Unremarkable (but surprisingly good) cars: Tesla Model S

Initially mocked by the world’s carmakers, they can now thank the Tesla Model S for proving the market for electric cars

Not that long ago, the electric car was considered a bit of a joke – at best, a technological dead-end. Japanese carmakers had produced EVs like the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi iMiev, vehicles no bigger than a small car but costing multiples the price, with impractically short range and needing hours to ‘refuel’, while GM dabbled with pricey sideshows like the Volt.

In the USA, a small American company called Tesla tried to rethink the EV, having turned a lightweight Lotus with a thrumming four-cylinder, into a heavy, near-silent electric vehicle called the Roadster. The first prototype was unveiled to the public in 2006 ahead of the first production models in 2008. The very first Roadster was delivered to Tesla’s Chairman, Elon Musk. The world would soon know his name.

Four years earlier, in 2004, the destiny of this American start-up was to change – and with it, the electric car itself. Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk came on board, backing founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning to go mainstream. It was announced that a new product, the Model S, a four-door electric sedan, would go on-sale in 2012. Despite the song and dance, nobody paid much notice – in 2009, General Motors internally considered Tesla a “bunch of engineers playing with laptop batteries”.

When it finally arrived, the provocatively-named Model S hit the automotive industry unlike any other EV before it – making electric cars cool, desirable and even exciting, effectively overnight.

At 0.24Cd, its slippery sedan shape had the lowest aerodynamic drag coefficient of any production vehicle, helping boost range to up to 500km. A skateboard electric vehicle platform provided two boots – one in the back, and the front – while inside, road-testers were wowed by the enormous, 17.0-inch central infotainment touchscreen in which even air-conditioning controls were housed, something anathema to interior designers back then, perhaps still.

One of the biggest party tricks of the Model S, especially in its P85D dual-motor guise, was the acceleration. For years, the motoring world coveted sports cars like the Porsche 911 Turbo which could achieve once-unthinkable 0-100km/h times. Suddenly, an upstart electric sedan from California could give exotic vehicles like the 911 Turbo a fright, if not outright beat it – with two simple electric motors, versus the complex, twin-turbo, flat-six, doppelkupplung twin-clutch, all-wheel-drive powertrain of the Porsche.

The Model S went on sale in Australia in 2014 from around $91,400 – about the same price as a BMW 335i – but back at Tesla HQ, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. The year prior, three Model Ss burst into flames in the USA, having sustained damage to their batteries, denting the share price. The company almost went broke.

Ten years later, however, the creases have been all-but ironed out, with global Model S sales surpassing 250,000 in September 2018 – while the sales torch has since been handed to newer models such as the Model 3 and Model Y.

The Model S, however, was the original vehicle that took risks the legacy car-makers, fat and bloated by bureaucracy, were too scared to take – and they’re now paying the price. It brings to mind the lyrics of legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong – the man who sung What a Wonderful World – who opined in another song that “Ford and his lizzie, kept the laughers busy”. He was referring to Henry Ford’s Model T – the “Tin Lizzie” – initially mocked, but a vehicle that went on to transform the world, bringing the motor vehicle to the masses, with more than 15 million built and sold.

With the Tesla Model Y on track to be the best-selling passenger vehicle in the world for 2023 – petrol or electric – history might come to see the humble Tesla Model S in a similar light.

How do you think history will regard Tesla and the Model S? Let us know in the comments below.

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