Greentech Media

Tesla employees roll the company's first production electric Roadster out of the trailer.

Tesla Chairman Elon Musk, also the founder of PayPal and SpaceX, admires his new car.

The first production car, called P1, gets pushed into a Tesla work bay.

A crowd of press watches as employees push the P1 into a Tesla building in San Carlos, Calif.

Tesla technicians prepare the car for its battery pack, moving the suspension out of the way, tying back some electrical components out of the way and running a round of quality checks.

Tesla technicians install this 1,000-pound battery pack, which consists of 6,831 laptop-sized lithium-ion cells, in a two-hour process. "It's a very exciting time," said Erik Toomre, director of manufacturing programs. "There's no doubt in my mind that we have a huge competitive advantage in how we make these packs." The company's battery business has been put on hold as it focuses on getting the Roadster out.

Champagne flowed as the car began to move. Tesla employees take the car, with its battery pack installed, for the first test drive. "That's pretty sweet," Musk said as the car pulled up in front of him.

Tesla employees looked on, making jokes like "Don't push that button!" as Musk hopped in and took the car for a speedy spin. "So much for breaking it in," said JB Straubel, Tesla's CTO.

A group of the team members that worked on Tesla's battery pack, or energy-storage system (EES), jumped into the startup's prototypes to follow Musk in a parade to Stanford University and back. The majority of the team members who worked on Tesla's EES are Stanford grads, said Colette Niazmond, an operations manager at Tesla.

The jet-black P1 speeds off, followed by the prototype parade.