In the summer of 2006, a little-known startup named Tesla Motors jumpstarted the modern-day electric vehicle industry. At the time, most people equated electric vehicles with golf carts: slow, clunky, and with limited functionality. GM had just scrapped its pioneering EV1, as chronicled in Chris Paine’s 2006 documentary, and it seemed like the future of high-efficiency cars was going to be cars that looked a lot like the fast-selling Toyota Prius.
Even then, Tesla had plans that went far beyond the Roadster. Two weeks later, Elon Musk posted the “ , but what I didn’t appreciate about this story until I researched the book is just how inauspicious the timing of the Roadster’s debut was. In the summer of 2006, the power of lithium-ion batteries had begun to draw public attention for a very different reason: they kept catching on fire.