Finalist: 2010s
2013 Tesla Model S
Redefining modern
transportation
inside its massive 17.0-inch
dash-mounted tablet made the
world realize luxury didn’t just
mean leather and wood trim.
Luxury is technology, too.
Holding it all together
was Tesla’s burgeoning
Supercharger network. Just six
of these fast-charging stations
existed in California back in
2013, but we could see the
promise of long-distance EV
travel even then. Today, Tesla
has built more than 1,500 of
its proprietary Supercharger
stations worldwide, covering
virtually every mile of the
continental U.S., and copycat
networks such as Electrify
America are growing rapidly.
These stations have made
long-distance transportation in
an electric car a viable option,
and have shown established
automakers the path forward to
the inevitable electric future.
The crazy thing about driving
a Model S is how normal it all
is. Our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D
tester, owned by MotorTrend
Group head of legal Diana
Malhis, is fast and sporty, yet it’s
also comfortable and quiet. So
many qualities that were previ-
ously polar opposites coexist
happily in the Model S.Even more amazing is how
much this particular Model S has
evolved over the years. Thanks
to Tesla’s continual over-the-air
improvements to the Model S,
this car is capable of driving
semi-autonomously across the
country should the mood strike.
Because of the future-proofing
updates delivered straight
to your driveway, it’ll take far
longer for a Tesla to become
outdated than it will other elec-
tric or gas-powered cars.
Saying the Tesla Model S is a
game-changer is cliché, but no
vehicle can do what the Model
S can do as well as it does it.
This is the vehicle that almost
singlehandedly made electric
cars cool.
More telling: Even six years
after the Model S went into
production and won Car of the
Year, there’s still not a single
electric car from another auto-
maker that can go as far as the
Tesla Model S (now up to 370
miles on the latest software), go
as quick as the Model S (down
to a shocking 2.3-second 0–60
on the P100D Ludicrous+), or
challenge the Tesla’s sense of
California cool.
As it did in 2013, the Tesla
Model S feels like the future. CST
he 2010s aren’t quite over
yet, but when we sat down
to pick which Car of the Year
winner from this decade
is most impactful, we quickly,
unanimously agreed upon the
2013 Tesla Model S.
Simply put, no car—let alone
truck or sport utility vehicle—
from the 2010s has had or will
have both the cultural and
vehicular impact of the big Tesla
sedan. The Model S turned the
automotive industry on end
when it made its 2013 debut.
A rolling manifesto, the Model
S announced to the world that
Tesla was more than a kit-car
maker of electrified Lotus Elises.
Serial production of ground-up
electric vehicles meant Elon
Musk’s enterprise was to be
taken seriously.
Initially available with two
battery sizes promising up to
265 miles of range and a rear-
mounted AC-induction electric
motor good for up to 416 hp,
the Model S made the average
American rethink what an EV is
and what it could do. The Tesla
was both shockingly quick,
accelerating from 0 to 60 mph
in 4.0 seconds, and efficient,
netting an observed 74.5
mpg-e during Car of the Year
testing. As an added bonus,
with a center of gravity about
as low as a 2005 Ford GT, the
big Tesla could dance around a
corner, too.
The Tesla Model S also
made American luxury cool
again. Outside, the Model S
was beautifully proportioned
and elegant in its stance, while70TH ANNIVERSARY I UCOTY
42 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2019