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Two years ago, our first-ever Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy award went to the first modern battery-electric car sold in the U.S.
How far we've come.
This year, our third annual winner is the 2013 Tesla Model S, a car that takes the all-electric vehicle to a new and far more elevated level.
But that's far from the only reason it won. The Tesla Model S is an impressive new entry in the luxury sport sedan field for its performance, its looks, its capabilities, and its digital infotainment and control system.
NOTE: In December 2012, we gave this award to the 2013 Tesla Model S based on the availability of a base model with a 40-kilowatt-hour battery pack at a price of $59,900. That complied with our requirement that the Best Car To Buy Award go to a car priced at $60,000 or less.
In early April 2013, Tesla announced that it had canceled that 40-kWh model, due to lack of demand. According to the company, just 4 percent of its Model S depositors had specified the smallest battery size. The company said that for those customers who had put down deposits on the 40-kWh car, it would sell them a 60-kWh Model S with software that limited the car's range to the range that the 40-kWh car would have delivered.
Electric power secondary?
Silicon Valley startup carmaker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has pulled off an almost inconceivable feat: It's designed and put into production a car that competes across the board with some of the most storied brands in the industry.
And that car is the first volume production vehicle from a company that didn't even exist eight years ago.
From styling that many onlookers assumed was the newest, latest, sleekest Jaguar--a compliment indeed for a new carmaker--to smooth, silent acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds (in the Performance version), the Tesla Model S is more than an impressive new green car.
It's an impressive car. Period. The fact that it's green is almost secondary.
Its 17-inch touchscreen display, for instance, is so fast, so crisp, and so relatively intuitive that it makes all other such control systems seem pathetically outdated.
That even applies to the brand-new Cadillac CUE system, whose deficiencies cost the otherwise excellent 2013 Cadillac ATS the same title from Motor Authority, our sister site.
'Buff books' converted
The Tesla Model S has won awards all over the place. It's attracted 14,000 or more buyers to put down deposits before the company's built more than 2,000 or 3,000 vehicles.
And it's completely seduced some of the most hard-core gasoline proponents of all: the "buff book" car magazines whose judgments that it was a car of the year sealed Tesla's emergence into the ranks of carmakers to whom attention must be paid.
Two of the three versions of the 2013 Tesla Model S have now been certified by the EPA for electric range: 265 miles for the 85-kilowatt-hour version, and just last week, 208 miles for the 60-kWh model.
The third and final version, with a 40-kWh battery pack and a reduced set of features and options, will go into production in the next few months.
Useful real-world range
Electric range, of course, depends greatly on speed, acceleration, driving style, outside temperature, and other factors.
One owner made news last week, for example, when he managed to drive his Model S more than 400 miles on a single charge.
Have an opinion?
Guess "the disbelief, criticism, and sneering that often confronts startup companies with radical new ideas" is indeed starting to change to "grudging acknowledgment even by skeptics that the 2013 Tesla Model S is a viable, well-built, functional, and competent car that's also fun to drive" and that's the sort of acknowledgement Tesla needs to survive.
I think a startup needs to do things better than anyone else to prove it has a right to exist and the increasing number of awards testify that Tesla has really succeeded in doing just that.
Great choice and great work by Tesla!
When the smart consumer realizes that, EVs will start to come into their own. When consumers realize that they can incorporate a much shorter range (and cheaper), then the revolution will be in full swing!
That is probably more miles than all the Tesla S sedans going to cover in the next 2 years.
The point is to build many EVs for the mainstream consumers, not few super good EVs for the wealthy.
But selling few thousands of Tesla S @ $100k per year aren't going to saving nearly as much oil/gas as a cheap version of the Nissan Leaf that gets 150 miles EV range that sells in the tens of thousands.
Or even extra 100,000 45mpg+ cars on the road to replace the 25mpg+ cars...
When Tesla can come out with a sedan that goes more than 150 miles AND cost less than $35k, then I would really think they "did" it.
For now, it is still the "BEST CAR TO BUY WHEN MONEY IS NO CONCERN".
But with the "low" number of EVs on the market today, I would say that impact is still FAR SMALLER than what the hybrids did in improving the overall fuel consumption. (I am saying this with the fact that I don't like Prius). Prius probably has done FAR MORE in saving gas than Tesla has done in its existance.
With that said, I do agree that Tesla has started a "revolution". Debunking the myth that EVs can't be competitive or people don't want it. But we should realize the fact that the largest IMPACT to overall efficiency will come from the LEAST efficent segment (SUV/Truck) and highest quanitity (Affordable midsize family car).
It appears that you are deeply unset by our selection of the Tesla Model S as our 2013 Best Car To Buy. Got that.
Can we move along to another topic now?
In states with the very dirtiest grids--ND + WV, IIRC--a 50-mpg car like the Toyota Prius is slightly greener. In California, however, where more plug-in cars will be sold than in the next 5 states combined, the grid is relatively clean and electric cars are DECISIVELY cleaner and lower carbon.
But as you say in a prior comment--one of seven you seem to have spewed out--"anyone can say pretty much anything they like" on the Internet.
It just might help make your case if you had actual facts & data behind you when you say it.
Unless you can produce reputable studies that counter the 2007 EPRI-NRDC study or the more conservative 2012 UCS study, with respect ... you're just blowing smoke.
Your accusations that GCR is "a shill for Tesla Motors" neatly balance out those of our readers who insist that our coverage is biased against Tesla and intended to cause the company to fail.
To the substance of your complaint, however: Do you REALLY think that Tesla Model S buyers are not aware of the car's capabilities? That anyone who spends $60K to $100K on a rare all-electric car from a brand-new and virtually unknown automaker won't do their research first?
RLY?
You can now choose to have the car door handles extend as you approach the vehicle. As far as aggressive regen braking you can now choose a lower regen which gives a less agressive feel.
Have an opinion?Join the conversation!