Tesla's Model S is fast and fun

I am now a affiliate of a baddest club: I’m one of the actual few who has apprenticed Tesla’s new all-electric Model S affluence sedan.

Last week, the aggregation accustomed a few associates of the bounded columnist to analysis drive the car for about 15 account each. That’s not abundant time for a absolute evaluation, but it is abundant for some able antecedent impressions.

The aboriginal words that appear to apperception about the Model S are “fast” and “fun.” The car I drove, which is a higher-end, $77,400 version, has some austere pickup. Tesla says it will ability 60 afar per hour in 5.9 abnormal and is governor-limited to 130 afar per hour.

Those aren’t world-beating numbers — Tesla is affairs a “performance” adaptation of the Model S that will get to 60 mph in 4.4 abnormal — but they’re affluence fast for a lot of drivers.

When you bite the accelerator, you don’t get the clear barrage of a V-8 engine, but there’s something aberrant and blood-tingling about activity a car rapidly ability artery speeds and above with no sounds added than a little alley and wind noise. It about feels like getting on the Starship Enterprise as it goes into bastardize drive.

And the nice affair about that ability is that it’s instantaneous. You don’t accept to downshift or delay for the manual to do so for you, because basically there is no accessory box. Also, the ability is accessible even at artery speeds — instantly — if you wish to canyon someone.

The Model S feels solid and takes curves tightly. The car’s array backpack is below the cockpit rather than in the block or in the front, giving it a low centermost of force and bigger stability. And its onboard computers automatically lower its abeyance as you get up to artery speeds.

One acute affair about active the car is the amount to which you can personalize the experience. You can acclimatize the abeyance up or down to abstain boring the cowl if you dip into a driveway, say. You can acclimatize the council to accomplish it tighter, like that in a sports car, or looser, like that in a acceptable American affluence car.

And you can acclimatize the feel of the accelerator. The accepted setting, which provides a big recharge addition to the battery, gives the car the activity of accepting a accepted transmission; as you let up on the accelerator, the car slows markedly, as if you had downshifted into a lower gear. But you can change it so the accelerator feels added like one in a car with an automated transmission, area there’s beneath deceleration if you let up the pedal. The accommodation is that you aswell forward beneath allegation aback to the batteries.

On the outside, the Model S looks like a cantankerous amid a Jaguar and a Maserati. It may be the latest in high-tech automobiles, but it doesn’t scream “electric car!” And that’s a acceptable thing.

On the inside, the car feels a bit Spartan. It has covering seats and copse trim, but the berth is a bit bland, basal and utilitarian.

What stands out in the Model S berth is the 17-inch touch-screen affectation that serves as its centermost console. Through it, you can acclimatize the radio, the active acquaintance and the altitude control. You aswell use it to appearance video from the rear-facing camera, maps from Google Maps and even cream the Web through its congenital browser. The affectation is ample abundant to acquiesce you to appearance its card controls, a map and radio buttons all at the aforementioned time.

The car has a congenital cellular abstracts radio, which allows users not alone to cream the Web, but aswell get turn-by-turn aeronautics and admission Internet radio. But the “connectivity package” that allows you to do all that is optional. Tesla isn’t yet advice the price.

Unfortunately, the animate is somewhat limited. In agreement of its ball capabilities, for example, users can admission TuneIn radio and Slacker radio through the blow screen, but not Pandora, Spotify, Google Music or any added Internet radio service. You can beck music from such casework to the animate from your smartphone, but you can’t ascendancy those apps through the animate itself. Tesla assembly said they plan on abacus that adequacy eventually.

The animate aswell doesn’t abutment articulation control. So you can’t columnist a button and acquaint it to punch a buzz amount for you or change the channel. Tesla’s arch technology officer, J.B. Straubel, said the aggregation affairs to add articulation ascendancy application Google Voice, but it’s not accessible at launch. And sorry, iPhone fans, the aggregation doesn’t yet plan to abutment the new hands-free capabilities Apple is abacus to its Siri feature.