Tesla Model S on the Road

Tesla Motors has just released a short video of the Model S on the road, and we’ll say this: Damn that car is gorgeous.

There’s not much in the way of info, just one minute and 40 seconds of an alpha-build (Tesla-speak for preproduction prototype) S on an unspecified back road. We don’t see him behind the wheel of the slick electric vehicle, but vehicle dynamicist (Tesla-speak for test driver) Graham Sutherland sings the car’s praises in the Tesla blog.

“The first Alpha is amazingly agile for a car of its size,” he says. “It has great handling balance and poised ride with communicative steering. Just goes to show what combining a low center of gravity with a very stiff body structure can achieve.”

Of course, you’d expect him to say that. But Sutherland came to Tesla from Lotus, so he knows a thing or two about vehicle dynamics. And we’ve taken a close look under the skin of the S and can tell you this is one meticulously engineered automobile. Tesla has at least three alpha builds, which will be used to test components and subsystems and to road-test the car. At some point it will transition to beta builds, which will be built at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California.