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2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

447 points by chanux 14y ago

nealabq 14y ago
When will the Google self-driving fleet include a Tesla?
- elchief 14y ago
  Tesla is actually the perfect partner for google's robocars, as the other big manufacturers are bound to lose from declining number of autos, tesla could in fact gain.
- timdorr 14y ago
  Considering both Sergey Brin and Larry Page are investors in Tesla, I would think that's a distinct possibility.
- bobbles 14y ago
  Self driving, electric car that goes and finds a charging station, re-charges and returns while I eat some pancakes? Yes please!
chanux 14y ago
Did I see user emails in comments there?
tocomment 14y ago
Is that why TSLA stock is up today?
- zalew 14y ago
  doubtful. it's not a real award like COTY or International Engine Of The Year.
  - jeremyarussell 14y ago
    Err, exactly what makes those awards more real? Just how many people would concede the point?
    - zalew 14y ago
      these are the world's most recognized awards for production cars, so they are the ones that could affect the stock price, if any. they are not a single national magazine's editors recognition.
      - jeremyarussell 14y ago
        So yes was the answer. PS: Err it looked like ALL the editors of the magazine had only good things to say about the car. I digress though seeing as to how it's a popularity contest in any case.
- mncolinlee 14y ago
  I would guess a mix of the positive jobs report and short covering from margin calls is at fault. Right-leaning investors have seemed to want the company to fail for months, but Tesla is looking resilient with their good backlog and a strong economy. They're paying back their DOE loan early.
  - tocomment 14y ago
    What do you mean by short covering from margin calls? What's causing the margin calls?
    - mncolinlee 14y ago
      You can only "short" a stock by borrowing the shares using margin. (Put options are another way, but that is actually a side bet, not the same as short selling.) If you exceed the margin requirements because the stock price rises i.e. you owe more than you have capital and credit on hand, your brokerage may force you to "cover" or buy the underlying stock at the current market price. They do this to "call in" your debt to them. This is referred to as a "margin call." When a lot of short margin calls happen all at once, this is called a "short squeeze" because it squeezes more short sellers into covering by buying the stock at the current market price, which in turn causes the price to rise and squeeze other investors. In the case of Tesla, the stock is not very liquid. At the current volume, it would take thirty days for all short investors to find enough shares to cover their debts. This means a short squeeze can result in dramatic hikes in the stock price and even small hikes in the price can amplify short seller losses.
  - brc 14y ago
    >Right-leaning investors have seemed to want the company to fail for months, but Tesla is looking resilient with their good backlog and a strong economy. They're paying back their DOE loan early. Seriously? You think people are prepared to lose money to make a political point?
    - erikpukinskis 14y ago
      It's not a political point. They actually believe Tesla will fail. They want it to fail because it's fun seeing your predictions come true. Folks' politics and their beliefs about the world are all tied up together.
patrickgzill 14y ago
Good for Tesla. I have seen and sat in, the Model S at their showroom in the Park Meadows Mall in Denver (well, south of Denver). It is an impressive looking car and everything just feels right. I have not driven it, however.
- thematt 14y ago
  That screen in the center console is huge. Was it on and if so how was it to use? Looks pretty useful for mapping.
  - moystard 14y ago
    I find it way to huge, and kind of out of place as the rest is subtle and clean.
  - patrickgzill 14y ago
    It was huge! I didn't pair my phone to it, but all the features were very cleanly laid out (you control many things, from music, web, to climate control , fan speed, etc. from it). In trying to imagine what it would be like to use while driving, I can see that it would work just fine.
martythemaniak 14y ago
Even if Tesla do not survive, ten years from now every new electric car will be a descendant of the Model S in all the major ways - floor-mounted battery pack, lack of physical buttons, etc.
- correctifier 14y ago
  The Model S is a revolutionary car, but I really hope the the big touch display without physical buttons doesn't become the norm. I really prefer the feedback you get from them while keeping your eyes on the road, especially for common functions like the temperature and basic stereo control. People will disagree with me, but I have really grown to like the current iDrive system which lets me keep my looking up high while my hand sits in a comfortable position.
  - moted 14y ago
    I prefer tactile response as well, however I'd guess that good voice activated controls will be introduced soon enough.
    - Zikes 14y ago
      I'd really hate to have to have to say "increase driver side temperature by 2 degrees" when I could much more easily just turn a knob without looking, thanks to muscle memory & tactile feedback.
      - jonknee 14y ago
        Me too, but I change temperature so rarely that it being on a touch screen would not be an issue either.
      - javajosh 14y ago
        But, your car can take so many commands that one cannot make a physical knob for everything.
      - javajosh 14y ago
warrenmiller 14y ago
does anyone else think that screen is a bit too much?
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  I thought so, but when I got to see one 'in action' its a lot less of an issue. In terms of surface area the intrument panel on most cars is about equivalent, its just shaped into a long dashboardy kind of thing. I worry about glass shards in a side collision though.
  - joezydeco 14y ago
    It looks a lot nicer and less ambitious than the prototype that they showed at CES earlier this year. http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200903/tesla-model-s---touc_1280x0w.jpg http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200903/tesla-model-s--...
- firefox 14y ago
  From what I know, the screen is optional!
- pearle 14y ago
  I think so. And it's probably something that will look very dated in a few short years.
rdl 14y ago
If they can get to volume production, I think the $50-60k models, leased, could be great sellers. The really interesting thing would be to rip off Better Place's model and lease the cars at a discounted monthly payment plus a per-mile "fuel equivalence" charge. It's just accounting, but you could basically price the Model S at BMW 3-series lease rates (or even Toyota Avalon!), plus a per-mile fuel cost which was 10-20% less than gasoline. Combine that with the quality of the Model S, the environmental/status benefit (90+% of the girls I've polled would be more impressed by a Model S than a 2-3x as expensive Ferrari), and HOV lane access, and it would be great. The Leaf, which basically sucks by comparison as a car, is essentially free in California ($200/mo lease, $2500 California incentive tax credit covers the first year, fuel, HOV lane, and toll savings vs. a less-efficient gas car pretty much cover lease payments IMO). I'd have a Leaf as a hold-over until Teslas ship in quantity if I had a second parking space.
- zalew 14y ago
  > (90+% of the girls I've polled would be more impressed by a Model S than a 2-3x as expensive Ferrari) maybe in SF (or US in general, I don't know). around most of Europe flashy loud cars are still cool, fortunately.
  - arjunnarayan 14y ago
    In general, you should be careful in choosing which set of girls you want to impress.
    - zalew 14y ago
      personally I don't need material stuff to impress one. tesla S is impressive for the technological hipster crowd, yet it's the kind of ride you won't notice in the parking lot in a few years, and you won't fool anybody - those cars aren't exactly pussy-magnets.
  - Adirael 14y ago
    I guess it depends on the country. Rare stuff sells. Depends on the type of person too. I've lived in Marbella and there's a lot of Ferraris and really expensive cars there, almost more than normal utility cars. Now when I see a red Ferrari is like: oh nice, you've got the same car every rich guy has in the same fucking color, good for you!
jeswin 14y ago
Now the galleries would look a lot better if they used normal photographs; instead of hideous HDR and heavy photoshopping.
- MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
  In one in particular, there is a fake depth-of-field effect which makes it look like they took a picture of a toy car on the ground. This is the image: http://image.automobilemag.com/f/features/awards/1301_2013_automobile_of_the_year_tesla_model_s/41380834/Tesla-Model-S-front-right-side-view-2.jpg http://image.automobilemag.com/f/features/awards/1301_2013_a... Edit: Whoops, it is actually the car's key, laying on the ground. See this link for the key shown in someone's hand: http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/07/24/a-quick-test-drive-the-tesla-model-s/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/07/24/a-quick...
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
They need a lot more dealerships. Look at the map of their dealers and there's a huge hole in the middle of the country. A couple in Chicago, one in Denver, and one in Houston. That's it. If you live in say Tennessee you're looking at close to a 10 hour drive to even see one. http://www.teslamotors.com/locations http://www.teslamotors.com/locations
- dangrossman 14y ago
  They need something to sell first. All those showrooms can do right now is sell reservations for a possible 2014 sale.
- jcfrei 14y ago
  remember, tesla is not actually selling cars inside their "dealerships". customers still have to do this themselves on the tesla homepage - and even then it's just a reservation. source from a previous hacker news thread: http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-plans-short-circuit-car-dealers-194619627.html http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-plans-short-cir...
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    You can't buy a Roadster?
    - timdorr 14y ago
      Nope. They stopped selling them in August 2011 when their supply of Lotus Elise gliders ran out.
- timdorr 14y ago
  Tesla's strategy for retail is designed by George Blankenship, who created Apple's retail strategy. As a result, you should expect a similar approach: Stores built out near major population centers first until you have 80-90% of the country within a 100-50 mile range of a Tesla location.
- sahaj 14y ago
cvanderlinden 14y ago
Wow, I hate that top navigation bar following me everywhere. I'm trying to read your article not navigate your site! If I want to change pages, I know where to go, back to the top.
salimmadjd 14y ago
Tesla is still a niche luxury car, and I still think they will not remain in business in their current form. Several top-name brands are hot on their heels which will put a lot of pressure in their customer acquisition prospects. As for the Automobile endorsement, I don't like how they are misleading consumers with their data. The test vs. M5 was designed to take account Tesla's sweet spot of performance, "...drag race to 100 mph with a 560-hp BMW M5". At 0-60 M5 will beat Tesla, and Telsa hits the top speed 130 mph and M5 is limited at 155. So it's really around 100-120 mph where Tesla has the edge. This doesn't even include racing them on a track to include handling aspect of a car. I would have preferred the article stating something like: in one aspect, Tesla is even faster than the BMW M5, the drag race to 100 mph. In general I'm seeing a downtrend among publications when it comes to educating consumers, especially educating them on how to think about data. This will have a long-term consequence on how consumers can be duped by faulty advertising, especially with political ads.
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  The M5 may beat the Tesla at 0-60 on paper (3.7 seconds vs 3.9), but in practice the Tesla will beat the M5. A 0-60 is measured from the time the car starts to move. If you measure from when the accelerator is depressed, the Tesla gains a huge advantage and will beat the M5. EDIT: Here's a 0-100 video: http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla-model-s-beats-bmw-m5-in-a-drag-race/#continued http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla... Now unless there's some tricks in the video, it's quite obvious that the M5 does much better at the latter half of the drag than the first half. So if a Tesla can beat an M5 at 0-100, it will destroy it at 0-60.
  - gniv 14y ago
    That's an interesting observation. Intuitively, I believe it, but do you have a source?
  - kerryfalk 14y ago
    This is very strange and foreign reasoning to me. I competitively raced cars in an amateur series. You are claiming that the Tesla's superior throttle response makes it faster 0-60. The car needs to move the weight, so measuring it from when it starts moving to when it hits the desired speed seems like a perfectly reasonable metric. Throttle response needs to be measured separately. The M5 comparison is more than enough to get an idea for the car's capabilities. I've never driven a Model S. I've driven several cars in the area of the M5. If the Model S is in that class, it's a beast!
salimmadjd 14y ago
Tesla is still a niche luxury car, and I still think they will not remain in business in their current form. Several top-name brands are hot on their heels which will put a lot of pressure in their customer acquisition prospects. As for the Automobile endorsement, I don't like how they are misleading consumers with their data. The test vs. M5 was designed to take account Tesla's sweet spot of performance, "...drag race to 100 mph with a 560-hp BMW M5". At 0-60 M5 will beat Tesla, and Telsa hits the top speed 130 mph and M5 is limited at 155. So it's really around 100-120 mph where Tesla has the edge. This doesn't even include racing them on a track to include handling aspect of a car. I would have preferred the article stating something like: in one aspect, Tesla is even faster than the BMW M5, the drag race to 100 mph. In general I'm seeing a downtrend among publications when it comes to educating consumers, especially educating them on how to think about data. This will have a long-term consequence on how consumers can be duped by faulty advertising, especially with political ads.
rscale 14y ago
Great to see this. There are exactly three automotive companies that excite me these days: Tesla, Better Place, and Google. Tesla has done a magnificent job of making electric cool and sexy, and that's almost absurdly important with a purchase as emotional as a car.
phildeschaine 14y ago
That's a pretty sexy car, I'd take one in a second if I had $60k+ to drop, and I'm not even in the market for ANY car (bike commuting ftw). That said, I'm holding out for a Model X. The falcon wing doors are just SO badass.
cletus 14y ago
The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to charge, are too expensive and require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity. Of course, there can be and no doubt will be technological innovation in this space but (IMHO) the future of personal powered transportation will still be fuel-driven. What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater. Portable fuel supplies are just too convenient. The relative simplicity of the internal combustion engine (or some derivation thereof) is just too advantageous compared to even optimistic long-term alternatives. EDIT: the amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to electric cars is mind-boggling eg: A: the benefits are too numerous to list B: can you use it in an apartment? A: no... Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one). Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times. Even with swappable batteries, even if that were a thing that people would do (there are security, weight and cost issues), the recharge time is still an issue. Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure. Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people. Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles. How exactly have electric vehicles "already won"?
- jblow 14y ago
  ... and on the battery chemistry issue, Teslas use Lithium-Ion batteries, just like we have been using in laptops for forever. They are not exotic.
  - mibbitier 14y ago
    You mean the ones that typically only last a year or 2?
    - 14y ago
SeanLuke 14y ago
The Fisker Karma was their 2012 Automobile of the Year. In 2011 it was the Volt.
- hudibras 14y ago
  The title of this submission is misleading because when you say "Car of the Year" you think either Motor Trend or Car & Driver. Automobile Magazine is a distant, distant third place in prestige and respect; I didn't even know that they did an annual award.
- thetrb 14y ago
  That's not true, in 2012 The Audi A7 was their car of the year. So that shows that they're not just always picking an electric car no matter what. The original article also mentions that the Fisker Karma won their "Design of the Year" award in 2012, but not the "Car of the Year".
  - SeanLuke 14y ago
    > The Audi A7 was their car of the year. Sorry, you're right. The Karma was the "Design of the Year".
kin 14y ago
This is good news considering I've been hearing Tesla as a company has been having trouble. Besides it being an EV, what really appeals to me is the maintenance plan. 600$/year covers everything. Having a car hit the 100k mark and having everything break down unless you replace it entirely is such a pain and is expensive.
confluence 14y ago
Here are some video reviews of the Model S (notice the gas-heads gushing at how awesome it is to drive/look at/fun): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kCG-WqpVnI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kCG-WqpVnI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOdsTuaJEfc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOdsTuaJEfc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFVO31CbE0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFVO31CbE0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpySOCBqntI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpySOCBqntI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkIMmAX1iM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkIMmAX1iM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9SsUbBqOkY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9SsUbBqOkY
abhimishra 14y ago
No one is mentioning Hydrogen fuel-cell cars that have been in trials, such as the Honda FCX Clarity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity). Relative to battery-powered fully-electric vehicles, some advantages are: - Quick re-fueling (like with a gasoline vehicle) - No loss of range in cold weather (and seems like earlier freezing issues have been addressed) - No deterioration of a battery's performance over time Some disadvantages: - Hydrogen economy is not here yet and may be difficult to make efficient relative to electricity delivery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy)
beau 14y ago
I've owned an electric car for about two years now. The article missed a few points: 1. The regenerative braking means you do not need to replace your brakes nearly as often. (Tires are a different story.) 2. There are far fewer moving parts than a normal car. This decreases the amount of maintenance you need to do. 3. Since there are no moving parts, it's less damaging to the car when drive it hard. Accelerating quickly with non-electric sports cars wears out very expensive components very quickly. With an electric car, you can get that 0-60 performance every single time you accelerate without wearing anything out. (Except the tires.) When you're comparing the annual fuel bill to the extra cost of the Tesla, don't forget that you are buying a premium sports car. Something like a BMW M5 gets 14/20 MPG, and expects that you feed it premium fuel.
- CrankyPants 14y ago
  Interesting observation, though I think you're missing a few points in your analysis: 1. Engine braking + looking ahead to see when I need to lift = I seldom need to replace brakes. And my driving is quite spirited. (I go through brakes far slower than does my wife, who doesn't drive with as much zest, but accelerates towards red lights, etc.) 2. Yeah. It'd be nice to not have to worry about oil changes. But besides that, good modern drivetrains are incredibly reliable. 3. Not if it's engineered well. There are sports cars that can be driven hard for the better part of a decade with nothing but oil, filter, and tire changes. (This is from experience.) Sure, there are plenty of lousy sports cars out there, but the causes of their poor reliability are more rooted in lousy engineering than in their having internal combustion engines.
rickdale 14y ago
Dear Elon Musk: Want to make cars? Need a lot of workers? Space? How about old car factories in an old car factory town. Come to Flint, Mi man, Change the world.
- djt 14y ago
  The workers required to make Teslas are no doubt different to the ones used to make cars the old way. Would be interesting to see what the unions would say about Tesla workplace practices
dchichkov 14y ago
One of the things that I really, really like about electric vehicles, is that, with a widespread distribution we are also getting a well-distributed accessible reservoir of electric energy! See: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100106/full/463018a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100106/full/463018a.html
hans 14y ago
Good thing Romney keeps wanting to throw Tesla under the bus, way to support innovation, way to cheer for jobs n0t.
- stretchwithme 14y ago
  Valuable innovation doesn't need to be on life support. Technologies that can only exist with subsidies destroy capital and jobs. I'm all for dealing with problems like pollution, but a tax on the polluters is the way to go. The federal government should not be picking replacements and throwing money at them. If electric vehicles cannot yet compete with gasoline vehicles that are taxed to pay for their pollution, then its too early for them.
kayoone 14y ago
When cars were introduced gasoline was cheap, today that is very different. Electricity today seems to be cheap, but how will that be in 100 years ? In Germany i already pay twice what people in the US pay for electricity (about $0.28 per kwH) and its only getting more expensive. Of course, gasoline is a fossil fuel which will run out some time, but dont forget that most of our electricity is still generated by the same fuels (coal!) and with rapidly rising electricity usage i dont see a complete fossile-fuel free electricity infrastructure anywhere near. Even if thats possible with lots of wind/solar/whatever power, i highly doubt its going to be cheaper as we already pay a premium on "green-energy" today, governments move away from nuclear power etc.

447 points by chanux 14y ago

nealabq 14y ago

When will the Google self-driving fleet include a Tesla?

elchief 14y ago
Tesla is actually the perfect partner for google's robocars, as the other big manufacturers are bound to lose from declining number of autos, tesla could in fact gain.
timdorr 14y ago
Considering both Sergey Brin and Larry Page are investors in Tesla, I would think that's a distinct possibility.
bobbles 14y ago
Self driving, electric car that goes and finds a charging station, re-charges and returns while I eat some pancakes? Yes please!

chanux 14y ago

Did I see user emails in comments there?

tocomment 14y ago

Is that why TSLA stock is up today?

zalew 14y ago
doubtful. it's not a real award like COTY or International Engine Of The Year.
- jeremyarussell 14y ago
  Err, exactly what makes those awards more real? Just how many people would concede the point?
  - zalew 14y ago
    these are the world's most recognized awards for production cars, so they are the ones that could affect the stock price, if any. they are not a single national magazine's editors recognition.
    - jeremyarussell 14y ago
      So yes was the answer. PS: Err it looked like ALL the editors of the magazine had only good things to say about the car. I digress though seeing as to how it's a popularity contest in any case.
mncolinlee 14y ago
I would guess a mix of the positive jobs report and short covering from margin calls is at fault. Right-leaning investors have seemed to want the company to fail for months, but Tesla is looking resilient with their good backlog and a strong economy. They're paying back their DOE loan early.
- tocomment 14y ago
  What do you mean by short covering from margin calls? What's causing the margin calls?
  - mncolinlee 14y ago
    You can only "short" a stock by borrowing the shares using margin. (Put options are another way, but that is actually a side bet, not the same as short selling.) If you exceed the margin requirements because the stock price rises i.e. you owe more than you have capital and credit on hand, your brokerage may force you to "cover" or buy the underlying stock at the current market price. They do this to "call in" your debt to them. This is referred to as a "margin call." When a lot of short margin calls happen all at once, this is called a "short squeeze" because it squeezes more short sellers into covering by buying the stock at the current market price, which in turn causes the price to rise and squeeze other investors. In the case of Tesla, the stock is not very liquid. At the current volume, it would take thirty days for all short investors to find enough shares to cover their debts. This means a short squeeze can result in dramatic hikes in the stock price and even small hikes in the price can amplify short seller losses.
- brc 14y ago
  >Right-leaning investors have seemed to want the company to fail for months, but Tesla is looking resilient with their good backlog and a strong economy. They're paying back their DOE loan early. Seriously? You think people are prepared to lose money to make a political point?
  - erikpukinskis 14y ago
    It's not a political point. They actually believe Tesla will fail. They want it to fail because it's fun seeing your predictions come true. Folks' politics and their beliefs about the world are all tied up together.

patrickgzill 14y ago

Good for Tesla. I have seen and sat in, the Model S at their showroom in the Park Meadows Mall in Denver (well, south of Denver). It is an impressive looking car and everything just feels right. I have not driven it, however.

thematt 14y ago
That screen in the center console is huge. Was it on and if so how was it to use? Looks pretty useful for mapping.
- moystard 14y ago
  I find it way to huge, and kind of out of place as the rest is subtle and clean.
- patrickgzill 14y ago
  It was huge! I didn't pair my phone to it, but all the features were very cleanly laid out (you control many things, from music, web, to climate control , fan speed, etc. from it). In trying to imagine what it would be like to use while driving, I can see that it would work just fine.

martythemaniak 14y ago

Even if Tesla do not survive, ten years from now every new electric car will be a descendant of the Model S in all the major ways - floor-mounted battery pack, lack of physical buttons, etc.

correctifier 14y ago
The Model S is a revolutionary car, but I really hope the the big touch display without physical buttons doesn't become the norm. I really prefer the feedback you get from them while keeping your eyes on the road, especially for common functions like the temperature and basic stereo control. People will disagree with me, but I have really grown to like the current iDrive system which lets me keep my looking up high while my hand sits in a comfortable position.
- moted 14y ago
  I prefer tactile response as well, however I'd guess that good voice activated controls will be introduced soon enough.
  - Zikes 14y ago
    I'd really hate to have to have to say "increase driver side temperature by 2 degrees" when I could much more easily just turn a knob without looking, thanks to muscle memory & tactile feedback.
    - jonknee 14y ago
      Me too, but I change temperature so rarely that it being on a touch screen would not be an issue either.
    - javajosh 14y ago
      But, your car can take so many commands that one cannot make a physical knob for everything.
    - javajosh 14y ago

warrenmiller 14y ago

does anyone else think that screen is a bit too much?

ChuckMcM 14y ago
I thought so, but when I got to see one 'in action' its a lot less of an issue. In terms of surface area the intrument panel on most cars is about equivalent, its just shaped into a long dashboardy kind of thing. I worry about glass shards in a side collision though.
- joezydeco 14y ago
  It looks a lot nicer and less ambitious than the prototype that they showed at CES earlier this year. http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200903/tesla-model-s---touc_1280x0w.jpg http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200903/tesla-model-s--...
firefox 14y ago
From what I know, the screen is optional!
pearle 14y ago
I think so. And it's probably something that will look very dated in a few short years.

rdl 14y ago

If they can get to volume production, I think the $50-60k models, leased, could be great sellers. The really interesting thing would be to rip off Better Place's model and lease the cars at a discounted monthly payment plus a per-mile "fuel equivalence" charge. It's just accounting, but you could basically price the Model S at BMW 3-series lease rates (or even Toyota Avalon!), plus a per-mile fuel cost which was 10-20% less than gasoline. Combine that with the quality of the Model S, the environmental/status benefit (90+% of the girls I've polled would be more impressed by a Model S than a 2-3x as expensive Ferrari), and HOV lane access, and it would be great. The Leaf, which basically sucks by comparison as a car, is essentially free in California ($200/mo lease, $2500 California incentive tax credit covers the first year, fuel, HOV lane, and toll savings vs. a less-efficient gas car pretty much cover lease payments IMO). I'd have a Leaf as a hold-over until Teslas ship in quantity if I had a second parking space.

zalew 14y ago
> (90+% of the girls I've polled would be more impressed by a Model S than a 2-3x as expensive Ferrari) maybe in SF (or US in general, I don't know). around most of Europe flashy loud cars are still cool, fortunately.
- arjunnarayan 14y ago
  In general, you should be careful in choosing which set of girls you want to impress.
  - zalew 14y ago
    personally I don't need material stuff to impress one. tesla S is impressive for the technological hipster crowd, yet it's the kind of ride you won't notice in the parking lot in a few years, and you won't fool anybody - those cars aren't exactly pussy-magnets.
- Adirael 14y ago
  I guess it depends on the country. Rare stuff sells. Depends on the type of person too. I've lived in Marbella and there's a lot of Ferraris and really expensive cars there, almost more than normal utility cars. Now when I see a red Ferrari is like: oh nice, you've got the same car every rich guy has in the same fucking color, good for you!

jeswin 14y ago

Now the galleries would look a lot better if they used normal photographs; instead of hideous HDR and heavy photoshopping.

MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
In one in particular, there is a fake depth-of-field effect which makes it look like they took a picture of a toy car on the ground. This is the image: http://image.automobilemag.com/f/features/awards/1301_2013_automobile_of_the_year_tesla_model_s/41380834/Tesla-Model-S-front-right-side-view-2.jpg http://image.automobilemag.com/f/features/awards/1301_2013_a... Edit: Whoops, it is actually the car's key, laying on the ground. See this link for the key shown in someone's hand: http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/07/24/a-quick-test-drive-the-tesla-model-s/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/07/24/a-quick...

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

They need a lot more dealerships. Look at the map of their dealers and there's a huge hole in the middle of the country. A couple in Chicago, one in Denver, and one in Houston. That's it. If you live in say Tennessee you're looking at close to a 10 hour drive to even see one. http://www.teslamotors.com/locations http://www.teslamotors.com/locations

dangrossman 14y ago
They need something to sell first. All those showrooms can do right now is sell reservations for a possible 2014 sale.
jcfrei 14y ago
remember, tesla is not actually selling cars inside their "dealerships". customers still have to do this themselves on the tesla homepage - and even then it's just a reservation. source from a previous hacker news thread: http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-plans-short-circuit-car-dealers-194619627.html http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-plans-short-cir...
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  You can't buy a Roadster?
  - timdorr 14y ago
    Nope. They stopped selling them in August 2011 when their supply of Lotus Elise gliders ran out.
timdorr 14y ago
Tesla's strategy for retail is designed by George Blankenship, who created Apple's retail strategy. As a result, you should expect a similar approach: Stores built out near major population centers first until you have 80-90% of the country within a 100-50 mile range of a Tesla location.
sahaj 14y ago

cvanderlinden 14y ago

Wow, I hate that top navigation bar following me everywhere. I'm trying to read your article not navigate your site! If I want to change pages, I know where to go, back to the top.

salimmadjd 14y ago

Tesla is still a niche luxury car, and I still think they will not remain in business in their current form. Several top-name brands are hot on their heels which will put a lot of pressure in their customer acquisition prospects. As for the Automobile endorsement, I don't like how they are misleading consumers with their data. The test vs. M5 was designed to take account Tesla's sweet spot of performance, "...drag race to 100 mph with a 560-hp BMW M5". At 0-60 M5 will beat Tesla, and Telsa hits the top speed 130 mph and M5 is limited at 155. So it's really around 100-120 mph where Tesla has the edge. This doesn't even include racing them on a track to include handling aspect of a car. I would have preferred the article stating something like: in one aspect, Tesla is even faster than the BMW M5, the drag race to 100 mph. In general I'm seeing a downtrend among publications when it comes to educating consumers, especially educating them on how to think about data. This will have a long-term consequence on how consumers can be duped by faulty advertising, especially with political ads.

bryanlarsen 14y ago
The M5 may beat the Tesla at 0-60 on paper (3.7 seconds vs 3.9), but in practice the Tesla will beat the M5. A 0-60 is measured from the time the car starts to move. If you measure from when the accelerator is depressed, the Tesla gains a huge advantage and will beat the M5. EDIT: Here's a 0-100 video: http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla-model-s-beats-bmw-m5-in-a-drag-race/#continued http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla... Now unless there's some tricks in the video, it's quite obvious that the M5 does much better at the latter half of the drag than the first half. So if a Tesla can beat an M5 at 0-100, it will destroy it at 0-60.
- gniv 14y ago
  That's an interesting observation. Intuitively, I believe it, but do you have a source?
- kerryfalk 14y ago
  This is very strange and foreign reasoning to me. I competitively raced cars in an amateur series. You are claiming that the Tesla's superior throttle response makes it faster 0-60. The car needs to move the weight, so measuring it from when it starts moving to when it hits the desired speed seems like a perfectly reasonable metric. Throttle response needs to be measured separately. The M5 comparison is more than enough to get an idea for the car's capabilities. I've never driven a Model S. I've driven several cars in the area of the M5. If the Model S is in that class, it's a beast!

salimmadjd 14y ago

rscale 14y ago

Great to see this. There are exactly three automotive companies that excite me these days: Tesla, Better Place, and Google. Tesla has done a magnificent job of making electric cool and sexy, and that's almost absurdly important with a purchase as emotional as a car.

phildeschaine 14y ago

That's a pretty sexy car, I'd take one in a second if I had $60k+ to drop, and I'm not even in the market for ANY car (bike commuting ftw). That said, I'm holding out for a Model X. The falcon wing doors are just SO badass.

cletus 14y ago

The Tesla Model S is a great-looking car but, unlike some, I still don't see electric cars as being the future. Batteries are still too heavy, take too long to charge, are too expensive and require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity. Of course, there can be and no doubt will be technological innovation in this space but (IMHO) the future of personal powered transportation will still be fuel-driven. What will change is the source of that fuel. It may be some kind of hydrogen-rich fuel (methane or ammonia) or it may be making the necessary hydrocarbons from the air and/or seawater. Portable fuel supplies are just too convenient. The relative simplicity of the internal combustion engine (or some derivation thereof) is just too advantageous compared to even optimistic long-term alternatives. EDIT: the amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to electric cars is mind-boggling eg: A: the benefits are too numerous to list B: can you use it in an apartment? A: no... Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one). Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times. Even with swappable batteries, even if that were a thing that people would do (there are security, weight and cost issues), the recharge time is still an issue. Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure. Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people. Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles. How exactly have electric vehicles "already won"?

jblow 14y ago
... and on the battery chemistry issue, Teslas use Lithium-Ion batteries, just like we have been using in laptops for forever. They are not exotic.
- mibbitier 14y ago
  You mean the ones that typically only last a year or 2?
  - 14y ago

SeanLuke 14y ago

The Fisker Karma was their 2012 Automobile of the Year. In 2011 it was the Volt.

hudibras 14y ago
The title of this submission is misleading because when you say "Car of the Year" you think either Motor Trend or Car & Driver. Automobile Magazine is a distant, distant third place in prestige and respect; I didn't even know that they did an annual award.
thetrb 14y ago
That's not true, in 2012 The Audi A7 was their car of the year. So that shows that they're not just always picking an electric car no matter what. The original article also mentions that the Fisker Karma won their "Design of the Year" award in 2012, but not the "Car of the Year".
- SeanLuke 14y ago
  > The Audi A7 was their car of the year. Sorry, you're right. The Karma was the "Design of the Year".

kin 14y ago

This is good news considering I've been hearing Tesla as a company has been having trouble. Besides it being an EV, what really appeals to me is the maintenance plan. 600$/year covers everything. Having a car hit the 100k mark and having everything break down unless you replace it entirely is such a pain and is expensive.

confluence 14y ago

Here are some video reviews of the Model S (notice the gas-heads gushing at how awesome it is to drive/look at/fun): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kCG-WqpVnI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kCG-WqpVnI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOdsTuaJEfc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOdsTuaJEfc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFVO31CbE0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFVO31CbE0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpySOCBqntI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpySOCBqntI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkIMmAX1iM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkIMmAX1iM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9SsUbBqOkY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9SsUbBqOkY

abhimishra 14y ago

No one is mentioning Hydrogen fuel-cell cars that have been in trials, such as the Honda FCX Clarity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity). Relative to battery-powered fully-electric vehicles, some advantages are: - Quick re-fueling (like with a gasoline vehicle) - No loss of range in cold weather (and seems like earlier freezing issues have been addressed) - No deterioration of a battery's performance over time Some disadvantages: - Hydrogen economy is not here yet and may be difficult to make efficient relative to electricity delivery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy)

beau 14y ago

I've owned an electric car for about two years now. The article missed a few points: 1. The regenerative braking means you do not need to replace your brakes nearly as often. (Tires are a different story.) 2. There are far fewer moving parts than a normal car. This decreases the amount of maintenance you need to do. 3. Since there are no moving parts, it's less damaging to the car when drive it hard. Accelerating quickly with non-electric sports cars wears out very expensive components very quickly. With an electric car, you can get that 0-60 performance every single time you accelerate without wearing anything out. (Except the tires.) When you're comparing the annual fuel bill to the extra cost of the Tesla, don't forget that you are buying a premium sports car. Something like a BMW M5 gets 14/20 MPG, and expects that you feed it premium fuel.

CrankyPants 14y ago
Interesting observation, though I think you're missing a few points in your analysis: 1. Engine braking + looking ahead to see when I need to lift = I seldom need to replace brakes. And my driving is quite spirited. (I go through brakes far slower than does my wife, who doesn't drive with as much zest, but accelerates towards red lights, etc.) 2. Yeah. It'd be nice to not have to worry about oil changes. But besides that, good modern drivetrains are incredibly reliable. 3. Not if it's engineered well. There are sports cars that can be driven hard for the better part of a decade with nothing but oil, filter, and tire changes. (This is from experience.) Sure, there are plenty of lousy sports cars out there, but the causes of their poor reliability are more rooted in lousy engineering than in their having internal combustion engines.

rickdale 14y ago

Dear Elon Musk: Want to make cars? Need a lot of workers? Space? How about old car factories in an old car factory town. Come to Flint, Mi man, Change the world.

djt 14y ago
The workers required to make Teslas are no doubt different to the ones used to make cars the old way. Would be interesting to see what the unions would say about Tesla workplace practices

dchichkov 14y ago

One of the things that I really, really like about electric vehicles, is that, with a widespread distribution we are also getting a well-distributed accessible reservoir of electric energy! See: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100106/full/463018a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100106/full/463018a.html

hans 14y ago

Good thing Romney keeps wanting to throw Tesla under the bus, way to support innovation, way to cheer for jobs n0t.

stretchwithme 14y ago
Valuable innovation doesn't need to be on life support. Technologies that can only exist with subsidies destroy capital and jobs. I'm all for dealing with problems like pollution, but a tax on the polluters is the way to go. The federal government should not be picking replacements and throwing money at them. If electric vehicles cannot yet compete with gasoline vehicles that are taxed to pay for their pollution, then its too early for them.

kayoone 14y ago

When cars were introduced gasoline was cheap, today that is very different. Electricity today seems to be cheap, but how will that be in 100 years ? In Germany i already pay twice what people in the US pay for electricity (about $0.28 per kwH) and its only getting more expensive. Of course, gasoline is a fossil fuel which will run out some time, but dont forget that most of our electricity is still generated by the same fuels (coal!) and with rapidly rising electricity usage i dont see a complete fossile-fuel free electricity infrastructure anywhere near. Even if thats possible with lots of wind/solar/whatever power, i highly doubt its going to be cheaper as we already pay a premium on "green-energy" today, governments move away from nuclear power etc.