MotorTrend

illicit EV

Circle back to six years ago when 11 MotorTrend judges unanimously voted the then-brand-new Tesla Model S the 2013 Car of the Year. Were we nervous? Yeah, sure, of course. Tesla what? Elon who? I remember asking the group if anyone had publicly or privately ever said that the Model S was vaporware. Ten hands shot up, with the other judge stating that his mother taught him to say nothing when he had nothing nice to say.

Tesla has had many ups and downs since then, with CEO-mascot Elon Musk’s Trumpian Tweets piling on the damage that “manufacturing hell” has wrought. Still, paraphrasing what I said back in September 2012, I’ll never bet against a billionaire who docked his rocket ship with the International Space Station the week before his electric luxury sedan won

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