Sad With a Big S

Let's start with the obvious, I won't miss the Model X. Sure, I fondly remember dropping the kids off at school with a tester one day and opening the Falcon Wing doors to the awe of the youngsters present. But it was essentially a SUV that sat between chairs. Too big for Europe and too small for the US. Elon made a mistake he would later make again in bringing the SUV version of a car after the saloon. Exactly the opposite of what the market wanted.

So as things played out, the real wonder car was the car that the Model X was built upon: the Model S. Now, 14 years later, it is easy to forget how Different, yes with a big D, this car was. Sure it had that typical American built-quality with some wider cracks between the body parts and some creaks here and there. But it was so fast, quiet and planted! Even though I had had plenty of time driving around in the Tesla Roadster, I remember driving the S for the first time at a test-event in Germany, launching it on the autobahn and still getting short-circuits in my brain. A big saloon just wasn't supposed to drive like that!

The Model S was the first mass produced car that combined all the advantages that numerous electric cars today possess. A heavy battery in the bottom lowering the center of gravity, quiet effortless acceleration, more than acceptable range and amazing amounts of interior space. Combined with the supercharger network that came a few years later, it proved to all the doubters that there were no excuses left on the path to decarbonization. Here was an American startup that took all the "yes buts" and put them up the traditional manufacturers' ...

If the Tesla Model S had just been the first successful fully electric car of this age, I might not be in such awe of it. We should also remember that it launched a great number of other evolutions that define our current industry. The central screen for example, turning the vehicle into a giant Iphone. Granted, a few in the industry including Tesla, have taken the trend way too far, but we could not do without these days. Building the car around a central operating system with over the air updates was also something that completely changed the game. Cars were not longer rigid pieces of technology that never got better after leaving the factory. Anything and everything that could be steered digitally could keep evolving. Now most people know what OTA is, back then even some pretty senior executives produced blank stares when confronted with the future. Software defined vehicles of the future, your great grandmother was the model S! We have three quarters left to go, so I'm hoping Bloomberg gets it wrong when they call this the car of the century, but it might very well be.