Yahoo Autos See the second car Tesla made: an orange-striped Roadster with 'Mr. Tesla' plates that may be worth more than $200,000
Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard owns three Teslas, including a Roadster he drives every day.
Eberhard said he owns the second Tesla Roadster ever made.
The car has a vanity plate with the name "Mr. Tesla."
Tesla's cofounder and its first CEO, Martin Eberhard, who left the carmaker over a decade ago, owns three Teslas, including the second car the company ever made.
"I've been driving my Roadster continuously since I bought it," Eberhard told Insider in an interview.
Eberhard told Insider he owns two Tesla Roadsters and his wife owns a Model S. They are the only electric vehicles he owns and the primary vehicles he and his wife drive. Eberhard said he's collected other cars over the years, including a 1942 military Jeep.
Eberhard said the second-ever Roadster, made in 2008, was painted in custom colors designed to differentiate it as "made for the founder of the company."
Elon Musk, an investor and Tesla board member at the time, got the first Tesla ever made. He also sent another Tesla Roadster into space on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Eberhard told Insider that he now keeps the car under a cover in his garage and drives another Roadster he bought from a used-car lot six or seven years ago.
"If I sold it, I'd probably make some good money, but I'm not selling it," Eberhard said of his original Roadster. "My son has his eye on inheriting that from me," he joked.
The Tesla cofounder said he occasionally takes the Roadster out for car shows, including the annual Roadster Rally.
Tesla first released the Roadster in 2008. It was built on the chassis of a Lotus Elise — a tiny British sports car that Tesla remade into an electric car with a lithium-ion battery.
The car had a range of just over 240 miles and sold for around $100,000. Tesla produced fewer than 2,500 Roadsters between 2008 and 2012. Today, the cars have become top collectors' items and have sold individually for over $200,000.
