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Tesla Model S

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Tesla Model S (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 12 September 2024, 14:31 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): 750h+ 12:51, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is my fifth featured article nomination, after doing four successful nominations on Aston Martin cars. This article is about one of the most important and influential electric vehicles of the 21st century. This is a 5,600-word article with c. 280 references, meaning it is the longest and most-referenced article I've brought here. I believe this article, however, is excellently written, well-referenced, and comprehensive, making for a great read. I plan to win the half-million award with this one, so any comments I receive i'll appreciate; and thanks for reviewing! 750h+ 12:51, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UC

[edit]
Lots of comments
  • The Daily Telegraph described the Model S as a "car that changed the world", but Road & Track called it "perhaps one of the worst [cars in the world]: unfortunately, this doesn't quite hold -- the Road & Track review is specifically about the "Plaid" version, and it's from ten years later -- it's pretty clear in context that they're talking about a) a decline in quality over successive versions of the Model S and b) the fact that its competitors have gotten better. Fine for the body, with proper context, but badly misleading as presented in the lead.
fixed. hope this is better
It is, but now I have WP:DUEWEIGHT concerns about giving such a prominent position in the lead to a review in a single, not particularly authoritative, publication. I'd be happier if we could show that there was a broader trend whereby critics had reviewed the Model S very positively on debut but increasingly become harder on it. We're still slightly misrepresenting R&T, who do after all acknowledge the car as one of the most important ever made a sentence or so previously. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:20, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
i think this is better
Sorry to keep poking this one, but I still don't think we have WP:TSI between what the source is actually saying and how we have presented it. At the same time, we do need some measure of the negative reaction to the vehicle in the lead. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:04, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I removed "initially", but i don't think i can see any other problems with TSI (it's nearly exactly what the source says). 750h+ 16:18, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The words exist in that source, but R&T are pretty clearly a) talking exclusively about the Plaid version, which we don't make clear, and b) making a relative statement that largely depends on how good other EVs have become. For them, it's largely about Tesla failing to keep pace with its competitors, whereas we've presented it as a story of the Model S becoming objectively worse. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:23, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh. Okay i think that's fixed (hope this is the last one) 750h+ 09:16, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The recent edits need a good proof-read -- a few errors have slipped in through the cutting/pasting process. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. 750h+ 09:29, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • in c. 2007: abbreviations are generally a bad idea in flowing text. Why not just "around 2007"?
done
  • after a dispute with Elon Musk, the company's chief executive officer: Tesla's or Aston Martin's CEO?
done
  • Tesla acquired a facility in Fremont, California, from Toyota, which had previously been used by both Toyota and General Motors: a run-on sentence which has ended up somewhere strange: had Toyota previously been used by both Toyota and GM?
fixed
  • Constructed mostly of the aluminum: no the, but things are generally constructed from materials in English.
my bad, fixed
  • These updates typically include modifications to the motor: should maintain the past (or past perfect) tense, as in the previous sentence: either included or have typically included.
done
done
  • The the in "the Fisker Karma" shouldn't be linked.
fixed

More to follow. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:22, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments. I hope the article’s been a good read so far. 750h+ 16:50, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It has, though I'll admit to knowing very little about cars or Tesla. A few more:

  • Musk subsequently filed a lawsuit against Fisker, accusing him of stealing Tesla's design ideas and using the $875,000 to launch his own company.: Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see where this $875,000 is meant to have come from?
fixed
  • Fisker ultimately won the lawsuit: can we say when this happened? Was it all ongoing while the later development events happened?
done
  • Dispute between Musk and Fisker arose after the latter started his own company and began producing the Karma (pictured).: we need either a dispute or disputes here.
done
  • Both cars shared a chassis, and the engineers assessed every part of the vehicles, evaluating their positives and negatives.: this seems a bit verbose, and possibly hyperbolic: did they really evaluate every part of the vehicles (down to the cup holders?) Suggest something like evaluated different aspects of the two vehicles.
done
  • Tesla engineers initiated a project to construct another electric CLS: at this point, are we talking about "another electric car based on the CLS"? Was it really {'exactly the same thing
they used a different CLS
  • early Model S specifications: strictly speaking, Model-S should be hyphenated here as a compound modifier.
done
  • the decision to construct it entirely from aluminum was clear: not quite idiomatic English, and it's not clear in context whether the decision was obvious (a dubious statement in Wikivoice) or whether Musk said that it was.
fixed
  • To accelerate the development of the Model S, one group of engineers worked during the day, while another arrived at 9 p.m. and worked through the night, : I don't totally understand how this is necessarily faster than having two groups working at the same time on civilised hours, but that may be a problem for Musk rather than for you
  • However, a month after the last car—a Corolla—rolled off the manufacturing line in April 2010: not sure the make of this car is really relevant in this article. "Rolled off the line" is a MOS:CLICHE. See, later, the first production Model S roll off the manufacturing line
fixed
  • US$42 million, while Toyota invested US$50 million : as above, I would inflate these currency amounts. We don't generally add the US before $ unless there's some reasonable chance of confusion (for example, if the article also includes Canadian or Australian dollars).
done
  • completed in the basement of an office: there are quite a few possible cases of MOS:OVERLINK throughout, but I think this one is pretty undeniable -- it's the everyday meaning of an everyday word.
fixed
  • The car's launch event occurred in a section of the facility where the cars are completed: perhaps I'm missing something, but that seems obvious from the preceding sentence -- they could hardly have watched it be finished anywhere else?
this is the launch event. Usually launch events take place at motor shows like Geneva Motor Show for example, but this one took place at the fac
Ah, so this isn't the same as the event on 22 June 2012? Can we put a date on it, then? UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:53, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
this is the same date. the launch event just took place at the facility 750h+ 15:35, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lots of multi-cites in the Design section, and later, make reading tough going. I would suggest that some of these can probably be removed, but if we must have three citations for a sentence, can you bundle them for readability? The method used in note 3 is a bit clumsy: you could use the Refn template for a smoother way.
fixed
  • the drag coefficient as Cd=0.24: simply as 0.24, surely?
that's the general layout (it's a template Template:Cd)
Right, but I don't think that template is appropriate for this use-case. We wouldn't say {{{1}}} or {{{1}}}. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:53, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
done
  • a graphite/silicon anode, and a nickel-cobalt-aluminum cathode: I know nothing about these, but just checking that the slash and the hyphens are meant to be different here?
yep
  • In the caption of the Model S and Model X, suggest italicising (left) and (right), as you did for (pictured) further up with the Karma vehicle. Ditto in the dashboard picture further down.
done. i don't think the dashboard picture requires it
  • extending the range by an additional 40 miles (64 km) of range.: no need for of range.
my bad, done
  • The former produces 235 kilowatts (315 hp) and 325 newton-meters (240 lb⋅ft),: would add of power and of force (torque?) as appropriate.
done
  • rear-wheel drive: either rear-wheel-drive or rear wheel–drive. I suspect there are other examples.
done
  • Intel Atom-based: endash here, not hyphen.
done
  • The 2021 Model S also introduced the "yoke" steering wheel: this makes it sound like it was the first vehicle to have one of these, which of course it wasn't, though it might have been one of the first mass-market cars to do so.
done
  • "Radar" isn't capitalised in mid-sentence.
done
  • Autopilot uses cameras, Radar and ultrasound to detect road signs: at least since 2021, Tesla doesn't actually use the radar: our article on Tesla Autopilot has A tear down of a HW4 Model S and Model X car in 2023 revealed that they have high definition radar hardware, but the software did not use radar. Likewise, it hasn't used ultrasound for at least a year. Teslas currently drive entirely by camera, which is widely considered a problem -- it would be worth mentioning this, and the many issues that Autopilot has had, at least briefly. It's a little misleading to state all of these supposed capabilities without mentioning that they, quite famously, don't exactly work.
fixed
I still think we have a DUEWEIGHT problem here -- almost nothing is mentioned in this section of the many reviews/reports saying that Autopilot doesn't work as advertised and is dangerous. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:53, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've added some information about some of its problems, with a footnote leading to the article about all of its problems
Better, though we still are missing the demise of ultrasound, and have misrepresented what Tesla Vision is -- it's a branding name for only using cameras, not (as we imply) a new type of camera. I'm also not sure we've really got the point across here -- we've talked about misleading advertising, but slightly glossed over the fact that the features which are definitely promised don't always work very well. The first paragraph of Tesla Autopilot#Dangerous and unexpected behavior, with biblio, is relevant here. A very boring formatting thing, but we should use a section symbol (§) in the footnoted link text. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:04, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the discontinuation of ultrasound and fixed Tesla Vision name. I've added information from the third point. And i actually was to add the "§", i forgot (thanks for that). 750h+ 16:27, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't think this is right, unfortunately: we now have Tesla began using cameras known as "Tesla Vision". As I understand it, Tesla never claimed to be newly using cameras or adding more cameras, only to be removing the other types of sensor and tweaking the software algorithm in vaguely-defined ways. We've presented this as adding something, when that isn't really what happened. Tesla Autopilot hardware has useful material on what happened, its consequences, and the regulatory response, which I think needs some mention in this article. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@UndercoverClassicist: so i've changed "From 2021, Tesla began using cameras known as "Tesla Vision", which replaced the radar system." to "From 2021, Tesla began using a system known as "Tesla Vision", which relies solely on cameras, replacing the previous radar-based sensors." 750h+ 09:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • For charging outside the home, Tesla has partnered with businesses to install Tesla Wall Connectors to provide a charging network called Tesla Destination: the tone of this reads a bit like a press release to me.
fixed
  • the battery swap program hyphen on battery-swap.
added
  • We've given Tesla's case that nobody was interested in battery swapping, but there's a WP:DUEWEIGHT problem here -- most people don't take that excuse remotely seriously; it's more that actually doing that at scale is a stupid idea, and just about everyone knew that from the beginning.
it was reported however, and that is what a good amount of sources say [1] [2]
Right, but other explanations were also put forward -- see for instance that swapping batteries would make less money than charging, that battery-swapping isn't practical when you have to swap a huge part of the vehicle, that battery swapping is capital intensive and creates economic issues when the batteries lose value, that maintaining the necessary reserve stock of bulky, expensive batteries is economically and environmentally unwise. It was also reported that Musk wasn't being entirely ingenuous about the low demand, given that they set up their trial of battery swapping in a way that you would expect to generate little demand. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:53, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have added two parts from there, i don't think the rest are necessary though, since three of sources did mention the little demand.
  • Tesla claims to recycle all returned battery packs and states that Gigafactory 1 is able to recycle a significant portion of the elements from old batteries, moving towards a "closed loop" system where old batteries are turned into new ones: likewise, I think we need to mention what other people think of this claim. "A significant proportion" is WP:WEASELWORDS -- what counts a significant?
done
  • In February 2014, the Automotive Science Group published a study: who are these people, and why do they get a whole paragraph for a single study? Again, I worry about DUEWEIGHT, with a side effect that primary studies are always tricky things and we should be careful about reporting them directly, before they hit the secondary literature (not a perfect analogy, but lots of the points in WP:MEDRS apply). Likewise with the UCS studies in the following paragraph, with the additional caveat that these people are a pressure group, and are not pretending to be neutral.
i've removed this, i was actually questioning this source before as it doesn't seem very notable
  • The Nissan Leaf had the smallest life-cycle environmental footprint of any 2014 model year automobile available in North America.: why is that relevant in an article on the Model S?
removed the paragraph
  • CO2: should be formatted with the 2 in subscript.
done
  • its CO2 emissions in the United States, similar to the Model S, are equivalent to a gasoline-powered car : something has gone wrong here.
oops fixed
  • Why does MPG get capitalised but mph -- and practically all other units -- don't?
fixed

Stopping here for now; more to follow, I hope. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:20, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Tesla initially projected it would produce 1,000 units per month, aiming for a total of 5,000 units by the end of 2012. For 2013, Tesla anticipated quadrupling that. The company also expected to deliver around 500 vehicles to customers in the third quarter, with the remaining units scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter. Tesla built its 1,000th Model S by October 31, 2012, and delivered 2,650 units by the end of the year. In the first half of the subsequent year, 10,050 units were delivered to customers.: this bit is a little hard to parse: I would suggest another run for clarity. Anticipated is a tricky word: here, as often, better as expected to quadruple... Do I read rightly that they missed by a lot -- they aimed for about 4,000 per month, and ended up with something like 1,700?
so i've rephrased this. the latter sentence is correct
  • The Model S was the first vehicle produced at the Fremont facility: by Tesla, as GM and Toyota had produced vehicles there earlier.
done
  • Deliveries to the Chinese market began on April 22, 2014, followed by Hong Kong in July 2014.: we could upset a lot of people here: suggest specifying mainland Chinese.
done
  • It is one of the world's largest producers of electric motors, energy storage products, vehicle powertrains, and batteries, manufacturing billions of cells annually.: it might be, but is this really due weight in an article about the car, not the factory?
this does include what it manufactures, so the "electric motors, energy storage products, vehicle powertrains, and batteries, manufacturing billions of cells" would be parts the Model S has
  • What's the meaning of the 5.7% at the bottom of the second review table?
5.7% chance of a rollover accident occurring
Can we footnote that? It looks like they "scored" 5.7/100, which doesn't sound very good. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:53, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
done
  • Per MOS:CAN'TREMEMBERBUTI'MSUREICANFINDITLATER, we should really rewrite the bulleted recalls section in prose -- in particular, I would look to draw out common threads between the recalls, the issues they highlighted with the cars and the processes behind them, and their consequences with Tesla, regulators, consumers etc.
i have written it out in prose, but i don't think the background behind them is too important
I think WP:PROSELINE now applies in this section -- would advise giving it a rework, and trying to make it more of a distillation/explanation than an annalistic retelling of events in sequence. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:04, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
i have added some background to the vehicle affected by the recalls.
  • as both an influential and significant electric car: what distinction between influential and significant are we drawing here?
removed one
  • mentioned that "the introduction of certain features, such as a yoke-style steering wheel, has distracted from the flagship sedan's underlying brilliance, as has Musk's public image: MOS:SAID applies here: this is a statement of opinion. I think we need something here about what he was going on about re. Musk's public image.
i added a footnote, i don't think any more about his controversies is necessary (if that's what you're referring to)
  • and mainstream automakers [...] [struggled] to catch up": cut the and, surely?
done
  • Samuel Gibbs from The Guardian: I don't have a strong opinion either way, but elsewhere we've introduced major publications as "the newspaper [name]", and here we don't. We should pick a lane.
done
  • We have very little in the way of critical coverage of the Model S. Has any of the widespread criticism of Tesla regarding safety, sloppy manufacture and misselling of the self-driving functions been related to this car?
i've added another review, which i think should be better
  • White 2014 is throwing a Harvard error: I can't immediately see any citation to it.
removed
  • Personally, I would avoid redlinks, such as Automotive Science Group, in the bibliography: there, the attention they grab, in my view, outweighs their benefits.
i think i've removed them
  • Over their lifecycle, electric vehicles emit about half as much CO2 as comparable fossil fuel cars. However, the report assumes that electric materials are recycled at rates similar to other cars and excludes the issue of battery disposal due to limited data on current recycling practices and future intentions.: I have some worries about the generalised nature of this comment. This takes EVs as a class -- how do we know where the Model S, with all its various Tesla-isms around how it is manufactured, maintained and so on, sits in relation to other EVs? UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:04, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
i did remove a large part of the paragraph that didn't relate to the Model S and added "like the Model S" to specify that it was referring to the Model S. I don't think comparing the Model S to other vehicles that a reader may not have heard of is helpful
  • For 2013, Tesla wanted to quadruple that. : "Wanted" is pretty vague -- I want to win the lottery and move to Hawaii. Did they make any sort of formal statement that they would do this, set it as a target, or so on?
fixed, changed to "aimed". The source used is CNET, which (at the time) was reliable
  • Tesla claims to recycle all returned battery packs and states that Gigafactory 1 is able to recycle around 92 percent of the elements from old batteries, moving towards a "closed loop" system where old batteries are turned into new ones: the million-dollar question here -- is that a credible claim? Tesla is, after all, famous for making bold statements that prove to be completely untrue. There are also some possible fault lines here -- how many batteries get returned? How much waste do you end up with when you recycle 92% of the elements? How bad is it not to recycle the other 8% -- are those the ones that cause problems?
there have been no critics addressing whether this is true or not so i think it's best to leave it, as there are many reliable sources that address this.
Just from a quick Google, I found quite a few sources putting caveats on it, most notably that Tesla doesn't really recycle post-consumer batteries, and that the process of recycling itself is made less effective by the way that Tesla design their batteries. See for example here, here, comments on the impact report here, and on recycling more generally here. UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:43, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@UndercoverClassicist: I added some of the criticism from the Vice magazine (which was already used a source in the article, though others weren't reliable 750h+ 12:07, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that would surprise the writers of Science (unless the website is someone different?). However, I wasn't trying to find all the available sources for you -- merely to point out that a very quick Google search flagged up that there is definitely a discussion here. I'd suggest following up the angles identified in the sources I mentioned into more scholarly and scientific work. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:24, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@UndercoverClassicist: added two sources. 750h+ 01:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@UndercoverClassicist: just in case ping. i hope the three criticisms are enough because the paragraph was getting a bit big 750h+ 08:52, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @UndercoverClassicist: okay i think that should be it 750h+ 15:36, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • A few replies above. Honestly, my feeling from reading this is that, like all of our articles, it has been written by people who are interested in the topic, and -- like most such articles -- generally like the thing they are writing about. I still think that it's a little too quick to downplay or excuse the negative side of its subject, and to take what (particularly) Tesla say about it on trust.
    • I've just given the article another read, and made some minor copyedits. I think I am probably now at the limit of my competence -- the grammar and formatting are better, though there are still a few minor things to look at (particularly full stops after footnotes and MOS:SAID throughout). However, I still have the same impression about POV and coverage, but don't have enough expertise in the subject matter to put my name to it that the article does or doesn't accurately cover all that has been written on the topic. As such, I'll leave this one as comments and wait to see what reviewers with more grounding in Tesla have to say -- may well come back later on and cast a vote. Apologies to leave it "open" after so much work on both sides, but hopefully it feels that this has still been a useful exercise thus far. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:52, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Okay, thanks for the thorough review. 750h+ 08:13, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Epicgenius

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I am going to review this article. This is a long article, so it might take a while. I should note that, while 750h+ alerted me to this nomination on my user talk page, these observations and opinions are entirely my own. – Epicgenius (talk) 13:22, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Epicgenius: just making sure you still want to review? 750h+ 23:23, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@750h+, sorry about that. I've had very limited access to my computer over the last 3 days. I'll leave some comments on Thursday. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:19, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
okay, thanks 750h+ 00:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lead:
  • Para 1: "the Model S is frequently regarded as one of the most significant and influential electric cars in the industry." - I'd hesitate to say that it has been "frequently" regarded as such, at least without a source specifically saying so, but it would be appropriate to say that it "has been regarded by many critics" as such.
  • Para 2: "To produce the Model S, Tesla acquired a facility in Fremont, California, from Toyota, which had previously been used by Toyota and General Motors." - Do we need to include this detail about the facility's previous owners in the lead? I feel like this may not be an important detail.
  • Para 3: Might it be worth mentioning the car's other features, e.g. Autopilot and supercharging? The paragraph does a good job of describing the design/technical features of the Model S, but the consumer features aren't mentioned as prominently. (Actually, the "Technology" section isn't really summarized at all in the lead.)
  • Para 4: "In 2015, the Model S was the world's best-selling plug-in electric vehicle" - I think readers might be expecting a sales figure after a sentence like this. Probably not in the lead, but maybe in the "Production and initial deliveries" section.
  • Para 4: The last quote mentions the Plaid, but the lead doesn't quite explain what the Plaid is.
Development:
  • Para 1: "In January 2007, the American automaker Tesla, Inc. opened a facility in Michigan" - If you're including a background section, you might also want to consider mentioning the fact that they weren't even producing cars at that point (and that the Model S was actually only Tesla's second-ever vehicle model).
  • Para 1: "The second was to be a range-extending vehicle" - So a hybrid-electric car basically?
no, range-extenders are different
Oh, okay. I thought this was referring to a hybrid-electric design. Epicgenius (talk) 14:15, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 2: "He signed an $875,000 contract to design the car." - I'd change "He" to "Fisker" for the avoidance of doubt.
  • Para 2: "Fisker ultimately won the lawsuit in November 2008" - Is the word "ultimately" necessary here?
  • Para 3: "Tesla frequently tested the car on public roads; it had 120 miles (190 km) of all-electric range per charge and weighed more than the Roadster." - These should probably be two separate sentences, since the two ideas are completely separate.
  • Para 4: "stating that the non-battery-pack portion of the vehicle must be lighter than equivalent gasoline vehicles" - To clarify, did Musk say the non-battery-pack portion had to be lighter than the entire gasoline vehicle?
yes, so everything excluding the battery pack had to be lighter than the vehicles themselves
I see. Epicgenius (talk) 14:15, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 4: "while another arrived at 9 p.m." - The arrival time of the night shift seems like a rather trivial detail to include.
  • Para 5: "later withdrew from both plans" - Do the sources mention why?
i added a bit
  • Para 6: "The car's launch event occurred in a section of the facility where the cars are completed" - This detail also seems quite trivial.
More in a bit. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:54, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Addressed all, and if i haven't then i left some comments left. Thanks! 750h+ 05:49, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Design:
  • Para 1: "The Model S shares its platform and thirty percent of its parts with the Model X" - Not really an issue per se, but I feel like this isn't unexpected since both the S and the X are by the same manufacturers.
it would be. Different car manufacturers sell different cars that use completely different components. For example the Tesla Model 3 and the Tesla Model Y share 76 percent of their parts yet would share less than 10 percent with the Model S and the Model X
Oh, I see. Yeah, if the 3/Y are very different from the S/X, then it might be noteworthy that the S/X share 30% of their parts. (What I meant to say was that I would expect car models from a single manufacturer to use similar components, such as the 3/S/X/Y sharing many of their components, but since the 3/Y share very few components with the S/X, this goes against my assumption.) Epicgenius (talk) 17:25, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 1: "The vehicle's drag coefficient was improved by a solid front fascia instead of a grille, " - Would the black nose cone in the image right next to this paragraph count as a fascia? As mentioned later on in the article, the sealed-off fascia wasn't added until 2016; before that, the S had the nose cone.
i guess, i mean the image has its front fascia but there are better ones below
  • Para 1: "The Model S has a center of gravity height of 18 inches (460 mm),[73][74] reducing the risk of rollovers." - Is this reduced risk because of the lower center-of-gravity height?
yes
  • Para 2: "The car's rear trunk possesses 26.6 cubic feet (750 L) of storage with the rear seats upright and 58.1 cubic feet (1,650 L) when the seats are folded down." - Some Model Ss contain backward-facing jump seats in the trunk for young children, which can also be folded down (giving the car 7 seats rather than the standard 5). Is this talking about the children's seats in the trunk, or the seats in the second row?
i added some info on that
  • Para 2: "Initially, the seats and steering wheel of the Model S were made exclusively of leather." - I'm not sure about this. If I recall correctly, early buyers could choose between synthetic leather or actual leather. (The real leather option was more expensive than the synthetic leather option, but they had a distinctively different feel.)
  • Also, I'm pretty sure there were other add-ons you could buy, like children's jump seats and sunroofs.
i don't think these are very necessary
Fair enough - these are fairly minor details. Epicgenius (talk) 17:25, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking of which, I think some of the features mentioned in "Technology", like Tesla Autopilot and supercharging, used to be add-ons that didn't come with the car by default. The oldest Model Ss (specifically the 40 kWh and some of the 60 kWh from ~2013) didn't even have the ability to supercharge. Not sure if that's worth mentioning, or if there's even a source for these, though.
the initial 40kwh model never came to production actually. supercharging was available from late 2012, so only 6 months after Model S production began. Added more on the charging methods.
According to TechCrunch and Wired, there was a 40 kWh model produced in 2013, but it was a software-limited version of the 60 kWh model. It seems like the software-limited 40 kWh model did have the ability to supercharge (it just wasn't enabled by default), so my bad. Epicgenius (talk) 17:25, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More in a bit. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Addressed 750h+ 03:59, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2012–2016: Initial years:
  • Para 2: "Instead, a more powerful model with a 60 kWh model, was introduced to substitute the 40 kWh model." - I think you could still mention that, even though the hardware-limited 40 kWh model was never built, a few 60 kWh vehicles were software-limited to 40 kWh. (I say this because, in the next section, you mention the fact that some of the 75 kWh models were software-limited to 60 kWh.)
  • Para 4: "Tesla launched the standard 90D and the performance P90D" - What model year?
  • I notice that the article says "all-electric range", even though the Model S is all electric. Would this be redundant (i.e. could it just be "range"), or do you need to specify that this is in fact all-electric range?
2016–2019: First major update:
  • Para 1: "the previous contrasting-colored grille" - The original grille wasn't contrasting-colored so much as black. If you had a black Model S, the original grille would be the same color as the rest of the car, like this.
i don't think this is worth mentioning; i feel like the customer would know
What I meant to say was that the grille should be described as "dark" or "black", not "contrasting-colored", which seems factually incorrect when referring to dark Model Ss. Epicgenius (talk) 02:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 2: "Customers also had the option to upgrade the battery capacity to 75 kWh through an over-the-air update," - Strictly speaking, you could get the update only if you had a newer 60 kWh model (and only if you paid for it, but I think that goes without saying). Pre-2015 60 kWh models are hardware-limited, and if you owned one of these, you'd have to buy a whole new battery if you wanted to upgrade.
  • Para 3: "In 2019, Tesla also phased out the 75D, 100D, and P100D variants as part of the company's shift towards a revamped model range.[150][151]" - I feel like this belongs in the next section, because that section talks about what the 75D, 100D, and P100D were replaced with.
i think this is ok, since it's still referring to the pre-simplified naming scheme
In that case, I would recommend mentioning that the 75D/100D/P100D were replaced with other models, rather than merely phased out. The way it's currently worded, it sounds like the models were phased out without replacement (at least, for people who don't read on to the next section). Unfortunately, readers these days sometimes tend to not read the full article, instead only reading a particular subsection and skipping the rest, so it might be helpful to mention that they were not just phased out but replaced. Epicgenius (talk) 02:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done. 750h+ 03:15, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2019–present: Simplified naming scheme:
  • Para 1: "For 2020, the Long Range model was replaced with the Long Range Plus" - Also 100 kWh?
yep
  • Para 2: "In 2024, the Model S received restyled taillights." - The note says "As of July 2024, there are no reliably sourced reports explicitly regarding the updated taillights", implying a bit of uncertainty. Therefore, shouldn't this be "By 2024, the Model S had received restyled taillights"?
More to come. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:33, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All done (with responses) 750h+ 23:53, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Technology:
  • Para 1: The source is from 2012, and as a result, several parts of the section are outdated. This source might be more up-to-date, but it's still talking about an old version of the software. The screen currently looks more like this (YouTube link), which is substantially different from the 2012 version of the software.
    • "Below that, the second section provides access to various apps, such as Media, Navigation, Energy, Web, Camera, and Phone." - This was the case when the S came out. However, the apps are currently near the bottom. I'll try to find a source for this, but it sounds like the article is describing how the apps were originally arranged. If there's no source, we can leave out where exactly the second section is (e.g. you can just say that the interface also provides access to various apps, such as Media, Navigation, Energy, Web, Camera, and Phone.)
    • "with most apps expandable to fill the entire screen." - Similarly, I'm not too sure about this. This was true in 2012, but may not be true now. Currently, several apps (like music and camera) can't be expanded to fit the full screen; you'll still see the navigation app in the background even when expanding these apps as much as possible. The full-screen thing could probably be left out, given that it's not necessarily true anymore.
    • "The bottom section contains controls and settings for the vehicle, including doors, locks, lights, temperature settings, and a secondary volume control." - Whew, at least that hasn't changed.
  • Para 2: "Also for 2021 refresh" - Should this be "Also for the 2021 refresh"?
  • Para 3: "Released in October 2015 as a software update" - Although this is only for cars that actually have AP equipment. The oldest Model Ss don't have the ability to use Autopilot, regardless of whether they were updated.
i think every Model S has autopilot equipment
Tesla says this functionality isn't available for cars built before September 2014. At least one old Model S was retrofitted with it, but I don't know if this is a service Tesla offers. Epicgenius (talk) 11:06, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I meant that after October 2015 it was a software update but later became standard 750h+ 12:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you mean. I was trying to say, it may be helpful to mention that the first Model S's with AP were manufactured in September 2014. The current phrasing might give the impression that AP equipment exists on all Model S's made since 2012 (which isn't true). Epicgenius (talk) 13:30, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done (i think) 750h+ 23:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, since the last two paragraphs talk about Autopilot, it may be worth considering splitting this into a subsection. Though I won't mind if you don't.
More in a bit. – Epicgenius (talk) 03:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done with comments 750h+ 09:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. I'll have further comments on Thursday. – Epicgenius (talk) 01:42, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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