Tesla Started With One Electric Car That Beat Supercars

In 2004, a yellow electric sports car pulled up to Elon Musk's warehouse office in California and changed automotive history forever.

The tZero didn't look like much, but engineer Alan Cocconi had built something extraordinary. This electric roadster could accelerate so hard that passengers literally couldn't reach forward to touch the dashboard when the driver floored it.

Tom Gage, Cocconi's business partner, had driven the tZero from AC Propulsion to meet Musk at SpaceX headquarters. He wanted to prove that electric cars didn't have to be slow golf carts.

The tZero had just beaten a Dodge Viper in four out of five drag races. Gage lost the fifth race only because he was carrying a 300-pound cameraman.

A year earlier, Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard had been driving the same yellow roadster up and down Sand Hill Road, giving joyrides to venture capitalists. Most VCs who rode in the tZero were stunned. Many owned Ferraris and Lamborghinis but had never imagined an electric car could perform like this.

At Buck's of Woodside restaurant, a popular hangout for tech entrepreneurs, Eberhard showed off the tZero's incredible acceleration. Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were there that December day in 2003. They immediately thought of someone who might be interested: a PayPal cofounder who loved fast cars and had just sold his company for $1.5 billion.

When Gage emailed Musk in January 2004, the response came quickly. "Sure, I would really enjoy seeing it," Musk wrote back, adding a challenge: "Don't think it could beat my McLaren (yet) though."

Musk owned a million-dollar McLaren F1, one of only 64 in the world. He had never publicly expressed interest in building cars. But after experiencing the tZero's jet-like acceleration, everything changed.

Why This Inspires

The tZero proved that electric vehicle technology was ready years before anyone thought possible. While major automakers were abandoning their EV programs and California's emissions rules were being weakened, a small team of engineers showed the world what was actually achievable.

That yellow roadster became the template for Tesla's first production car, the Roadster. The engineers behind the tZero didn't just build a fast car. They sparked a movement that's now transforming transportation worldwide, cutting emissions, and proving that clean technology doesn't mean compromise.

Today, millions of electric vehicles cruise our roads, and the tZero sits in automotive history as the forgotten hero that started it all.