The Tesla Model S began life inside a gutted Mercedes
Before the Model S had a body of its own, Tesla engineers bought a Mercedes CLS, cut out its floor and bolted in a modified Roadster battery. The mule managed 120 miles per charge. A few years on, the finished sedan went on sale and was soon hailed as a car that changed the world.
The project, codenamed WhiteStar, started in 2007 at a small Michigan office. Early plans included a range-extender hybrid alongside a pure electric version, but in 2008 Musk announced Tesla would build only battery cars. Henrik Fisker, known for his Aston Martin work, was hired on an $875,000 contract to design it. Staff reactions to his proposals were mostly negative, one executive likening them to a giant egg, and Musk rejected them. Fisker left to launch his own Karma; Tesla sued, and an arbitrator threw its claims out and made it pay his legal fees.
Franz von Holzhausen, formerly of Mazda, took over in August 2008 and had the exterior drawn within three months, working from a design studio set up inside a SpaceX factory. Because the battery weighed so much, Musk insisted on aluminium over steel for the rest of the car. Day and night shifts shared a tent in the SpaceX plant to speed things up. A prototype appeared in Hawthorne in March 2009, and production started at the former NUMMI plant in Fremont in June 2012.
The battery, made of thousands of small cylindrical cells, lies in the floor, giving a centre of gravity just 18 inches up. With no engine up front there is a frunk for luggage, and until 2018 buyers could add a folding row of rear-facing child seats. Its drag coefficient of 0.24 was independently confirmed in 2014 as the lowest of any production car.
The accolades piled up: Motor Trend Car of the Year for 2013, top-selling plug-in worldwide in 2015 and a place among Time's best gadgets of the 2010s. Not everyone stayed charmed. Road & Track said the Plaid version and its yoke steering had made it perhaps one of the worst cars in the world. Production ended in May 2026.
Source: Tesla Model S
