You see a T there. Elon Musk’s detractors see a vagina there. Pranksters like to see a cat’s snout. But on the Tesla logo, the truth is elsewhere.
When I was little, like many kids I imagine, I played in the car recognizing the logos of the cars we passed. If at the time there had been as many Teslas on the roads as in 2024, I would definitely have remembered the name behind the logo, but I am sure I would have called it the “T logo”. A T, Tesla, nothing more obvious.
And yet, those who only see this T, the nose of a cat or, sometimes, a vagina, are wrong. Few people know the real meaning behind this now iconic symbol which hides a deeper meaning related to electrical engineering.
A very practical technical origin
The Tesla logo, designed by RO Studio, a design company also behind SpaceX and its Falcon rockets, represents a rotor of an electric motor. Hey no, it’s not a rim. If we take a closer look at an electric motor in cross section, we will notice that the central part of the rotor has a circular shape with several slots. If we take just one of these notches, we come across… Tesla’s T. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, confirmed in his first biography by Ashlee Vance that the logo symbolizes a section of an electric motor, with the upper part of the “T” representing one of the poles of that motor.
Well, we’re not going to lie, you still have to squint your eyes a lot to see it, as you can notice on the sectional diagram of an engine from a scientific article.
The little visualization that we created perhaps allows us to see things more clearly.
In short, a good stroke of luck to have a T in the essential component of an electric car, designed by Nikola Tesla himself, which Tesla (the brand) has participated in improving in recent years. Simply put, the logo embodies both the Tesla name and the company’s mission to revolutionize the automotive industry by moving from traditional internal combustion engines to cleaner, more efficient electric motors.
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