
Motor Trend Car of the Year: Tesla Model S - turing
http://www.motortrend.com/oftheyear/car/1301_2013_motor_trend_car_of_the_year_tesla_model_s
======
lunaru
This had to be one of the easiest selections in Motor Trend history. Besides
the obvious technology advancement, Tesla's Model S is probably also the most
appealing American manufacturing story since its namesake Ford Model T. It's a
hallmark shift in our (re)focus on technology driven advancement in
manufacturing. And, unlike the other great company/story Apple, Teslas are
built in the US (or at least assembled here).

It's just the right product at the right time, which pretty much is the
definition of a winner.

~~~
dumitrue
So what if the Teslas are built in the US? How does that change anything? What
if they were built in Canada, like a lot of GM cars are these days? Or Japan?

~~~
unoti
My son works at Tesla. He got the job as his first real job after doing a tour
in Iraq with the U.S. military. Tesla taught him how to operate a laser
cutter, and a bunch of other heavy machinery. He just left for work a few
minutes ago, he's working night shift because they're cranking out cars all
night long every night. Him, and some thousand+ other people got jobs there--
good, high quality, awesome jobs. Having good jobs for people here in America
isn't important to a lot of people, but it's been a really good thing for him
and for our family.

~~~
sliverstorm
Economic advantages aside, gainful, satisfying employment is also great for
morale of the nation.

Making things is generally fertile ground for job satisfaction.

~~~
angstrom
There is something to be said for having demonstrable concrete evidence of
where your time was spent. Most service jobs lack this.

------
jaysonelliot
While I'm a massive fan of what Tesla is achieving with their cars, and I lust
after the Model S, the giant touchscreen in the Model S gives me pause.

Is it really such a good idea to have a glowing screen dominating the interior
at night? To say nothing of the opportunities for distracted drivers trying to
navigate a button-free interface that can't be operated without taking your
eyes off the road to look at the items you're pressing, or the opportunity for
modal errors that abound in systems like this.

Echoes of the disastrous usability in the BMW i-Drive system are ringing in my
ears. I hope Tesla has learned from the mistakes of others. I'd very much like
to see an independent UX evaluation of the Tesla's driver controls.

~~~
timdorr
Coming from reviews by recent owners (of which, I will be one in about a month
and a half) and my own test ride, the distraction level is actually very low.

At night, the display switches to a white on black interface with a dimmed
screen brightness. Unless you are seriously distracted by _any_ light in your
car at night, this isn't going to get in your way. Really, the only way you
can make it worse is by leaving a website up with animation on it or bright
colors.

In addition, any important info (navigation, media playback, range indication)
is available on the dash display. The default interface is relatively static,
so it's not going to try and distract you from driving. The most motion is
going to come from the dash, and that's right below your eye line, provided
you're actually keeping your eyes on the road.

I saw this at the Beta event last year and even though I wasn't the driver, I
ended up spending most of my time looking elsewhere besides the center
display. The car and the driving experience is really front and center, not
the touchscreen.

~~~
c1sc0
"Really, the only way you can make it worse is by leaving a website up with
animation on it or bright colors." ... Does this mean I can surf the web on
it? Does this feature get disabled automatically once past a certain speed?

~~~
timdorr
Yes, there's a full WebKit-based browser. It does not get disabled so your
passenger can interact with it while you're driving.

But these are general safety issues that Tesla has let the driver decide for
themselves, rather than forcing a decision with an automatic disabling at
certain speeds. You can also drive the car off a cliff, if you so choose. It's
really up to you to have some common sense about things like this. But the
default interface and night mode are designed to _not_ be a distraction, so
only you and your passengers can create a distraction (which can happen in any
car).

------
jpxxx
I got to see one of these in the wild yesterday - it's just beautiful. The
door handles sit flush with the body... the charging port has an
electromagnetic flip-open... the charger itself is beautiful... and it twirls
lights around the charger handle until it's completely full, at which point it
goes dark.

Beautiful, cool, wonderful 21st century engineering.

~~~
timdorr
The best part for me is how you start the car. Just get in and put it in
drive. You don't turn it on, it does that just be entering the car with the
key fob in your pocket. When you're done, put it in park and walk away. It
even locks it for you (a configurable option).

So much about this car is so...cool.

~~~
smackfu
Interesting. It's pretty standard for all that to happen in semi-luxury cards
today. But they do have a push-button to start the engine... I guess in an
electric car, there's not really any need to "start the engine" since it can
just be triggered by pressing the gas.

~~~
jcampbell1
It makes sense to have a push button for a gas engine, but for some reason a
hybrid camry I drove also had the same push button, and it was impossible to
know what that button did. I put the car in reverse, and nothing would happen.
Of course, I could put the car in park, and walk away and it would shut itself
down. So the button is only needed when starting the car, and it must be
pressed before shifting.

I think this is a smart move by Tesla, because I found push-to-start in a
toyota hybrid confusing.

------
thegranderson
The Model S has also won Automobile car of the year
([http://www.automobilemag.com/features/awards/1301_2013_autom...](http://www.automobilemag.com/features/awards/1301_2013_automobile_of_the_year_tesla_model_s/viewall.html))

and the Yahoo car of the year ([http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-
model-2013-yaho...](http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-
model-2013-yahoo-autos-car-165907072.html))

~~~
aidenn0
But nobody cares about those. Motortrend and Car & Driver are the big ones.

------
js4all
Tesla is the most innovative brand in cars. We need EVs to get independent
from oil.

We are now in a time of pioneers in a new world. There will be a lot of
failures but also successes. I have a good feeling with Tesla's way.

Here is why:

    
    
        1. The design is exceptional
        2. Their power train is simple. They didn't make the decision to use an extender like Volt which requires three hydraulic clutches
        3. They extend the range through super chargers
        4. They are aiming at the right target group
        5. The time is right
        6. Mr. Musk is a visionary

~~~
SeanLuke
> 2\. Their power train is simple. They didn't make the decision to use an
> extender like Volt which requires three hydraulic clutches

A Volt-like extender requires ZERO clutches. It requires nothing more than a
gas engine driving a generator which charges a battery which powers an
electric motor.

The reason why the Volt has three clutches is straightforward: unlike Tesla,
GM is trying to squeeze all the efficiency it can out of the car by taking
advantage of the fact that the car actually has three motors in it. The Volt
runs in four different modes:

0\. The battery-powered traction motor drives the car (the default).

1\. The gas engine drives a generator which, with battery support, powers the
traction motor to drive the car.

2\. The generator disengages from the (turned off) gas engine and performs
double-duty as a second battery-driven motor.

3\. The gas engine attaches directly to the drivetrain and helps the traction
motor drive the car.

Each of these is maximally efficient in different situations. For example, if
the battery is nearly depleted and the traction motor is spinning fast (over
70MPH), a gas engine directly assisting the wheels is more efficient than
generating electricity for the traction motor.

Here's the dirty secret of the Model S which no one seems to have touched on:
despite Tesla's aerodynamic puffery, it's a fairly inefficient electric
vehicle. The EPA rates it at just 89MPGe with its lightest battery, compared
to (for example) 98MPGe for the Volt, 99 for the Leaf, and 100 for the C-Max
Energi. The Model S doesn't really need to maximize efficiency because its
battery is big enough to handle range anxiety. But people who really cared
about oil independence (as it sounded like you did) would pick the Volt over
the Model S.

~~~
outworlder
MPG by itself is not enough to define if a car is "efficient" or not. We'd
need more data to determine that.

Isn't the leaf a much smaller car?

Not to mention the fact that _any_ electric car will be more energy efficient
than one using an internal combustion engine.

~~~
SeanLuke
Bah, MPGe, not MPG. And anyway, MPG has been the standard of efficiency
measurement for a century now, so such an argument is a bit weaselly, don't
you think?

My claim still stands. The Volt doesn't need three clutches, but it has three
because GM is concerned about efficiency, and Tesla not as much.

> Not to mention the fact that _any_ electric car will be more energy
> efficient than one using an internal combustion engine.

The Volt has an ICE.

~~~
aidenn0
MPG(e) measures one aspect of efficiency: how much stored energy it takes to
move the vehicle a given distance. If you use MPG, then a bus loses big time
since a bus gets way lower MPG than a car.

Another measure is per-passenger MPG(e) A bus now looks a whole lot better,
and a full Model S with jump-seats is more efficient than a full leaf in terms
of per-passenger MPGe.

Another measure of efficiency is how efficient it turns the energy stored
(gas, electricity, etc.) into kinetic energy. In this measure the weight of
vehicle is irrelevant. The bus probably does pretty well as large diesel
engines are typically more efficient than small gas engines, but pretty much
all electrics will beat out all ICEs since the best ICE vehicles are a shade
under 50% efficient, which is trivially beatable in an electric.

~~~
SeanLuke
> Another measure is per-passenger MPG(e) A bus now looks a whole lot better,
> and a full Model S with jump-seats is more efficient than a full leaf in
> terms of per-passenger MPGe.

All very true, but still very weaselly IMHO. Since the Leaf hauls five
passengers, what you're really saying is that the Model S is acceptably
efficient only if you're always carrying _six passengers._ I'm willing to bet
that, assuming your Model S even _has_ the child jump-seats in the back, this
is probably well less than 10% of the use cases for the kinds of people buying
this car.

And of course it's true that an ICE is less efficient than an electric motor.
That's not what was claimed. What was claimed was that " _any_ electric car
will be more energy efficient than one using an internal combustion engine",
that is, dismissing the Volt and C-Max.

I'm not saying that Tesla shouldn't have done what they did: they were very
smart in developing a competitor to the BMW 7-series. The long range is smart,
and the lack of an ICE backup is smart, and the high-end market is smart. It
was the right decision to make. But it is nonetheless still fair to say that
the Model S isn't a particularly efficient car in comparison to its electric
and plug-in hybrid competition.

~~~
aidenn0
The main point was the Model S could easily be just as thermodynamically
efficient as the Leaf.

On a side note, I can't fit my family of 5 in a Leaf since kids have to be in
a car-seat until age 8, and fitting 3 car-seats in the backseat of a Leaf is a
no-go.

------
atldev
These are beautiful. I saw a Fisker Karma EVer in the wild today. These
companies are doing such impressive design work on EVs. Why is there such a
big gap between these works of art and the Volt? Surely there's a market for a
40-50k electric vehicle with good lines.

~~~
JayBlanton
That's the Model X. <http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx>

~~~
w1ntermute
Huh? Jalopnik says that the Model X will start at $60k:
[http://jalopnik.com/5884111/tesla-model-x-price-tops-out-
at-...](http://jalopnik.com/5884111/tesla-model-x-price-tops-out-at-100000)

~~~
pbreit
Starts at $49,900 (after tax credit):
<http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options>

~~~
Gring
We're talking about Model X, but that's the model S pricing you're linking to.

------
CookWithMe
I guess no one at BMW, Mercedes or Audi has read the Innovator's dilemma.

That said, the German government tried to create many incentives for creating
"greener" cars. However, the manufacturers IMO seemed to pour money into
lobbying against it, rather then putting their engineers to work.

Depending on how much Tesla eats into their market share, it could be a tough
road ahead for the German car industry (and, to some extent, for the whole
German economy). Especially considering how long it takes them to come up with
an answer to the Prius...

~~~
phoboslab
Well, at least Mercedes holds a stake of about 5% of Tesla.

But I'm quite puzzled that even Porsche hasn't produced more than some shiny
prototypes. An electric sports car, where range isn't that much of an issue,
just seems like a no-brainer after the Tesla Roadster.

~~~
nja
Well, Porsche recently developed the 918 Spyder[1], which is a plug-in hybrid.
Pretty expensive, though.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_918#Spyder>

------
rdl
This is a legitimate award, much more so than the previous HN post award.

Ugh, I wish Model S vs. Model X weren't such a hard choice. An AWD Model S
would be perfect (I'll give up the Frunk, it's too small to hold anything I
care about).

~~~
timdorr
Elon Musk said some other versions of the Model S will debut next year. There
is a lot of speculation that one of those versions is AWD.

~~~
001sky
Extra weight and driveline friction will hurt range/battery life. That's one
reason why we probably haven't seen it yet.

------
susanhi
I got to test drive a Model S last week and it was even better than expected.
It felt like pure power when I put my foot down on the pedal and I was smiling
most of the drive. It really does feel like they made the best car that
happens to be electric, not just a good electric car. I can't wait for the 3rd
gen 30k range car to come out.

------
mmanfrin
Not a fan of below-the-fold videos autoplaying.

------
kin
Anyone here able to drive one yet? Or even own one? I'm curious to hear from
someone with personal use and how it compares to other luxury cars. It's the
little things I'm curious about.

~~~
secalex
What do you want to know?

~~~
kin
Having not owned an electric car before, I just wanted to know the little
things that could bother people. How long does it take to charge. How often do
you have to charge? How far can you go? What's the practicality of it? Just
for short commutes? What fees are contracts are there that could be a game
breaker?

I know the answer to some of these but just wondering if there were others
that I'm missing.

------
electic
Hope Jeremy Clarkson changes his mind on Tesla.

~~~
patrickk
I don't think he actually hates the car. Tesla claims (I believe in their
lawsuit against BBC) that they found a copy of the script for that episode,
and it involved driving the Tesla around off screen until the battery was
quite depleted, then driving the car to an area where they knew in advance
they couldn't charge it up. Totally against real world conditions, and gave a
very false picture of what owning a Tesla would be like.

 _"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better._

 _The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes
short again and again, because there is no effort without error and
shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great
enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the
worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor
defeat."_

-Theodore Roosevelt

Clarkson is just an old dinosaur who is slinging mud at the most innovative
car maker in the world. It's entertainment first, and accuracy a distant
second.

~~~
enneff
Who cares what Clarkson thinks? He is a bore.

------
netcan
If Tesla continues and succeeds, I wonder what it will do to the ideas of
innovation/disruption coming from the bottom end & competing with non
consumption, being ignored by serious operators, etc.

------
ChuckMcM
Well deserved, it really is an amazing car.

------
PhrosTT
I just walked by a 'Tesla Event' full of rich looking folk in NYC. I guess
that's what it was for.

Edit: confirmed.

[http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/10990-Special-...](http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/10990-Special-
Event-with-Elon-in-NYC-on-Nov-12)

------
akulbe
I would _love_ to have a Tesla... but I'd be soooooo paranoid about damage
and/or theft. :/

------
Shivetya
So how long before electric cars make a serious dent in auto sales? Certainly
not within the next four years. Possibly within ten. What percentage of sales
will electric cars have to be before people can buy without worrying about
resale or the like?

------
T_Electronics
If I can get a Lamborghini body on a Tesla chassis....SOLD!

~~~
patrickk
If there was an aftermarket Tesla customisation company like Brabus
(<http://www.brabus.com/>) it would be really cool. Hopefully done more
tastefully than Brabus obviously (tacky bling-bling Range Rovers, I'm looking
at you).

~~~
Luc
They have a custom version of the Tesla Roadster. It's under the 'specialcars'
link.

------
Hendrixer
Man I cannot wait to get one! The model X looks superb as well though. Good
job Tesla.

------
bengl3rt
The $49k base price is totally misleading. To get the "supercharger" access
that makes road trips possible, you're out another $12k at least ($10k 60kWh
battery plus $2k "supercharger" fee). Nav is $4k. Putting the rapid charger
into your home (if you have one and don't park in an apartment complex/on the
street) is another four figures.

All this to match the performance and luxury of the Acura TL I could get for
$40k.

Is it really the best car in the world if it's impractical or out of reach for
most people?

EDIT: Yes, I know _all_ car manufacturers use a deceptively low base price and
then nail you on "options" like air conditioning. Frankly I've often wished
there was a law, or at least a gentleman's agreement in the auto industry,
mandating that something can be an "option" for a maximum ten years before
it's considered part of the basic accoutrements in a modern car and gets
rolled in to all units shipped. Also, Tesla prides themselves outwardly on not
being like the rest of the auto industry, but inherits its worst practice and
magnifies it tenfold - base price $49 but for something usable you're pushing
$70.

~~~
sliverstorm
_Is it really the best car in the world if it's impractical or out of reach
for most people?_

"Car of the Year" doesn't mean, "Car everybody needs to go buy".

Taking a quote from Motor Trend's website:

 _the vehicle that best represents exceptional value, superiority in its class
and most significant development_

Take a look at historical "Car of the Year":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Trend_Car_of_the_Year#Car...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Trend_Car_of_the_Year#Car_of_the_Year)

Notice, for example, the Nissan GT-R ($100,000) for 2009, and the Honda Civic
($15,000) for 2006

~~~
bengl3rt
Value is linked to price. Tesla is doing the public a disservice by
encouraging the notion that the Model S starts at $49k, when it really starts
closer to $70 in order to approach a conventional car in utility.

Do you get $70k worth of car when you spend $70k on a Model S? Absolutely. You
get something that can hold a candle to if not surpass the $70k BMW M5 in
every way. But the curve isn't linear - the $49k barebones Model S is nowhere
near as useful as the BMW 528 you'd get for the same money.

~~~
sliverstorm
Please actually read the review. They don't pretend the extra features come in
the $49k model.

Additionally, it's a holistic approach. Nobody said it was a blowout victory
in every single aspect.

