Tesla Model S Wins “Automobile of the Year”

"It's the performance that won us over," admits Automobile Magazine Editor-in-Chief, Jean Jennings.

November 1, 2012

 

Amer­i­ca’s Lead­ing Auto­mo­tive Lifestyle Mag­a­zine Picks Mod­el S as the Best New Car for 2013Tes­la Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) announced today that Mod­el S, the world’s first pre­mi­um elec­tric sedan, was cho­sen as win­ner of AUTOMOBILE Mag­a­zine’s most pres­ti­gious award, “Auto­mo­bile of the Year.” Mod­el S impressed a high­ly dis­crim­i­nat­ing team of edi­tors and writ­ers to best some of the world’s most crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed and his­tor­i­cal­ly dom­i­nant brands. In their words, Mod­el S “blew them all away.”“Winning AUTOMOBILE Mag­a­zine’s ‘Auto­mo­bile of the Year’ award is an impor­tant mile­stone for Tes­la because it under­scores our goal to build a great car, not just a great elec­tric car,” saidE­lon Musk,Tesla Motorsco-founder and CEO. “Win­ning this award is great recog­ni­tion of what we’ve accom­plished as a com­pa­ny, and we’re thrilled to receive this endorse­ment from one of the indus­try’s most respect­ed authorities.“Competition for “Auto­mo­bile of the Year” has always includ­ed name­plates of the high­est cal­iber. This year it required beat­ing an incred­i­bly impres­sive field of com­peti­tors, includ­ing the Porsche 911, Sub­aru BRZ, Cadil­lac ATS, and BMW M5. Four days of track test­ing, road test­ing and close exam­i­na­tion proved that Mod­el S excels on all fronts — design, per­for­mance, tech­nol­o­gy and range.All final­ists for the 2013 “Auto­mo­bile of the Year” award were estab­lished by senior edi­to­r­i­al staff mem­bers and con­tribut­ing writ­ers ofAU­TO­MO­BILE Mag­a­zine. While the edi­tors and writ­ers con­sid­er what each final­ist sig­ni­fies for their respec­tive man­u­fac­tur­er and for the auto­mo­tive indus­try at large, pure desir­abil­i­ty, prac­ti­cal­i­ty, afford­abil­i­ty, pack­ag­ing and fuel econ­o­my are also sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors in deter­min­ing the win­ner.About Mod­el S
Mod­el Sis the world’s first pre­mi­um sedan built from the ground up as an elec­tric vehi­cle and has been engi­neered to ele­vate the pub­lic’s expec­ta­tions of what a pre­mi­um sedan can be. At the heart of Mod­el S is the proven Tes­la pow­er­train, deliv­er­ing both unprece­dent­ed range and a thrilling dri­ve expe­ri­ence. With a rigid body struc­ture, near­ly 50/​50 weight dis­tri­b­u­tion and a remark­ably low cen­ter of grav­i­ty, Mod­el S offers the respon­sive­ness and agili­ty expect­ed from the world’s best sports cars while pro­vid­ing the ride qual­i­ty of a lux­u­ry per­for­mance sedan.Setting the bar for elec­tric dri­ving range, Mod­el S offers 40 kWh, 60 kWh and 85 kWh bat­tery options. All deliv­er unprece­dent­ed range, with the 85 kWh vari­ant achiev­ing anEPA-cer­ti­fied range of 265 miles. All three bat­ter­ies use auto­mo­tive-grade lithi­um-ion cells arranged for opti­mum ener­gy den­si­ty, ther­mal man­age­ment, and safety.Without an inter­nal com­bus­tion engine or trans­mis­sion tun­nel, the inte­ri­or of Mod­el S has more car­go space than any oth­er sedan in its class and includes a sec­ond trunk under the hood. The inte­ri­or fea­tures a 17″ in-dash touch­screen with Inter­net capa­bil­i­ties, allow­ing for stream­ing radio, web brows­ing and navigation.

About Tes­la
Tes­la’s goal is to accel­er­ate the world’s tran­si­tion to elec­tric mobil­i­ty with a full range of increas­ing­ly afford­able elec­tric cars.California-based Tes­la designs and man­u­fac­tures EVs, as well as EV pow­er­train com­po­nents for part­ners such as Toy­ota and Daim­ler. Tes­la has deliv­ered more than 2,400 Road­sters to cus­tomers world­wide. Mod­el S, the first pre­mi­um sedan to be engi­neered from the ground up as an elec­tric vehi­cle, began deliv­er­ies to U.S. cus­tomers in June of this year. Tes­la has already received more than 13,000 reser­va­tions world­wide for Mod­el S.

About AUTOMOBILE Magazine
AUTOMOBILE Mag­a­zine, a pub­li­ca­tion of Source Inter­link Media, LLC, is Amer­i­ca’s lead­ing auto­mo­tive lifestyle pub­li­ca­tion and reach­es 4.6 mil­lion read­ers month­ly; through its print, online and dig­i­tal com­po­nents, the brand counts an audi­ence of over 6 million.Automobile Mag­a­zine, which presents annu­al All-Star and Auto­mo­bile of the Year awards, is writ­ten for the sophis­ti­cat­ed enthu­si­ast and pro­files high-end vehi­cles with com­pelling edi­to­r­i­al and pho­to­graph­ic con­tent. For more than 25 years,AUTOMOBILE Mag­a­zine has set the stan­dard for auto­mo­tive jour­nal­ism, main­tain­ing its devo­tion to auto adven­ture and an edi­to­r­i­al approach that empha­sizes “No bor­ing cars!”

Source:Tesla Motors, Inc.

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