercharger’ networks in every market it launched. Sited at such prime locations as motorway service areas, and exclusively for the use of Tesla drivers, they really helped drive potential electric vehicle switchers towards the company’s products.
During the Model 3 production issues Musk suggested on social media platform Twitter, (which he later bought) that he might take Tesla private again. The lawsuits that followed forced him to step down as chairman and earned him a $20 million fine, but it was a mere hiccup – by 2020. Tesla was the sixth most valuable company in the US and the most valuable car maker around the globe.
The success continued with the Model Y, launched in 2019 as effectively a crossover version of the Model 3. And Teslas were now being produced in more plants, with factories in America, Germany and China – as of 2025 another is planned for Mexico.
In more recent times, however, the market has been less kind to Tesla. Its most recent new models have been a truck cab called the Semi, and a futuristic-looking pick-up style vehicle dubbed the Cybertruck (which is not coming to the UK). But promised major updates to the car range have been repeatedly delayed at a time when rivals are increasingly refining their electric offerings to take some of Tesla’s market. And while the ‘legacy’ manufacturers are now offering very effective EVs of their own, it’s an even newer name, Chinese giant BYD, that’s proven to be the biggest threat, overtaking Tesla as the world’s largest maker of ‘new-energy’ vehicles.
Tesla’s entire history has been somewhat chequered, with controversies ranging from worker issues to social-media fuelled ill-informed hype suggesting the company’s models routinely catch fire – but it is Musk’s current headline role in Donald Trump’s government that could have the biggest effect yet on his car company. Tesla cars have been targeted with stickers and protests staged outside dealers, even in the UK, as part of an anti-Musk campaign dubbed the ‘Tesla Take-down’.
Tesla is still a hugely valuable company, worth more than a trillion dollars, but it has seen 15% wiped from its stock market value since Musk became a White House regular and, in 2024, sales dropped for the first time, albeit to a mere 1.79 million cars from 1.81 million in 2023. This is one car manufacturer for which the future is very hard to predict.
What models does Tesla have and what else is coming?
Tesla currently has a five-strong model range, although only two of those cars are generally available in the UK.
The Model Y is the company’s biggest-selling car, a mid-sized crossover that arrived in 2022. It was the world’s best-selling car of any kind (not just EVs) in 2023, and is regarded as the car other electric rivals have to beat. An updated version is set to arrive on UK roads in the next few weeks after being announced over winter.
The Model Y is based on the Model 3 saloon and is effectively a smaller sibling to the Model X, Tesla’s large crossover that is now only available as a special order (and in left-hand drive) in the UK. Its technology, performance and battery range of more than 300 miles endear it to many buyers, and it enjoys an Expert Rating of A from The Car Expert’s award-winning Expert Rating Index.
The Model 3 first arrived in the UK in 2019 and is an electric entrant in the hugely competitive upmarket saloon sector, taking on such heavyweight rivals as the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Heavily updated in 2023, it too earns an A-level Expert Rating though some of its ergonomics leave reviewers a little bemused.
The Model X is a large SUV seating up to seven and has been on European sale since 2016. It is now only available as a special order for UK buyers, and only in left-hand-drive form, which very much limits its sales numbers. Many issues with build quality and reliability in its early years (an accusation quite often levelled at Tesla) have limited its Expert Rating to a B.
Tesla’s flagship remains the Model S large saloon. This car, more than any other, is credited with changing the image of the EV and setting off the switch to electrification. It’s now a rather elderly flagship, having been on sale since 2014, although like all Teslas, it has enjoyed regular manufacturing and ‘over-the-air’ software updates to keep it reasonably fresh. Like the Model X, it’s now only available in the UK in left-hand drive and via special order. It has also had its share of quality and reliability gripes over the years, but manages to maintain an Expert Rating A grade.
Finally, there is the (in)famous Cybertruck. The angular large pick-up is not available in the UK and is unlikely to ever be officially sold here. As well as not being available in right-hand drive, the Cybertruck doesn’t meet UK or European safety laws – among other reasons, its sharp corners are not particularly pedestrian-friendly – so don’t expect to see one hanging around the school gates anytime soon.
Current Tesla range on our Expert Rating Index
What’s coming next from Tesla is not that easy to predict – Elon Musk has repeatedly promised various new models that have failed to appear or run several years late. A more affordable model, often referred to as the Model 2 or Model Q, has long been rumoured, but it is also reported to have been abandoned.
A second-generation Roadster was unveiled in 2017 but has still to go on sale eight year later. Meanwhile, there are plans for driverless models
Where can I try a Tesla car?
Tesla’s UK dealers are called ‘Stores’ and there are rather fewer compared to more mainstream car manufacturers. The network totals just less than 50 outlets, including a couple of ‘pop-ups’ established in major shopping centres.
Generally they are well spread around the country with unsurprisingly a more dense cluster in London and the southeast. You’ll only have to travel quite a distance to drive a Tesla if you live deep within Wales, in the Scottish Highlands or in northern Ireland, in which case you will need a ferry to Liverpool and a train to Chester…
What makes Tesla different to the rest?
Tesla could not be more different to other automobile manufacturers, effectively a Silicon Valley tech centre that happens to make and sell cars. The whole different attitude to the market displayed by the brand is perhaps eloquently summed up by the button adding extra performance on its cars, which is officially called ‘Ludicrous Mode’ – not a nickname, it’s stated that way in the manual…
For many years, buyers of a Tesla were also buying into an automotive revolution, pioneering the switch to electric in a way that for a long time proved alien to its rivals.
A Tesla fact to impress your friends
Elon Musk has never been slow to embrace a publicity stunt and, as a result, Tesla is the only car manufacturer in space…
In February 2018, Tesla’s boss dressed a mannequin in a spacesuit and put into the driving seat of a Tesla Roadster, which he then launched as a dummy load on a test flight for the Falcon Heavy Booster rocket produced by another of his companies, SpaceX.
Car and mannequin, dubbed ‘Starman’, have been orbiting the sun ever since…
Summary
If there’s one comment to be made about Tesla is that life around this manufacturer is never dull. The company has achieved jaw-dropping sales in a very short period and, in the process, earned a status as the one brand that truly changed the transition to electric motoring from dream to reality.
The problem for Tesla is that having become a mainstream brand, it is now facing competition from rivals who have learnt about this new way of doing cars and combined this knowledge with their many years of expertise in the market.
The threat to Tesla’s electric vehicle dominance, from both ‘legacy’ brands and new Chinese challengers, has never been greater, and the company will have to fight off these rivals while also dealing with a litany of internal controversies, which, thanks mainly to its chief executive, have now reached fever pitch.
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