…Model S P90D !
Normal person? He works Inside The Beltway, and appears to live in Bethesda, a well-known haunt for the well to do.
As for the car, it looks like a lot of fun, and it only costs as much as a well-optioned S550. Nice dream, though. @“the same mountainbike” and I will buy one to go with our Bentleys when we hit the lotto.
There’s a controversy brewing – I read it on the newspaper I think – about Teslas and Hummers. It seems there’s some kind of federal law that if a vehicle is heavy enough, and purchased for a business, it qualifies for a special business tax credit of some kind. The original intension was for farm vehicles and the like. Combines and tractors I guess. But now some folks have discovered if they buy a Teslas or Hummers, registering it as business-owned, they can legally take this tax credit. I think it is a pretty big credit too, $20,000 or something.
Well…I will say one thing…Tesla is committed to the electric vehicle. I see Tesla charging stations in abundance (mostly in large shopping center) and they appear to be building even more. I went to a doctor’s appointment last week in Lexington, KY and drove right past a bunch of them that were not there just a few weeks ago.
I was unable to read the article. The scripts just kept running, and running, and running…
However, I’ve never heard anybody call the Tesla the “best car ever made”. Seeing the title of an article tells me the article is likely to be biased anyway. There’s no such thing as a “best car ever made”. The term “best car” is 100% subjective, totally dependent upon the individual’s taste, and that makes the term itself meaningless. Besides, everybody knows the best car ever made is the '61 Jaguar XK-E. 
What Tesla is, is a car that proves undeniably that EVs can be made that are real cars, luxury class even, with range sufficient to meet the needs of most people for a family sedan. Tesla is also a car that solved serious technical limitations for electric vehicles, specifically for lithium ion cell matrices. Tesla is also changing the perception of EVs from needing to be an ugly overgrown Easter egg to being an actual normal looking sedan. Tesla is also trying to change the sales model from a dealer awash with largely manufacturer-induced overhead to a model where the revenue goes into the vehicle. Traditional new car sales franchise organizational structures have more in common with the mafia-run drug rings than with retail organizations.
Tesla has IMHO also changed the world’s perception of battery technology, from a mature industry not applicable for cars to a technology with seemingly unlimited possibilities.
Personally, I’d love a Tesla. But it isn’t the best car ever made. That one is still reserved for the '61 E-type.
E-type? Not the 61 Corvair? … lol … Seriously, I think Consumer Reports has said it is the best car they’ve ever tested, or some words to that effect.
So now there is a 17" touch screen for the driver to play with…Talk about distracted driving…But if you are running on autopilot, who cares? The car magazines are going to have fun with this thing…
I’m still not convinced that Tesla is all that it’s claimed to be. Instead of building and refining a comparatively low price model and sticking with it Tesla keeps throwing one high priced thing after the other out there.
Many of those thrown out there also seem to be up for sale at some point in their young lives.
EBay is and has been littered with them.
There was a story that surfaced a year or so ago raising questions about Tesla registrations. I don’t remember the exact figures but it seemed like about 30-40% of the production total had not been registered in any of the 50 states.
That means the bulk is going overseas or a lot of people are simply sandbagging them in a garage or warehouse or Tesla is pulling a GM Volt stunt where the dealers swapped Volts to get the tax credit…
Not a big fan of electric yet, not an early adopter by any stretch, but gotta say, this car makes my 05 Camry look like a rotary phone next to the newest smart phone.
Maybe a lot of technology packed in it but I still think the styling is getting a little old and needs to be refreshed.
Normal person? He works Inside The Beltway, and appears to live in Bethesda, a well-known haunt for the well to do.
I seriously doubt he’s well-to-do unless he OWNS the company (the Washington Post). Reporters are NOT well paid.
LOL. George, having learned to drive on my dad’s '61 Corvair, and then spent many good miles driving its successor, his '65 Corvair, I can testify that the Corvair truly was a design ahead of its time, a great little car. Unfortunately, it was killed before its time by a self-serving, self-promoting idiot of a lawyer who had never driven a car and never even have a driver’s license.
I’m starting to think a good question for all pubic figures is “when was the last time you drove a car?” or insert other question like bought milk, turned a vacuum cleaner on, (not to mention the unmentionable) etc. Might be really revealing.
Many of those thrown out there also seem to be up for sale at some point in their young lives.
That’s not uncommon in the luxury car segment. People who buy those cars have a lot of disposable income. They get bored with their car after a couple of years because it doesn’t have the new gee-whiz features the ones just coming out have, so they sell it and get something else.
wouldn’t shock me if some of those Teslas are being sold to make room for the newer ones with autopilot and “ludicrous” mode. 
Those first Corvairs from the early 60’s were pretty good looking cars. Definitely a much needed aesthetic deviation from the late 50’s tail-fin era. As a kid I was a fan of the TV show “Leave it to Beaver” and when the Cleaver’s ditched their tail-fin car and bought a Corvair instead, I was thinking to myself “now, that’s a change for the better!” … lol … I remember seeing those XKE’s once in a while on the road too from that era, but those not something I’d ever get to ride in.
@“the same mountainbike”, I agree with you about the best car ever made claim. It seems like a political statement to me, like the Motor Trend Car of the Year award.
@MikeInNH, the rich guy comment was tongue in cheek. I grew up in Bethesda. Washington Post reporters can be paid quite well (e.g., Bob Woodward). I’m pretty sure the Tesla reporter I sn’t paid as well as Woodward, but he could still make a decent salary. We also don’t know what his wife does. Between them, they could make a decent living. Both of my parents worked full time, and that is how we could afford to live in Bethesda. There are other, richer neighborhoods nearby, like Patomac, but Bethesda is a very nice place to live. One more thing: we know they were in Bethesda, but we don’t know if they actually live there. That part of the post was all in fun.
LOL, good analogy jt. 
Well,Musk is helping the cause,everytime I soak my arthritic hands or clothes in used motor oil,I consider something without the magic"ICE" ENGINE.
On another note,why cant we have a turbo compounded ICE sports car"] hybrid(helps mileage by running exhaust through one or two stages-then blasts off when stages are fueled,without the nitrous and other power enhancers,the reg engine could be a LS and the compound could be built by Williams or Air Research(just a fancy,I’m a fan of high performance as well,I know it would eat fuel in operation,but power to weight would be fantastic(appeals to the “Mad Max” in me.)
Tesla story…At some point in the past Tesla offered a car with a 40kw battery pack. The "standard battery was 60KW…The smaller battery allowed a $10,000 cheaper price point…Few Tesla buyers took that option, most stepped up to the 85WA high performance pack…Since it was not worth the effort to assemble the 40KW packs because of the low demand, Tesla just installed the 60KW packs but diddled the software to limit the cars range to that of a 40KW pack. Owners were notified that if they ponyed up an extra $11,000 Tesla would reset their cars computers to take full advantage of the larger battery already installed ! How large of them !
Panasonic is making the batteries (at the moment) for Tesla. Each battery pack in a Model S has over 7000 individual cells contained in 16 groups…
I believe that all those batteries add up to about 1200 pounds of weight pushing the curb weight of the 85kWH model to almost 5000 lb.
This is not a small car by any means.