It has been a long-standing theory that Tesla’s logo is not just a fancy ‘T’, but that it actually represents the cross-section of an electric motor first designed by the company’s namesake, physicist and inventor Nikola Tesla. The automaker’s CEO, Elon Musk, finally confirmed the theory last week.

Musk had already disclosed that the same firm (RO Studio) that designed the logo for SpaceX, his rocket company, also made the logo for Tesla. The logo was first made to fit inside a shield emblem, but the company eventually lost the shield to only keep the logo.

The CEO said that the firm even introduced him to Franz von Holzhausen, Mazda’s Director of Design at the time, who ended up joining Tesla and becoming Chief Designer.

Considering von Holzhausen ended up leading the design of all of Tesla’s products since, including the flagship Model S, it’s safe to say that the firm had a bigger impact on Tesla than simply its logo.

On Twitter last week, Musk confirmed that the logo is indeed the cross-section of an electric motor.

@UKPJD Similar to SpaceX, the T is like a cross section of an electric motor, just as the X is like a rocket trajectory — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 19, 2017

Tesla uses AC induction motors in its vehicles and while the company’s engineers have, of course, changed the design of the motors, it is still based on work done over 100 years ago by Nikola Tesla, which is partly why founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning named their company after him.

And now we learn that the very same motor is also part of the logo. The more you know…

Picture via Daniel Fourie on Quora

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