2014 Tesla Model S Reviews

2014 Tesla Model S Reviews

Now in its third year, the 2014 Tesla Model S has no direct competitor. It remains the undisputed top choice in the growing world of plug-in electric cars, and there’s a good case to be made that it’s the most advanced car of any kind on the planet.

• Interior / Exterior »

The shape of the 2014 Tesla Model S remains unchanged from its launch almost two years ago. The fastback five-door design is smooth, sleek, and entirely at home in the company of the most stylish high-end luxury sedans, including the Jaguar XJ and the Maserati Quattroporte. The black oval on its smoothly rounded nose reads like the grille of either of those cars, although it’s a shiny plastic blanking plate.



Every element of its body has been refined to cut aerodynamic drag to an absolute minimum. It’s all in service of using the minimal amount of battery energy to move the car at speeds above 30 mph, where overcoming drag begins to consume more power than moving the car itself. Tesla has succeeded in its quest, too: In a test of five highly aerodynamic vehicles in the same wind tunnel by an enthusiast magazine, the Model S proved to have a lower drag coefficient than the Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, and Mercedes CLA.
The array of color choices includes the conventional hues–white, silver, charcoal, and black–but also offers dark green, deep blue, an unusual brown, and a striking bright red. A Model S painted in a deeper, richer red, almost maroon, is the tipoff that it was one of the first 1,000 Signature Series cars to be produced. The sunroof option is actually a pair of back-to-back large glass panels, turning the roof into a dark, smoke-tinted glass surface.
Most importantly, the shape of the Tesla–from the side, some people mistake it for a Jaguar XF or XJ–gives no hint that it is powered entirely by electricity. Designer Franz von Holzhausen has created a luxury sedan that stands on its own as a desirable shape, even before discussions of its futuristic powertrain made up of several thousand lithium-ion cells like the ones used in laptop computers.
Inside, the vertical 17-inch color touchscreen display in the center of the dash is the dominant visual element. Virtually every secondary function–climate control, audio, navigation, and even some vehicle settings, including charging behavior and suspension tuning–are controlled via large icons, sliders, and swipe motions. Behind the steering wheel, an instrument cluster is also a display screen, showing images of analog gauges. Both displays are clear and crisp, with simple, colorful graphics.
Once the wow factor of the displays wears off, the interior of the 2014 Model S proves to be a relatively unadorned space trimmed in muted colors. Leather seats are available, and the plastic surfaces that passengers are likely to touch have soft-touch surfaces.

• Performance »

The 2014 Tesla Model S is fully competitive with expensive German and British luxury sedans in one of the key reasons buyers opt for large luxury sedans: performance. It’s fast, comfortable, and handles well–and if you order the Performance or new Performance Plus option, it’ svery fast indeed.

Tesla offers two sizes of lithium-ion battery packs, 60 and 85 kilowatt-hours, with EPA-rated ranges of 208 and 265 miles respectively. Real-world ranges may be 10 to 20 percent below that, depending on travel speed; cold weather will sap range still further. As always, a driver’s range will vary considerably depending on how aggressively a Tesla is driven and at what speeds, the temperature outside, the weight being carried, and other factors too.
The battery pack is located under the floorpan of the passenger compartment, giving a slightly legs-out seating position. It’s only 5 inches tall, but it stretches from one side of the car to the other, and almost from axle to axle. It powers a 270-kW (362-hp) motor that drives the rear wheels. There’s no transmission; the rear-mounted motor sends it torques directly into a reduction gear that powers the differential. Top speed of the Model S is restricted to 130 mph.

The Performance and Performance Plus packages, which boost the output of the electric motor that drives the rear wheels, require the larger of the two pack sizes. They use a more powerful 301-kW (416-hp) motor, paired with higher-specification power electronics and other upgrades. The result is a quoted 0-to-60-mph time of 4.4 seconds, according to Tesla, against the standard Model S spec of 5.6 seconds. Some road testers, however, have measured 0-to-60-mph times of less than 4 seconds, however, an astounding figure for a five-passenger luxury sedan weighing more than two tons.
After wind drag, weight is the main range killer, and Tesla keeps that under control by using aluminum for virtually the entire body structure–just as the Audi A8, Jaguar XJ, and various Range Rover models do. The 85-kWh Performance model weighs in at around 4,700 pounds, with the base 60-kWh version somewhat lighter.

Behind the wheel, the Model S feels heavier than you might anticipate–closer to the heft of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, say, than to the smaller mid-size luxury sedans it nominally competes with on interior volume. But with its maximum torque developed from 0 rpm (like any electric car), the Tesla Model S surges swiftly and silently away from stoplights. The relative lack of noise makes it remarkably easy to hit 50 or 60 mph on city streets without particularly intending to.
Cornering is impressively neutral and flat–helped by weight distributed 45 percent front, 55 percent rear, and an extremely low center of gravity from placing placing the heavy battery pack at the lowest point of the car. Ride is firm on the standard setting, and the air suspension can pass certain road imperfections into the cabin. But when the roads get rough, the Model S suspension shows its stuff–riding superbly, smoothing out uneven, potholed, and cobblestone streets.

Safety is a major feature of the Model S, which earned the highest scores on crash testing. A pair of battery fires caused by road debris piercing the underfloor battery pack was addressed by the company early this year with a newly designed add-on battery shield (in three segments) that can be retrofitted at no expense to any existing Model S whose owners desires it. It’s won awards from both enthusiast publications and receives high marks from that bastion of sensible automotive purchasing, Consumer Reports.
The company will continue its program of incremental refinements to the Model S throughout the 2014 model year, though its major efforts will be put toward launching its second vehicle on the same underpinnings, the Model X crossover utility vehicle. The all-wheel-drive Model X is likely to provide a further feature to the Model S next year or the year after: an all-wheel-drive option based on a second traction motor driving the front wheels, for which there is ample space under the hood now occupied by the front trunk.

The nominal competition for the Model S is large, expensive sedans from German and British luxury makers. But buyers have a variety of motivations for choosing a plug-in electric car–don’t believe the conventional wisdom that it’s all about green–and there is no other car on the market that competes directly with the Tesla. Perhaps the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid, a plug-in hybrid with about 20 miles of electric range, comes closest. And there will soon be a Mercedes-Benz S-Class plug-in hybrid with roughly similar specifications. But they’re not all-electric, and Tesla buyers have replaced everything from Toyota Prius hybrids to BMW and Mercedes sedans, even minivans and economy sedans.

Almost two years after its launch, there is no longer any question that the Model S is a “real car” that provides real-world electric travel to customers who are largely happy, almost evangelistically so. Tesla itself attracts interest all over the world, but driving in its car–for which tens of thousands of people have paid $70,000 to more than $100,000–brings home the reality that the company has built what no other carmaker in the world has yet managed: an electric car that’s not only sensible, and well-built, and functional, but fun, sexy, and genuinely desirable. The automotive world is a more interesting, and more diverse, place because of it.

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