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Tesla Model S beats 70 years of motoring legends to win MotorTrend’s Ultimate Car of the Year award
After seven years in the market, multiple awards, and establishing itself as the undisputed king of premium electric sedans, the Tesla Model S has earned what could very well be its most impressive award to date. Just recently, the Model S, the first vehicle designed from the ground up by Tesla, was dubbed by MotorTrend as its Ultimate Car of the Year, beating 70 years worth of motoring legends in the process.
MotorTrend started its Car of the Year awards in 1949, which was won by Cadillac. Over the years, the publication’s Car of the Year award would expand to several segments such as Imports, Trucks, and SUVs. Despite this, each winner of the esteemed award had one thing in common: each vehicle scored very well under the publication’s six criteria — Advancement in Design, Engineering Excellence, Efficiency, Performance of Intended Function, Value, and Safety.
With MotorTrend celebrating its 70th anniversary, the publication opted to do something special this year. Ninety-two vehicles have received the Car of the Year award to date, but as mentioned by the publication in an announcement, one of these 92 vehicles is more significant than the others. From this 92, eight finalists were selected, corresponding to every decade that the publication has been active. These vehicles are the 1949 Cadillac lineup, the 1955 Chevrolet lineup, the 1968 Pontiac GTO, the 1972 Citroën SM, the 1986 Mazda RX-7, the 1996 Dodge Caravan, the 2004 Toyota Prius, and the 2013 Tesla Model S.
While the 2010-2020 decade is not over yet, it is difficult to argue that the most essential car of recent years is the Tesla Model S. Created as a successor to the original Tesla Roadster and designed to prove that all-electric cars can be viable (and even superior) alternatives to gas and diesel-powered sedans, the Model S was a groundbreaking vehicle from the inside out. The sedan’s production ramp experienced some delays considering Tesla’s inexperience (the company had only been producing the low-volume Roadsters when the Model S came out), but when it did, it shook the auto industry to its core.
MotorTrend calls the Model S as a “rolling manifesto,” a car that personifies CEO Elon Musk’s view of electric vehicles as tomorrow’s form of transportation. Even before its insanely quick configurations were released, the original Model S proved enough to disrupt the luxury sedan segment. Thanks to its rear-mounted electric motor, it was quick off the line, hitting 0-60 mph in 4.0 seconds, it seated seven (two in jump seats), and it was also incredibly efficient. What’s more, it had 265 miles of range per charge, showing the auto industry that electric cars can go the distance too, literally. These, together with the vehicle’s never-before-seen tech, ultimately helped the Model S become MotorTrend’s 2013 Car of the Year.
The Model S is more than a great electric car. Rather, it is an excellent vehicle that just happens to be electric. Bold and progressive, Tesla’s flagship sedan still stands as the gold standard that competing EVs today are still benchmarked against. Constantly evolving thanks to free, over-the-air updates from Tesla, the Model S also stands as one of the only vehicles released this decade that actually becomes better with age. For MotorTrend, these characteristics make the Model S deserving of the Ultimate Car of the Year award, perhaps even more.
“No vehicle we’ve awarded, be it Car of the Year, Import Car of the Year, SUV of the Year, or Truck of the Year, can equal the impact, performance, and engineering excellence that is our Ultimate Car of the Year winner, the 2013 Tesla Model S,” the publication wrote.
MotorTrend’s feature on the Tesla Model S as a finalist in its Ultimate Car of the Year awards could be accessed here. The final results of the awards could be accessed here.
The Tesla Model S’ Ultimate Car of the Year award comes just a day after its smaller sibling, the Model 3, was deemed as the 2019 Car of the Year and 2019 Premium Electric Car of the Year by AutoExpress UK. Just like its larger sibling, the Model 3 was granted the accolade for its perfect blend of technology and driving dynamics, making the car that a likely disruptor in the auto industry, but in a much bigger scale.
In Pennsylvania, we got between 10 and 12 inches of snow over the weekend as a nasty Winter storm ripped through a large portion of the country, bringing snow to some areas and nasty ice storms to others.
I have had a Model Y Performance for the week courtesy of Tesla, which got the car to me last Monday. Today was my last full day with it before I take it back to my local showroom, and with all the accumulation on it, I decided to run a cool little experiment: How long would it take for Tesla’s Defrost feature to melt 8 inches of snow?
Tesla’s Defrost feature is one of the best and most underrated that the car has in its arsenal. While every car out there has a defrost setting, Tesla’s can be activated through the Smartphone App and is one of the better-performing systems in my opinion.
It has come in handy a lot through the Fall and Winter, helping clear up my windshield more efficiently while also clearing up more of the front glass than other cars I’ve owned.
The test was simple: don’t touch any of the ice or snow with my ice scraper, and let the car do all the work, no matter how long it took. Of course, it would be quicker to just clear the ice off manually, but I really wanted to see how long it would take.
Tesla Model Y heat pump takes on Model S resistive heating in defrosting showdown
Observations
I started this test at around 10:30 a.m. It was still pretty cloudy and cold out, and I knew the latter portion of the test would get some help from the Sun as it was expected to come out around noon, maybe a little bit after.
I cranked it up and set my iPhone up on a tripod, and activated the Time Lapse feature in the Camera settings.
The rest of the test was sitting and waiting.
It didn’t take long to see some difference. In fact, by the 20-minute mark, there was some notable melting of snow and ice along the sides of the windshield near the A Pillar.
However, this test was not one that was “efficient” in any manner; it took about three hours and 40 minutes to get the snow to a point where I would feel comfortable driving out in public. In no way would I do this normally; I simply wanted to see how it would do with a massive accumulation of snow.
It did well, but in the future, I’ll stick to clearing it off manually and using the Defrost setting for clearing up some ice before the gym in the morning.
Check out the video of the test below:
❄️ How long will it take for the Tesla Model Y Performance to defrost and melt ONE FOOT of snow after a blizzard?
Let’s find out: pic.twitter.com/Zmfeveap1x
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 26, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Tesla winter weather test: How long does it take to melt 8 inches of snow?
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
