What Does the Tesla Logo Mean?

The most solid explanation comes from the company's chief executive. Replying to a follower on Twitter in January 2017, Musk said the T is like a cross-section of an electric motor, in the same way the X in the SpaceX logo is like a rocket trajectory. Press coverage of the exchange, including Electrek, spelled it out: the stem of the T stands for one pole of the rotor, the spinning part, and the thin arc above it stands for a piece of the stator, the fixed part around it. Repeat the letter in a circle with the tops facing outward and you get something like the outline of a motor.

That fits the brand. Tesla's early cars used an AC induction motor, and the company is named for the man who developed one. Wikipedia says the copper rotor of the older design of Tesla's induction motor inspired the logo. Motor designs vary, so treat the picture as a simplified idea of a motor, not an engineering drawing.

The red T is built from separate pieces. A thin curved band floats above the crossbar with a white gap between them. The crossbar itself curves down at both ends and has a V-shaped notch at the center, where the stem meets it. The stem tapers toward a point at the bottom. Using Musk's explanation, the stem is the rotor pole and the floating arc is the stator segment, which is why the arc is drawn as a detached stroke.

The wide, evenly spaced TESLA capitals that sit under the logo and on the back of the Roadster are a separate element. The sources used here do not name a typeface for them.

Tesla Motors was incorporated on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The earliest logo in our archive, dated 2004, is a chrome shield with the TESLA wordmark across the top, a small TM mark and a T beneath it. The same period also produced a black outline shield and a black T cut free of the shield. A Tesla Motors lockup pairs a small shield with the full company name.

The 2007 set in the archive drops the shield and its border and keeps the T in red, with a version that adds a small TESLA wordmark underneath. The company dropped "Motors" from its name in February 2017. No designer is credited for either version in the sources used here, so this page does not name one.

Tesla has never published a reason for the red. Common readings, such as energy or speed, are interpretation, not statements from the company. The earlier shield used chrome silver and a dark navy, so red arrived with the standalone T. The sampled value from the archive file is #E82127, but that is a measurement of a logo file, not an official brand spec.

The name is different. It honors the inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, who developed an AC induction motor in 1887. He had no role in the company.