[Richbot]

I'm a big Tesla fan and this is my dispassionate opinion as objective as it can be as a fan, anyway

Model S is an amazing car, and I want one. In the real world of cut and thrust 0-70mph traffic, it's a devastatingly quick car, and immensely practical in terms of people carrying and cargo capacity for its size. The "green" aspect of it is really a sideshow IMO, compared to those great attributes, and is only interesting to me because it made the rest possible thanks to the packaging advantages of an electric drivetrain. Setting aside life cycle, on balance it's not much better than driving a 740i in terms of CO2e emissions, especially if you live on a coal fired power grid. But a 740i takes ~6 seconds to get to 60.

It's nowhere near the world beating performance machine it's held out to be by Tesla. It can do amazing things a few times but heat soaks quickly and drains the battery almost as quickly at top performance. It can generate great grip thank to a low CG and adaptive air suspension but doesn't transition well due to relatively narrow front tires and huge weight. It falls on its face past about 90mph compared to anything with a decent amount of power, look at how long it takes to get from 80 to 100mph. M3 takes 3 seconds to get from 80 to 100 mph, Model S takes 4.6, and it's a full 5 seconds slower from 100mph to 120mph. At those speeds I can spot the Model S a full second to downshift (it doesn't take that long) and still pass it before I even need 4th gear in an M3. A 335 is similarly much quicker at higher speeds. So this whole "faster than an M5" schtick is complete BS on close inspection. Tesla was notably silent on the laptime when it took its cars to COTA for a press day. But that's the racetrack, and we live in reality...

I'm really interested to see if they adapt Model X's powertrain to Model S to allow an AWD option. If they tuned it right that'd be a 3.5 second 0-60 car and reach a much wider audience. It'd probably be near the quickest stock car on the planet at high altitude, where the air being thinner just means the electric car has less to push against while the gas motored cars are sucking wind

The battery swap demonstration was a proof of concept. It won't be rolled out nationwide for at least half a decade if ever. The supercharger network isn't even close to complete yet and Tesla doesn't have the free capital to go down another infrastructure rabbit hole on top of gearing up for 2-3 new models and a Model S update/replacement over the next 5-7 years, starting with the Model S-based Model X 7-passenger CUV next year, which they claim will only be marginally slower from a standing start than Model S...