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70 free Tesla trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Tesla trivia quiz covers both things people mean by the name. The first half is Nikola Tesla: his birth in Smiljan, the AC induction motor licensed by Westinghouse, the Niagara Falls contract, the Colorado Springs experiments, the radio-controlled boat at Madison Square Garden, Wardenclyffe Tower and J. P. Morgan, the pigeons, the New Yorker Hotel and the SI unit named for him in 1960. The second half is Tesla, Inc.: its 2003 founding by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, Elon Musk's arrival, the Lotus-based Roadster, the Model S, the falcon-wing Model X, the Model 3 and Y, the stainless-steel Cybertruck, the Fremont plant bought from Toyota, the Gigafactories, the Supercharger network, the Roadster launched into space and the trillion-dollar milestones. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer has been checked against a reliable source.
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Q 01Nikola Tesla is best known for his contributions to which electricity supply system?
Alternating current
His AC induction motor and polyphase patents, licensed by Westinghouse in 1888, became the backbone of the modern grid and put him on the opposite side of the 'war of the currents' from Edison.
Q 02In which present-day country was Nikola Tesla born in 1856?
Croatia
Smiljan was then in the Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire.
Q 03Which company licensed Tesla's polyphase induction motor patents in 1888?
Westinghouse Electric
Westinghouse used the system to win the contract to harness Niagara Falls.
Q 04At which 1898 New York exhibition did Tesla show a radio-controlled boat, his 'telautomaton'?
Madison Square Garden
It was one of the first wirelessly controlled vehicles ever built. Some spectators suspected a trained monkey inside.
Q 05In which Rocky Mountain city did Tesla set up a high-altitude experimental station in 1899?
Colorado Springs
He was studying the conductivity of low-pressure air and produced artificial lightning bolts that reportedly knocked out the local power station.
Q 06What was Wardenclyffe Tower, built on Long Island in 1901-02?
A wireless transmission station
It was demolished in 1917, and a museum campaign bought the site in 2013.
Q 07Which financier backed Wardenclyffe in exchange for a 51 percent share of any wireless patents?
J. P. Morgan
After the project collapsed Tesla kept writing to Morgan for money, and after Morgan's death he tried his son Jack.
Q 08Which rival beat Tesla in December 1901 by transmitting the letter S across the Atlantic?
Guglielmo Marconi
Tesla believed Marconi's system copied his own patents. The U.S. Supreme Court partly vindicated Tesla's radio patents in 1943, months after his death.
Q 09Which famous author became a close friend of Tesla in middle age and spent time in his lab?
Mark Twain
A photo shows Twain holding one of Tesla's glowing lamps.
Q 10Where in New York did Tesla live from 1934 until his death in 1943?
The Hotel New Yorker
He had left a trail of unpaid hotel bills, including at the Waldorf-Astoria, where he once wined and dined investors. He died there in January 1943 of coronary thrombosis.
Q 11In his last years Tesla spoke of a special bond with what kind of animal that visited him?
A white pigeon
He fed the birds in Bryant Park daily and said one injured white pigeon visited him and that he loved her 'as a man loves a woman.'
Q 12In 1960 the tesla was adopted as the SI unit of what?
Magnetic flux density
Slovenian engineer France Avčin proposed the name. The older CGS equivalent is the gauss; one tesla equals 10,000 gauss.
Q 13Roughly how many patents did Tesla obtain worldwide?
About 300
They ranged from an improved DC generator to the induction motor and radio-frequency devices. He signed away many of them for stock and lost control of them.
Q 21Which Tesla won Motor Trend's Car of the Year in 2013?
Model S
The sedan entered production in 2012. Its 2021 refresh added the three-motor Plaid version.
Q 22Which Tesla is known for its 'falcon wing' rear doors?
Model X
The SUV was developed from the Model S platform and began production in 2015.
Q 23Which Tesla is described as the best-selling electric vehicle of all time?
Model Y
Presented in March 2019 as the company's fifth production model, the crossover has sold more than two million units.
Q 24The Cybertruck's angular body panels are made of what material?
Q 14In what year did Tesla design the resonant transformer now known as the Tesla coil?
1891
He used it to produce high-voltage, high-frequency currents for his lighting and wireless experiments; today it is a science-museum staple.
Q 15At which 1893 event did Westinghouse show off Tesla's AC system, helping win the Niagara Falls contract?
The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago
Edward Dean Adams of the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company sought Tesla's advice, and Westinghouse got the job of building a two-phase AC generating system.
Q 16Which two men incorporated Tesla Motors in July 2003?
Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning
Eberhard was CEO and Tarpenning CFO. A 2009 legal settlement lets five people, including Musk, Wright and Straubel, call themselves co-founders.
Q 17How did Elon Musk originally become involved with the company?
He led its 2004 funding round and became chairman
He put in $6.5 million of the $7.5 million Series A, using money from selling his PayPal stake, and became CEO in 2008.
Q 18The first-generation Tesla Roadster was built on the chassis of which British sports car?
Lotus Elise
About 2,450 were sold in more than 30 countries. It was the first highway-legal production EV with lithium-ion cells and a range over 200 miles.
Q 19Tesla's 2010 IPO made it the first American car company to go public since which automaker in 1956?
Ford
Shares debuted on the Nasdaq on June 29, 2010, at $17.
Q 20From which automaker did Tesla buy the former NUMMI plant in Fremont for $42 million in 2010?
Toyota
NUMMI had been a GM-Toyota joint venture. The Fremont Factory remains Tesla's first major assembly plant.
Unpainted stainless steel
Unveiled in November 2019 at Tesla's design studio next to SpaceX headquarters, its look drew comparisons to low-polygon computer models. Deliveries began in 2023.
Q 25What voltage does the Cybertruck's low-voltage electrical system run on, unusually for a car?
48 volts
Most cars use 12-volt systems. The higher voltage feeds steer-by-wire actuators, pumps, wipers and the touchscreen with thinner wiring.
Q 26Which SpaceX rocket carried Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space in February 2018?
Falcon Heavy
The car, with a spacesuited mannequin called Starman at the wheel, was the test flight's dummy payload and now orbits the Sun.
Q 27Which Japanese electronics company agreed in 2014 to invest in Tesla's Nevada battery Gigafactory?
Panasonic
The plant near Sparks was estimated to cost $5 billion and makes battery cells and packs.
Q 28Gigafactory Shanghai, begun in 2019, was notable as the first Chinese car plant to be what?
Fully owned by a foreign company
Previous foreign automakers in China had been required to operate through joint ventures.
Q 29Which vehicle did Gigafactory Berlin begin producing in March 2022?
Model Y
The plant broke ground in February 2020 in Grünheide, near Berlin, over the objections of local environmental groups.
Q 30Which solar company did Tesla acquire in an all-stock deal in November 2016?
SolarCity
The roughly $2 billion purchase, of a company run by Musk's cousins, moved Tesla into solar panels and roof shingles.