We've talked about various electric vehicles here on LIME.com — the 300 mpg Aptera [0], small neighborhood cars [0], and even motorcycles and scooters [0]. But we really haven't given much play to the granddaddy of ‘em all: the Tesla. Since David Letterman had Tesla co-founder (and PayPal co-founder and SpaceX [1] founder) Elon Musk on his show last week, we thought maybe it was time to do a little rundown on this snazzy auto company.

So in true Letterman style, here are the top 10 things you should know about the Tesla:

10. Tesla Motors was created in 2003 in Silicon Valley with a mission to make zero-emissions electric cars a viable mainstream enterprise. Their approach? Skip the functional and go for sexy. So instead of designing a workaday vehicle, they went straight for a sports car: the Tesla Roadster.

9. The Roadster goes 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. It can travel a maximum of 244 miles on a single charge.

8. The Roadster carries an enthusiast's price tag: $101,500.

7. A first, limited edition "Signature One Hundred" set of Roadsters went on sale in 2006.

6. Customers had to pay full price for the special edition vehicles, with no firm delivery date.

5. The Signature series sold out in three weeks.

4. The first Roadsters weren't delivered until last year.

3. Tesla started taking orders for a new model, the Roadster Sport, in January. Deliveries begin in July.

2. A Model S sedan, selling for $49,000, is in the works. It won't be available until 2012. Over 500 customers have made deposits already.

1.  As of February, about 200 Teslas were on the road. Over 1,000 customers were still waiting patiently for their cars.

So who says sex doesn't sell?

Now, if only we could figure out how to dress up a cap-and-trade system in a bikini...

In the meantime, here's the Letterman interview: