Beyond the show — Tesla · Elon Musk · 2006

Your mission is a car for everyone. Your prototype is a two-seat sports car that will have to sell for around $100,000. What do you build first?

You are the chairman and largest shareholder of a three-year-old car company with about a hundred employees and no revenue. Martin Eberhard is the chief executive. The team has built a working prototype on a Lotus Elise chassis, powered by about 6,800 laptop cells, and it does 0–60 in under four seconds. Lithium-ion cells cost roughly $1,000 per kilowatt-hour, so the battery alone in a long-range car costs more than most new cars sell for. General Motors crushed its EV1 three years ago and the industry's settled view is that electric cars are golf carts with good publicity. The mission you have stated publicly is to move the world to sustainable transport, which means a car ordinary people can afford. You have raised around $60 million and will need a great deal more.

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