YOUR NEXT CAR WILL BE A VOLT:

The all-electric Tesla Model S sedan is brilliant, beautiful, as user-friendly as a smartphone, fast as hell, quieter than C-Span, American made and years ahead of its luxury-sedan competition. [...]

Mostly, though, what I have is awe. The Model S is a daring public experiment in automotive vision that has the impudence to make the finest, fastest luxury cars feel like Edwardian antiques. I know a lot of gear heads. The only ones who don't think the Model S is the best in the world haven't driven one.

Here is a report from the field: My wife took some veterinarians to lunch in the P85D, and all they could talk about was the car's one-pedal operation. Due to its strong regenerative braking, when the driver eases off the pedal, the car slows down immediately, often rendering the use of the friction brakes unnecessary. That's so great, she said. Why aren't all cars like that? Why, indeed?

I was more interested in what it did when you didn't lift. This particular version of the car, the P85D, is the company's exuberant drag bot, with two mighty AC induction motors, producing together 691 hp and 687 pound-feet of torque, bonging electrons from an 85 kWh battery pack. What strikes me about this arrangement is how it must have been future-proofed years ago, because the surrounding packaging was almost undisturbed. Interior room is undiminished by the second motor. The front trunk, the "frunk," gives you a little over one cubic foot of capacity (2.3 cubic feet).

In a lighthearted moment, engineers created two Acceleration modes for the P85D: "Sport" and "Insane." There is actually a little slider icon. Among its party tricks, the P85D can go from what I'll call "standing there" to "going like hell" (100 mph) in a breathless, jaw-clenching eight seconds. It's Six Flags over Silicon Valley. In the one-eighth mile, the P85D just buries elite super four-seaters such as the Ferrari FF and the Porsche Panamera Turbo.

These demonstrations weren't the point, says Tesla. The idea of the dual-motor cars was to make the Teslas more attractive in Snowbelt markets. Uh-huh. Setting that aside, the acceleration of the Tesla is a singular automotive experience.

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