Cars
Tesla Canceled the Car of the Century
The vehicles that outlasted the Model S are still operating in its shadow.
Tesla's new Model S at company headquarters in Palo Alto, California, in July 2012.
Photographer: Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News via Getty ImagesThe first time I saw a Tesla Model S was also the first time I met Elon Musk.
It was 2011, and he had brought an early Model S to the West Side Highway in Manhattan, where we met to go for a drive. It didn’t strike me as a crucial meeting. In the course of my work as an automotive reporter, I met with plenty of people shilling new cars, and back then Musk was just the founder of a company that merged with another company that became PayPal. Only the wonkiest of tech nerds might have recognized him by name.