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Did Nikola Tesla make an electric car?
Elon Musk has said that he named his company after Nikola Tesla, an inventor from the 1800s. Did Nikola Tesla ever make an electric car?
Marlee John · Updated on
Reviewed by Shannon Martin, Licensed Insurance Agent.
Excellent question! It was rumored but never confirmed that Nikola Tesla made an electric car, but he did, however, invent the first alternating current (AC) current motor which is now a standard for modern electronics.
Elon Musk named his company after the Serbian-American inventor, Nikola Tesla in order to bring more attention to his name and scientific contributions. Tesla’s AC motor and the AC generation and transmission technologies are big keystones used in Tesla vehicles and other
electric cars
.Nikola Tesla—a pioneer of electrical engineering—was actually a contemporary and employee of Thomas Edison, the inventor of the lightbulb and the film camera. The two had different methods of approaching electrical engineering, while Tesla was more academically trained, Edison was much more dependent upon trial and error.
The two fell out when Tesla invited the AC motor in contrast to Edison’s existing direct current (DC) motor. Although Nikola Tesla looked up to him greatly, Edison wanted his way to be the “right” and in innovation and life in general, there is never really a “right” way.
There is a myth that Nikola Tesla created the electric car without batteries in it, however, among all his remaining notes of his inventions, this was never listed or described
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