The Model S changed everything

The Tesla Model S has reached the end of its amazing 14-year run, and what an amazing journey it has been.

In 2012, when Tesla delivered the first shipment of a Model S to customers, Facebook acquired Instagram. Apple launched the iPhone 5 and iOS 6. Barack Obama sailed into his second term. Superstorm Sandy tore through New York City and highlighted the ominous threat of climate change. As the nation recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, cautious optimism flowed across the airwaves as mid-sized technology companies seemed positioned to solve the world’s most challenging problems. Early adopters were eccentric pioneers racing faster into the future, breaking things and iterating for good. Such was the mood when the Model S hit the market and it quickly made Tesla the most interesting car company in the world.

The roadster, which was first introduced in 2008, was an irreverent version of Lotus’ sports car. Tesla unveiled the Model S the following year, but by 2012, auto analysts were questioning its viability. Creating and building a mass production car was a daunting task, and the spiral of borrowed money that Tesla burned through was staggering. The industry has seen automotive startups come and go. The odds were stacked against the California startup.

In June of that year, Tesla hosted A The launch occurred at its factory in Fremont, California The first deliveries to customers were promoted under the guise of an investor relations meeting. The noise was palpable. “Within 20 years, more than half of new cars manufactured will be fully electric,” Elon Musk told reporters in attendance. “I actually feel quite safe on that bet. That’s a bet I’m going to make.” Even if expectations were not met, the characteristic swagger and poise were on full display – propelling the Model S into the zeitgeist.

Automakers everywhere winced when the Model S became the trendy car. Car dealers revolted when Tesla bypassed franchises and sold directly to consumers. The luxury electric car market and the strategy of making an expensive supercar have led to the decline of European luxury car makers. While the original base price for the Model S was $49,900 — including the $7,500 federal tax credit — movers, shakers, and Tesla believers forked out more than six figures to get a fully loaded version and the lifestyle and vision it promised. Here was a vague vision of the future: clean, green and elegant under the supervision of chief designer Franz von Holzhausen. Von Holzhausen, an ArtCenter transportation design graduate, left a strong leadership role at Mazda to go all-in on the digital future. The Model S’s interior eliminated expensive gauges, buttons and knobs in favor of the ubiquitous screen that has dominated almost all modern cars.

“It was the first software-defined vehicle,” Paul Snyder, head of the Transportation Design Program at the College of Creative Studies, tells me. “One of the biggest shocks was the revenue that could be made after the car was sold.”

It wasn’t just an expensive electric car, but the most innovative, smart, and attractive car the industry had seen in decades.

For the exterior, Tesla took styling cues from classic 1970s wedge designs, such as the Bertone X1/9 and Triumph TR7, which narrow at the front end. The design team came up with innovative ways to work with the shape of the car that didn’t require a traditional grille. “Implementing the front-end offline was very impactful,” says Snyder.

The design resonated as automakers rushed to catch the Model S craze. “They were very clean and had great proportions,” Snyder says. “The Model S is very wide for its length and height, which gave it a great stance. One quote I read from Franz was that they were allowed to go into the car without restrictions. All of these things combined added to the wake-up call. They made the electric car look very attractive. And people were buying them in droves.”

By November 2012, the Model S was receiving accolades as Motor Trend Car of the year. “It was a unanimous choice for car of the year and first electric car,” said Ed Loh, who was the magazine’s editor-in-chief. Motor TrendHe tells me. Luo presented the award to Musk, who hoisted it over his shoulders. “It offered over-the-air updates for features that were very far in its lifespan, and other features that were not expected, such as Easter eggs. It introduced the idea of ​​a car that got better over time, using the same chassis. It had hips and a fast windshield and was genius in the simplicity of its design. Plaid brought attention to all supercars.”

Edge It was early on Tesla. Chris Ziegler He drove it at Fremont in 2013“The Model S isn’t perfect. Far from it — and I think Elon Musk would be the first to admit that,” he wrote. “But for a company that’s only a decade old to produce a car good enough to convince a Detroiter that this could be the future of transportation? Well, that’s pretty amazing.”

Like Chris, I’m a Detroit native and grew up surrounded by engineers. I shared some of his fear, but I felt just as much magic when he said it I reviewed the Model S in 2017. I drove the dream car version, the $165,000 P100D that came before Plaid above the current line. In five years, Tesla has ironed out many of the car’s quirks. The Supercharger network gave Tesla the infrastructure it needed to make a trip on Highway 101 fun, so when I drove it from Fremont to Monterey, range wasn’t even a factor. It’s equipped with second-generation Autopilot, a reminder of how far-fetched the future of autonomous driving is a topic of conversation.

The Model S was the car that made environmentalism luxury, progressive and cool and launched the demand for electric vehicles around the world. “They were all over California,” Snyder says. “Being associated with doing something positive for the environment sets a standard that scares everyone at work.”

Featured in rap lyrics such as A metaphor for the future and breaking the rules. Jaden Smith and 2Chainz have written six tracks about Teslas. “I just drove a Tesla with my eyes closed,” rapper 2Chainz says on Gucci Mane’s 2017 track “Both Eyes Closed.” The Tesla reference was a bit naive and naughty.

Where Tesla has maintained its superiority is in its software. We gave it high marks for its game-changing digital capabilities Our podcast of 2023 Tesla shock wave. Nearly three years later, Tesla has become less frictionless in its software. And at the top of the heap, the Model S Plaid’s performance is nothing to sneeze at. A decade ago, a production car that accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in about two seconds would have seemed crazy. The Model S made electric cars fun to drive fast.

The Model S eventually laid the foundation for what was in the making, leading to the Model If you can’t afford the Model S, the Model 3 is the next best thing. You don’t even have to like cars to love Tesla. Whenever I mentioned my job as an automotive journalist, all anyone wanted to talk about was Tesla.

In the years since I reviewed the Model S, Tesla has moved away from its luxury core. It can be said that the competition has heated up. Rivian outsells the Model S in the premium segment. Porsche, Lucid, and Rolls-Royce have more luxurious materials in their products.

As with the Model S, so too with the Model The Model Tesla last gave the Model S and Model Last summer. In its update to the S, Tesla has tweaked the air intakes and wheels and improved its camera technology. These are the kinds of changes you would expect from a regular car company to develop an old model, not the beating heart of bold innovation.

As Tesla’s products fade, Musk appears to have done just that Lost interest in cars. When he announced the end of the Model S, he said it was because Tesla had become a robotics and artificial intelligence company. Selling people on his vision will be an uphill battle When study after study appears Americans are not interested in giving up the steering wheel in favor of robotaxis. And Musk himself isn’t in a good position to convince the masses that Tesla is best suited to lead us to a better transportation system — or anything after his disastrous handling of DOGE and the recent controversy surrounding his AI robot Grok. His erratic, confusing, and obnoxious behavior that has led many of his core customers to dump their Teslas does the company little good.

Remember Musk’s predictions from 2012, when he said that half of cars would be electric within 20 years? last year, Edmonds reported Of the approximately 292.3 million cars on the road in 2024, 1.4 percent will be electric cars. After the federal tax subsidy was eliminated by the current federal government, which Musk worked with, this number does not appear to be poised to jump in the near term. The electric vehicle industry will advance, supported by billions of dollars in investment and competition in China. Change is happening, but at a slower, more steady pace than Musk and other auto CEOs have touted over the past decade.

What Tesla contributed more than a decade ago with the Model S was to inject a desire for change into the auto industry. Snyder said he saw Tesla’s influence on the transportation design program, as aspiring designers joined the program who were interested in mobility and not just traditional gasoline-powered sports cars.

“It is impossible not to acknowledge the impact it has on students,” he says. These students constitute the next generation of transportation designers, responsible for bringing the next wave of electric vehicles to market, albeit for other car companies.

Even if it’s not the car that will take us there, the Model S has long made its most important point — that alternative vehicles can inspire change. In the same way that the original iPhone changed the way we communicate, the Model S changed the way we perceive the road ahead. The Model S made Tesla the most influential car company of the 21st century – so far.