Tesla

Tesla's stated mission is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. That's shown up in a lot more than just cars: the Model 3 became one of the best-selling vehicles in the world regardless of fuel type, the Supercharger network turned "range anxiety" from a real concern into a mostly solved problem, and Tesla's energy division (Powerwall for homes, Megapack for utility-scale grid storage) is quietly doing as much for the electric grid as the cars are doing for the road.

See the Tesla timeline: every model, when it launched, and its key feature →

Powerwall

Tesla's home battery has quietly become one of its biggest wins — over 1 million Powerwalls installed worldwide. The basic idea is simple: it stores energy so you're not stuck using electricity the moment it's generated or the moment you need it. In practice that plays out a few different ways depending on what you've got it paired with:

• Time-of-use savings — charge the Powerwall overnight when electricity is cheap, then run the house off it during expensive peak hours instead of buying grid power at the higher rate. Tesla estimates this can save $400–$900 a year depending on your utility's rate structure.
• Solar + storage — pair it with rooftop solar and the panels charge the Powerwall during the day instead of the excess just feeding back to the grid, so you're running on your own stored solar power at night.
• Charging your EV — same idea extended one step further: solar charges the Powerwall, and the Powerwall (or the solar directly) charges your Tesla, so a chunk of your driving ends up running on sunlight instead of grid power.
• Backup power — one Powerwall (13.5 kWh usable) can run critical loads like a fridge, lights, and WiFi for roughly 30–35 hours during an outage. Add something power- hungry like an AC unit and that drops to more like 8–10 hours — it's genuinely useful backup, not unlimited backup.

Solar Roof: the one that didn't work out

Not every Tesla product sticks around. The Solar Roof — the actual roof shingles that doubled as solar panels, first shown off back in 2016 — was discontinued in August 2026. Tesla told installers it wasn't economically viable and stopped taking new orders, redirecting its solar page to a conventional rooftop solar panel line instead (an all-black panel launched in January 2026, built at Tesla's Buffalo, New York factory, designed to pair with Powerwall). Existing Solar Roof installations are still under warranty, but the product itself is done. Worth knowing if you've seen the old ads and wondered whatever happened to it — it's a real example of a Musk product that just didn't pan out.

Full Self-Driving

Tesla's been pushing harder than almost anyone on autonomous driving software, trained on real-world driving data from its entire fleet rather than a small test fleet in one city. It's still evolving and still requires driver attention, but it's one of the most-watched autonomy programs in the industry.

Tesla Semi

The one people forget Tesla even makes: a fully electric Class 8 semi truck, in volume production at Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory since fall 2026, with a long-term target of 50,000 trucks a year. There are two versions — a Standard Range model rated for 325 miles at the full 82,000-lb hauling weight while staying under 20,000 lbs empty, and a Long Range version stretching to 500 miles at the cost of roughly 3,000 extra pounds of curb weight. Both charge on Tesla's 1.2 megawatt Megacharger system, built to add hundreds of miles of range in the time it takes for a driver's mandated break.

PepsiCo is the marquee early customer, already running Semis in real operations: Frito-Lay snack loads travel around 425 miles per trip, while heavier Pepsi beverage loads run shorter routes of about 100 miles. It's not a concept truck doing demo laps — it's hauling actual chips and soda on actual delivery routes today.

On the durability question specifically: Tesla powertrain engineer Dan Priestley said on Jay Leno's Garage in March 2026 that the Semi's battery pack is designed to last a million miles — a real engineering claim from an actual Tesla engineer, not just marketing copy.

The Roadster: the car that jumps

Tesla first showed a second-generation Roadster back in 2017, then it went quiet for almost nine years. On October 15, 2026, in Waco, Texas, it finally came back, and not as an ordinary sports car. Developed together with SpaceX, it uses cold-gas thrusters, the same basic idea rockets use to steer in space, to launch itself into the air. On stage it hopped clean over a row of parked Teslas, and another prototype flipped in the air and landed upright. Nobody was inside for the stunts: the cars ran driverless, Musk said, "to make sure we don't kill anyone."

This was a long time coming. Back in 2018 Musk promised a "SpaceX option package" for the Roadster with about ten small cold-gas thrusters around the car. On Joe Rogan's podcast in February 2021 he said he wanted it to hover, "maybe a meter above the ground," and admitted they hadn't figured out how yet. Five years later, they showed it.

The jump was also a nod to Starman. In February 2018, SpaceX launched Musk's own cherry-red 2008 Roadster on the first Falcon Heavy, with a mannequin in a SpaceX spacesuit at the wheel. That car and its driver are still out there, circling the Sun.

Tesla is calling it a "flying car." For now it's fair to say it jumps; whether it will ever truly fly is still to be proven. Tesla showed three trims and claims mind-bending acceleration, but there's no price yet, and Musk says production won't start until 2028. The original 2008 Roadster was Tesla's very first car, so this one brings the story full circle, with a SpaceX twist.

Tesla's official livestream of the Roadster event. It starts at the jump; scroll back to watch the whole reveal.

Cybercab

Cybercab is Tesla's purpose-built robotaxi — no steering wheel, no pedals, designed from the ground up to drive itself rather than being a regular car with self-driving bolted on. As of October 2026 it's giving real rides: Cybercabs have joined Tesla's driverless fleet in Austin, Dallas is next, and Tesla says more cities will follow before the end of the year. Its robotaxis have driven nearly 2 million miles with nobody in the driver's seat. The volumes Tesla's planning for it are a big part of why chip supply has become an actual bottleneck for the company — see Terafab below.

Optimus

Tesla is also building Optimus, a general-purpose humanoid robot, using a lot of the same vision and battery technology developed for the cars. It's early — Optimus isn't a finished consumer product yet — but the long-term vision for what a household robot like this could eventually do is worth its own page.

In October 2026, Tesla said production-quality Optimus robots are coming off a Fremont line built for up to a million a year. Musk expects the ramp to be slow and "bumpy" at first. Getting to about 20,000 a week will take at least a year, and the first robots for outside companies could ship in about a year.

You can't order one yet, though: when a rumor said orders would open in December, Musk replied simply "No." Tesla hasn't opened reservations or announced a price, so the $20,000 figure you may see online is unconfirmed.

Read Roger's take on where Optimus could go next →

Between Cybercab and Optimus, Tesla's chip needs have gotten big enough to help drive a genuinely massive project — Terafab, a joint venture with SpaceX and xAI to build the world's largest chip fab.