
2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S - chanux
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/awards/1301_2013_automobile_of_the_year_tesla_model_s/viewall.html
======
martythemaniak
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.

~~~
CamperBob2
I'm a big Tesla fan, but I disagree. The only way electric cars can possibly
make sense is if the batteries are swappable. The electric cars being built
now are evolutionary dead ends, IMHO.

~~~
mncolinlee
As an electric car owner, I haven't found a need for swapping batteries.
Consider this: if a refueling station offered battery swapping they would also
need to exhaustively test your batteries to determine that they were not
abused and to determine how much credit to offer for their current capacity.
How does that save much time from just using a quick-charge station?

Today, I have plenty of range to get to and from work and most activities
driving a car with 1/3rd the EPA range of a Tesla Model S. Consider that you
can still do long road trips simply by stopping at a quick charge station for
a meal and a fillup or you can use some small part of the money you're saving
on fuel to rent a car. Given how few road trips I take, I could probably take
a limo every time if I wanted.

~~~
CamperBob2
_As an electric car owner, I haven't found a need for swapping batteries.
Consider this: if a refueling station offered battery swapping they would also
need to exhaustively test your batteries to determine that they were not
abused and to determine how much credit to offer for their current capacity.
How does that save much time from just using a quick-charge station?_

Because the batteries wouldn't have to be tested while you wait. Like laptop
batteries, they could have their own embedded controllers that would keep
track of each individual unit's charge state and condition. (Actually it's
almost certain that they already do.)

The analogy I like to use is swapping out propane cylinders for a gas grill.
It should take _less_ time to refuel an EV than a gasoline-powered vehicle,
not more.

This is also important for power management, if Musk's prediction comes true
and half of all cars sold by 2025 are indeed electric. Swappable batteries can
be charged when/where the power is available, using industrial rates and
infrastructure. Instead of seeing gasoline tankers driving around, you would
see trucks delivering and picking up batteries from service stations.

People will understand why hardwired batteries are a bad idea as soon as half
their neighborhood tries to charge their EVs every night the way we currently
charge our smartphones.

~~~
jblow
Forgot to mention that I am an electric car owner as well (Roadster).

I don't really like the idea of battery swapping. It seems like a big hassle.
The current Supercharger seems totally fine. I guess it remains to be seen how
well it works in practice, once a lot of people have the cars, but right now
things look really good.

One of the most common pieces of anti-EV rhetoric is "the infrastructure
doesn't exist". This is actually FUD. The infrastructure is everywhere: we
have electricity pretty much everywhere. (Consider: all these gas stations
have electricity, so the penetration of electricity is a superset of the
penetration of gasoline). What we don't often have is the right plug, but that
is a relatively small problem.

But if you start talking about installing a widespread battery swapping
paradigm, then that _is_ a huge infrastructure problem, because you need to
have stocks of all these physical things all over the place.

On the other hand, with Supercharger, you don't need that. You just need some
electricity. It is much simpler.

~~~
fr0sty
"You just need some electricity."

If you wave your hand enough anything is trivial. The "some" you are talking
about is 250A @ 400V (100kW) which is a trifle more than a typical gas station
can readily supply (especially if you want to charge more than one at a time).

~~~
jblow
Okay, so what if a particular gas station can't supply 100kW, so what? You
charge at 50kW? That is definitely less convenient, but still feasible for
filling up your battery and getting you where you want to go. It's still
infrastructure that works, so the anti-EV argument "there's no infrastructure
and the infrastructure can never be built" is still obviously wrong. It's also
still obviously wrong if you drop the charging to 25kW. etc, etc.

Besides, do you know that a typical gas station can't readily supply 100kW?
How do you know? Has anyone even thought about this seriously (except Tesla)?

I am a little bit shocked by the amount of specious naysaying that is
happening in this thread. This is supposed to be Hacker News, where people are
motivated to really think about problems, to build solutions, etc, etc. I
don't see any of that attitude in some of these replies.

------
rdl
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
> (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
In general, you should be careful in choosing which set of girls you want to
impress.

~~~
zalew
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.

------
cletus
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
Those of us who own electric cars know that electric cars have already won.
They are just too good compared to regular somewhat-junky gasoline cars. The
benefits are too numerous to list.

The _only_ problem that I have with my Roadster is that if I want to take a
long road trip, there has to be a big stopover in the middle, which makes
trips much longer. The Model S solves that. Therefore, EVs have won. They are
here now, they are real, and they work. All that needs to happen is for the
cost to come down, but there is nothing preventing that.

If you have parking at home, an EV is _way_ better than gas or hydrogen
because you never need to take your car somewhere to fuel it, ever (unless on
a very long road trip). You just come home, park, and plug it in. It is hard
to communicate how good this feels until you've had an EV for a few weeks and
you're driving past all these gas stations and kind of laughing because you
don't need them.

~~~
chc
Aren't EVs totally unusable if you live in an apartment? That was my
impression when I looked into them. Like, how would I charge a car in my
parking stall?

~~~
jblow
It is definitely less convenient if you don't have a garage. But as mentioned,
this is starting to be addressed. Also, the Supercharger-style charging
station becomes a lot like a gas station would be for a normal car.

I do think that "I don't have a garage / dedicated place to park my car" is in
fact the only current anti-EV argument that has any basis in reality. But it's
addressable.

~~~
freehunter
Really? The _only_ argument? How about my family lives 575 miles away from me,
and even with the ideal 250 mile range of a $100k Model S I would still need
to add at least an hour and a half to my already 10 hour one-way trip when I
visit them a few times per year? Meanwhile my $5,000, 14-year-old Toyota might
only get 20mpg, but the tank holds 350 miles of fuel and I only need to refill
once (rather than thrice) during the trip, costing me literally _minutes_ of
time.

Finding a place to recharge overnight is a problem. But let's not pretend it's
the only _real_ problem. I already have enough problems charging my phone
every night when I'm staying over at someone's house. Asking them to install
an outlet so I can charge my car is asking a bit more than many people will
stand.

~~~
matthewaustin
Congratulations - you are the 1% who this model fails for. The rest of us will
be just fine, since 99% of us don't travel more than 250 miles a day.

And for the couple times a year we need to take road trips, we can rent a
luxury sedan with the money we've saved on fuel costs.

~~~
freehunter
>And for the couple times a year we need to take road trips, we can rent a
luxury sedan with the money we've saved on fuel costs.

False.

See another discussion I'm involved in. To give you the gist: I drive a 14
year old gas guzzling truck. Let's say it broke down and I wanted to save
money, so I bought an electric car. Here's the breakdown in costs-

Buying another 14 year old gas guzzling Toyota truck: $19,000 over 5 years.
($1400/yr in gas, 32 mile round trip to work, plus a one-time cost of $5000)

Renting a minivan for vacation trips: $110/day plus gas (20mpg).

High-end Model S: $108,680 over 5 years. ($100,000 plus 5 years of renting a
minivan for one week)

Base Model S: $66,080 over 5 years. ($57,400 plus 5 years of renting a minivan
for one week)

Nissan Leaf: $42,500 over 5 years ($35,000 plus plus electricity costs plus 5
years of minivan rental)

The fact is, if you want to save money, you can do it more efficiently with an
ancient gas guzzler than you can buying a new electric car. Yeah you're saving
money on fuel costs, but you're spending a lot of money on the car itself. The
Leaf is built on the same platform as the Cube and the Micra, yet costs
$20,000 more MSRP. Even comparing it to the truck, it would take 14 years to
save enough on fuel to pay off that $20,000 you could have saved by buying the
Cube or the Micra.

I highly doubt that only 1% of the population needs to drive more than 250
miles at some point once a year. We have salesmen at work where some of them
drive that far _every day_. My mother was a home care nurse who drove that far
one day a week. If the car works for you, I'm glad. It's a nice car. But don't
fool yourself into trading in your old car for promises of saved money. The
numbers just don't work out, even for the average American driver they're
targeting.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4730973>

~~~
moconnor
Although it might not invalidate your argument, you have ignored the residual
value of having a 5-year old Model S / Nissan Leaf.

We don't know what that will be, yet, but it will probably be higher than the
residual value of a 14 year old gas guzzling Toyota truck.

~~~
mseebach
If you're doing prudent financial planning, you have to assume close to zero.
The technology is moving very, very quickly, and there's no telling what it
will look like in five years and if your present-day car can be retro-fitted
to fit into it.

~~~
henrikschroder
It's not unlikely that breakthroughs in battery technology could be
retrofitted into present-day electric car. I can totally imagine that 5 years
from now you take your Model S to the shop, and replace your battery with a
new and improved with 3x the range. It wouldn't be cheap, but cheaper than a
brand new car.

~~~
mseebach
Sure, I'm not claiming that it's impossible. But what if the technological
breakthrough is a sustainable way to mass produce bio-fuel?

------
confluence
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=AOdsTuaJEfc>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFVO31CbE0>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpySOCBqntI>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkIMmAX1iM>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9SsUbBqOkY>

------
beau
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
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.

------
patrickgzill
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
That screen in the center console is huge. Was it on and if so how was it to
use? Looks pretty useful for mapping.

~~~
patrickgzill
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.

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

~~~
timdorr
Considering both Sergey Brin and Larry Page are investors in Tesla, I would
think that's a distinct possibility.

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

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
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_a...](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)

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...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/07/24/a-quick-
test-drive-the-tesla-model-s/)

------
salimmadjd
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
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...](http://ca.autoblog.com/2012/10/09/sport-sedan-shootout-tesla-model-
s-beats-bmw-m5-in-a-drag-race/#continued)

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.

~~~
kerryfalk
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!_

~~~
bryanlarsen
It's not throttle response, it's torque at 0RPM.

When you're racing, you rev your engine before the light turns green and pop
the clutch when it turns green.

You don't do that when you're not racing, because it's hard on clutches, and
the vast majority of daily drivers are automatics.

When you're racing an electric car, you mash the accelerator when the light
turns green, the same way you start the car moving when you're normally
driving. So you get race-track start feeling every time you drive your car.

~~~
kerryfalk
Only electric vehicles start at 0 RPM. Normal combustion engines idle under
1,000 RPM and the M5 has a fairly flat torque curve for a naturally aspirated
car with somewhere around 260lbs at idle. That's very good and about 50% of
its peak torque.

The M5s also have SMG which is a computer controlled manual transmission. No
manually operated clutch. Even has a launch mode if you want the computer to
control wheel spin for you so you get the best possible launch.

Throttle response is still the wrong metric to use here. And is a bit of a red
herring in the discussion.

~~~
jblow
My 2006 M3 had SMG and I didn't like it much. (Fine for highway driving, sucks
for city street driving). Maybe the new one is better?

~~~
kerryfalk
I'm not a fan of the SMG myself (or equivalents from other manufacturers) nor
is anyone else I know. But it's not really because of any real performance
metric. SMG is far better at changing gears than any of us mortals could
accomplish. But it's just not _fun_.

If you didn't like yours for the same reason I don't know if you'd like the
new iterations. You're still not doing the shifting yourself.

ps. Your project looks interesting and I signed up for the mailing list. The
success page said an email had been sent but I haven't received anything. Not
sure if there's a long delay or it's a bug.

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

~~~
thetrb
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
> The Audi A7 was their car of the year.

Sorry, you're right. The Karma was the "Design of the Year".

------
dchichkov
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>

------
kayoone
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.

------
abhimishra
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>).

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>)

------
tocomment
Is that why TSLA stock is up today?

~~~
mncolinlee
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.

~~~
brc
>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
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.

------
phildeschaine
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.

------
MatthewPhillips
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>

~~~
jcfrei
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-
cir...](http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-plans-short-circuit-car-
dealers-194619627.html)

~~~
MatthewPhillips
You can't buy a Roadster?

~~~
timdorr
Nope. They stopped selling them in August 2011 when their supply of Lotus
Elise gliders ran out.

------
rickdale
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
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

------
kin
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.

------
cvanderlinden
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.

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

~~~
ChuckMcM
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
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--...](http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200903/tesla-model-s---
touc_1280x0w.jpg)

------
chanux
Did I see user emails in comments there?

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

~~~
stretchwithme
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.

------
rscale
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.

