Besting the Best — The WSJ Review of Model Y

4 responses to “Besting the Best — The WSJ Review of Model Y”

1. 

   ronbrinkmann

   Jun 7, 2020 at 1:01 am

   Lol, Nobody paints a picture like Dan Neil. Spectacular.

   Reply
2. 

   jurvetson

   Jun 7, 2020 at 2:36 pm

   I have noticed a pattern among Tesla automotive reviews, from Model S onward, to evocative prose and occasional hyperbole. I think it’s hard to convey the unprecedented and incredible advances to others using mere words.

   In my opinion, it is an "experienced good" — it’s hard to fathom until you experience it behind the wheel yourself. But then… it’s like an epiphany. That was my experience first driving a Tesla in 2006 (motivating our early investment), and I noticed the same for 100% of friends and family who took test drives. This has fascinating marketing and adoption curve implications.

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3. 

   precious amount

   Jun 7, 2020 at 11:24 pm

   Isn’t it great when innovation leaps past the need for regulatory law and does so with style. You can legislate corporate average fuel economy but I don’t believe you could get an outcome like Tesla by focusing on compliance.

   The zero-to-sixty times impress me even though I’ve never sat in one. I read an auto magazine write-up where one of the Tesla SUVs did zero-to-sixty in under 5 seconds towing a trailer carrying the performance car it was racing. (It did have to go through a battery conditioning step.) That’s impressive. The ability of any car to go zero-to-sixty (miles per hour) in 5 seconds is impressive.

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4. 

   jurvetson

   Jun 7, 2020 at 11:47 pm

   Yup, when racing a carbon fiber Alfa Romeo 4C Spyder, you’d be better off towing it behind a Tesla SUV.

   How about 3.5 seconds for a Model Y…

   and then hold on for the sub-1.9 second next-gen Roadster in development.

   Words fail to convey it… From the auto reviews of Model S, many tried. Automobile Magazine: "practically every new car claims to be revolutionary. But this one actually feels like it is, to the point that many of us were reaching outside the automotive lexicon to describe it. "It reminds me of the first time I used an iPhone." The Model S can blow away almost anything. "It’s the performance that won us over," admits editor-in-chief Jean Jennings. "The crazy speed builds silently and then pulls back the edges of your face. It had all of us endangering our licenses." Our Model S blasts to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds. Even those numbers — positively absurd for a large sedan that uses not a lick of gasoline — fail to communicate how crazy it actually feels. "It’s alarming to jam the accelerator of such a big car and have it surge forward so quickly and so quietly"

   WIRED too: “The quoted zero to 60 mph time of 4.4 seconds (3.9 if you go by Motor Trend‘s testing methodology) is almost irrelevant. It’s the point-and-squirt acceleration at nearly any speed that shocks and delights while devouring the road ahead. Nail the throttle at 40 mph and you’re up to 60, then 70 then 90 in less time than it takes to read this sentence. I don’t care how fast you read. It is — for all intents and purposes — pure energy being laid to the ground with a rapidity that’s more roller-coaster freefall than four-wheeled family transport. And it’s more exhilarating than anything I’ve driven out of Sant’Agata, Stuttgart or even Maranello."

   Even the Germans at Autobild: "Anyone whose foot has ever touched the [Model S’] pedal to be catapulted towards the horizon, anyone who has felt the effortlessness of the whisper-quiet e-engine, will have a problem with any conventionally motorized car thereafter. This is how drivers of the very first automobiles must have felt when encountering horse-drawn carriages."

   Road&Track: "The Model S isn’t just the most important car of the year. It’s the most important car America has made in an entire lifetime."

   Consumer Reports: “We have been testing cars at Consumer Reports for a very long time, but we have never seen anything quite like the Tesla Model S. This car performs better than anything we have ever tested before. Let me repeat that. Not just the best electric car, but the best car. It does just about everything really, really well.”

   Motortrend: "The Tesla Model S P100D does it best, reaching 30, 40, 50, and 60 mph from a standstill more quickly than any other production vehicle we’ve ever tested, full stop. In our testing, no production car has ever cracked 2.3 seconds from 0 to 60 mph. But Tesla has”

   and finally, the Motortrend ULTIMATE CAR OF THE YEAR: "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.
   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."

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