Model S

The Tesla Model S is a full-size, all-electric luxury sedan, and it is the car that turned Tesla from a small sports-car maker into a serious automaker. It first reached customers on June 22, 2012, at the Fremont, California factory, it was billed as the world's first premium electric sedan, and it set an early range record of 265 miles on one charge from its 85 kWh battery. A battery's size is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh), and each kilowatt-hour moved that first Model S about 3 miles.

What is the Model S?

The Model S is a luxury sedan that runs on batteries instead of gasoline. It seats up to five adults, and it arrived with a 17-inch touchscreen in the dash and a live internet connection, which made the cabin feel more like a connected device than a normal car. At launch you could pick from three battery sizes, 40, 60, and 85 kWh, and the biggest one delivered that record 265 miles of range. The goal was a clean car people wanted, one that could go toe to toe with gasoline rivals on speed, range, and technology.

Why the Model S Exists

Tesla's first car, the Roadster, was a low-volume sports car built on top of an existing chassis. The Model S was the opposite move: the first Tesla built from the ground up, designed to carry the company from a curiosity into a real premium carmaker. Elon showed it as a prototype in March 2009 at a $57,400 base price ($49,900 after the federal tax credit then on offer), and the whole point was to prove that a car built to be electric from scratch could simply be better than any gasoline car like it, and by doing that, speed up the switch to clean transport.

How it Works

The clever part is that Tesla kept selling the same car while making it far better, mostly by improving the battery and the body instead of starting over. A flat, skateboard-style battery pack fills the floor, which keeps the car planted and opens up room inside. Over the years, bigger packs (85 kWh at launch, a 100 kWh pack by 2016) plus a slipperier shape and less weight pushed the range steadily higher.

That climb from 265 miles to 402 miles was about more than bragging rights. Range anxiety, the worry that you will run out of charge before you get home, was the biggest thing keeping people out of electric cars, and crossing the 400-mile line in 2020 with the Long Range Plus made the Model S the first EV ever rated over 400 miles.

The Economics of the Model S

The bet was straightforward: a higher-priced flagship would pay for the brand and the factory, but only if sales climbed fast enough to make the math work.

They did climb. Going from roughly 2,650 deliveries in a partial first year to almost 57,000 all together by the end of 2014 is the moment Tesla stopped being a science project and became a carmaker with real money coming in, the same money that later paid for the mass-market Model 3 and Model Y.

Current Status of Model S

Tesla stopped taking custom orders on April 1, 2026, and the last Model S, signed by the Fremont production staff, left the line the weekend of May 10, 2026. Tesla then cleared the S and X lines to build Optimus, its humanoid robot. To mark the end, Tesla built 250 Model S Signature editions at $159,420 each, all with the three-motor Plaid powertrain, which made 1,020 horsepower, ran a 9.23-second quarter mile, reached 200 mph with the Track Package, and claimed 1.99 seconds to 60 mph.

Breaking below two seconds is the part that stops people cold. The 2016 P100D with Ludicrous mode hit 2.5 seconds and was sold as the quickest production car in the world, and Plaid then shaved off another half-second, a gap that usually separates supercars costing several times as much. A luxury sedan with room for the kids in back out-accelerated cars with no back seat at all.

What Comes Next

The Model S has already done its most important work by giving Tesla a whole family of cars. The Model X SUV launched in 2015 sharing the Model S platform and powertrain, and the money and the credibility the sedan built paid for the Model 3 and Model Y that came next. Its job now is historical: it led the lineup, took on new battery and performance technology first, and proved Tesla could keep pushing the limit higher.

The Bottom Line

The Model S is the car that turned an electric-car startup into a serious automaker. It won the first unanimous Motor Trend Car of the Year vote and proved an EV could be the most desirable car on the road. When Tesla announced that win, Elon said the aim "was to show that an electric car truly can be better than any gasoline car, which is a critical step towards the widespread adoption of sustainable transport."