Tesla Model S Performance Plus 2013 first drive

The Tesla Model S – an S-class-sized electric saloon built in California, the first official example of which has just arrived in the UK. You're reading a UK-roads review here first, then.

You’ve got to hand it to this company. While the rest of the global industry hedges its bets - watching, waiting, perhaps dipping its toe into the water with super-low-volume sports cars, short-range hatchbacks and halfway-house plug-in hybrids – America’s latest maverick car maker is ploughing on with the electrification of the car with total commitment.

Undeterred by the market’s slow uptake of battery cars, Tesla has remained on course to flesh out its product range to include several entirely discreet models by 2015. The Lotus-based Roadster is no more, but before the next two years are out, this firm will be offering small and large saloons, as well as a crossover SUV, to those looking to abandon the petrol pump indefinitely. The motoring public may be yet to take to an EV in serious volume, perhaps because they’ve yet to be offered the right one. Tesla’s bold solution is to come up with three, and in fairly short order.

Into that context, enter the first instalment. In the first three months of 2013, this car outsold the Mercedes S-class, the Lexus LS and the Audi A8 in its domestic market. It beat the BMW 7-series by more than two to one. So it’s proving quite popular – and not just for an EV. 

Performance, size and range – the things experience says you don’t get from an electric car – are the things that make the Model S different. A viable alternative, even.

It’s a genuine luxury five-seater – seven, if you count the optional rear-facing kids' chairs for the boot – with proper big-saloon level accommodation. It’s got a hatchback rear-end and Porsche Cayman-style luggage compartments front and rear, with almost 1800 litres of storage between them. Built largely of aluminium, it also weighs within 100kg of what a like-for-like petrol saloon weighs – and so a 410bhp, 443lb ft electric motor on the rear axle is enough to make it seriously fast. Even if the top speed of this, the headline ‘Performance’ version, is only 130mph.

But over and above all that comes the answer to the only question that matters. The same top-of-the-range Model S records 300-mile charge-to-charge autonomy on the NEDC European test schedule, or just over 260 miles on the USA’s EPA range rating. An enormous 85kWh lithium-ion battery under the floor is responsible for that not-so-little breakthrough. That’s more than four times as much capacity as a Nissan Leaf, and charging it isn’t the work of five minutes. From a typical 32-amp UK on-street charging post, in fact, it’d be the work of about 15 hours.

The Model S comes as standard with an 11kW charger that’ll take power from anything upwards of a standard three-pin 13amp domestic outlet – but charging it this way would be a painfully long process. From a single-phase high-power wallbox charger (another option), it’ll charge at up to 30 miles per hour – Tesla’s own way of expressing a 10-hour total charge time for the range-topping model. Twin onboard chargers are another option, upping your at-home charging speed to a maximum 60 miles-an-hour, at 80 amps single phase.