Model S, as imagined by the WSJ

14 responses to “Model S, as imagined by the WSJ”

1. 

   solerena

   Jul 8, 2012 at 3:48 am

   Shiny, magical… Certum est quia impossible est:)

   Reply
2. 

   jitze

   Jul 8, 2012 at 4:02 am

   Flickr tells me this photo was taken July 7, but I thought s/n 1 was delivered a month or so ago?

   Color me green…

   Reply
3. 

   scleroplex

   Jul 8, 2012 at 5:46 am

   he seems to have recovered nicely :-))

   Reply
4. 

   Astrocatou

   Jul 8, 2012 at 12:29 pm

   Looks great,and the performance specs are fabulous.
   Still…..not this particular model does not seem very environmentally "green" ….with a 400+ HP motor….
   Unless you have a windmill or hydro dam in your back yard.

   Reply
5. 

   rutgerleunen

   Jul 8, 2012 at 12:47 pm

   Boy that is one shiny Model S! Thanks for posting.

   Reply
6. 

   jurvetson

   Jul 8, 2012 at 3:12 pm

   @daveh56 – that’s the beauty of it. It’s the highest performance sedan on the market, and yes, it’s very green. In my case, I have three banks of solar panels. For most U.S. Tesla customers, solar is a no-brainer. Elon also helped start the largest solar installer in the U.S., and they will equip a home with solar at no cost to the homeowner (see SolarCity).

   And for those depending on electricity generated by their utility from fossil fuels, the EV is better than a non-EV car in every way (efficiency, cost, CO2). Even if you want to burn oil, fracked gas, or a biofuel, for some reason, it’s better to do it in a centralized plant because of the heat loss in small engines. A modern Siemens cogen plant is 70% efficient (some newer tricycle plants are >80%). Our fuel-burning cars are 20 – 25%. EVs like Tesla are 88% efficient, so even after transmission line and storage losses, it’s better to burn fuel centrally. (more from flickr post)

   And as the grid shifts to renewables and greenhouse-gas-free nuclear (already the majority of electricity generation here for example)

   @jitze1942 – Yes, I took delivery of VIN#1 on June 1 (more photos of that):
   
   So I did not see the Tesla trailer shipment treatment until recently. I lent my Sedan back to Tesla for the launch event at the Fremont factory in late June since I was out of the country at the time. And this was the return.

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7. 

   sbove

   Jul 8, 2012 at 3:12 pm

   Insanely great, Really.

   Reply
8. 

   Astrocatou

   Jul 8, 2012 at 5:46 pm

   OK………….
   Floor it !

   Reply
9. 

   seatonsnet

   Jul 8, 2012 at 7:23 pm

   I like the idea of it being high performance on electricity, but I keep hearing dystopian stories of an imminent collapse of the American power grid, as it seems that power outages have been doubling in the USA every year for several years: 4.bp.blogspot.com/-2TFMKwo394o/T8uuMgO0rxI/AAAAAAAAB7g/Ki…
   This of course this would mean that instead of depending on the folks that brought us the Gulf disaster we would be depending on the industry that brought us Enron.

   So again, to me the problem is the macro-political environment, not the wonderful technology of the genuinely beautiful machine.

   Reply
10. 

    siimpics

    Jul 9, 2012 at 6:51 am

    Jaguar meets Lexus

    Reply
11. 

    seatonsnet

    Jul 9, 2012 at 10:21 am

    Truly it is a beautiful machine.

    Reply
12. 

    RRNeal

    Jul 10, 2012 at 12:55 pm

    meta-cool

    Reply
13. 

    jurvetson

    Jul 10, 2012 at 8:49 pm

    Update: Elon paid his $1M to charity anyway, as if he had lost the bet (I just noticed ’cause the article used one of my flickr posts).

    @David Seaton — We charge our EVs at night when much of the grid keeps spinning and dumping excess electricity. SolarCity is offering free solar to anyone who wants it, so that will also provide distributed capacity during peak afternoon hours (to address current peak needs which is unrelated). Enernoc offers distributed load shedding and capacity switching for peak hours. In short, a smarter grid with pockets of utility-scale buffer storage should go a long way. And those EVs could provide some of that buffer storage, in theory.

    As for politics and the economy, well, we could spend some money on new electrical capacity if we have too. To provide oil for our vehicles, we have transferred $1.5 trillion to other oil exporting countries in just the past 5 years. That could go a long way to bring new capacity online as needed. (more political and economic arguments here)

    Reply
14. 

    jurvetson

    Jul 16, 2019 at 6:19 pm

    And now, the ultimate accolade from Motortrend:
    TESLA MODEL S — ULTIMATE CAR OF THE YEAR

    "We are confident that, were we to summon all the judges and staff of the past 70 years, we would come to a rapid consensus: No vehicle we’ve awarded, be it Car of the Year, Import Car of the Year, SUV of the Year, or Truck of the Year, can equal the impact, performance, and engineering excellence that is our Ultimate Car of the Year winner, the 2013 Tesla Model S.

    The Model S changed the way the world thinks not only about electric cars but also about cars in general. It remains clear there isn’t another vehicle created during our 70 years of existence that has had a truly comparable effect on automobiles, the automotive industry, and society at large.

    There’s a difference between setting the stage and dominating it. Other automakers are scrambling to match Tesla’s technology, but Tesla still carries the first-mover advantage, and it continues to advance its leadership.

    With the Model S, Tesla rethought many of the basic relationships between driver and vehicle. Seven years later, there still isn’t another car that doesn’t require a start button or key. The idea that a car would recognize your phone as you approached, unlock, boot up its computers, and be ready to operate and drive the moment you sat down and closed the door is still cutting-edge today.

    The notion of replacing a vehicle’s nearly every physical control with a digital one then updating the underlying software with patches and imaginative new features—all while you sleep and free of charge—is still just being emulated now.

    And still, the better part of a decade later, there isn’t an electric car that can travel as far as a Model S, nor is there a street-legal production car of any motivation that can beat a Ludicrous Model S to 60 mph, not even a Ferrari LaFerrari or Porsche 918. Meanwhile, Tesla remains among the front-runners of advanced driver assistance technology; Autopilot and Autosteer were both unveiled on the Model S.

    Musk’s true vision was to electrify the world via an incontrovertibly earth-shattering product, not to create an automaking monolith. In seeing how Tesla’s rivals are rushing to imitate its technology—sincerely, not with lip service—it is clear his vision is close to being fulfilled."

    Reply