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2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year: Tesla Model S [w/video]

Eleven cars enter, one car leaves. Silently and with zero emissions.
Tesla has earned one of the most coveted prizes in the automotive world, as its Model S has taken home the Golden Calipers as the 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year. In the process, the Model S beat out a field that included 10 other contenders.
In case you were wondering, this is the first time an electric car has earned this accolade. No internal combustion here, folks. In an impressive run the Model S was also named Automobile Car of the Year and one of the 25 Best Inventions of the year by Time Magazine.

Tesla Model S rentals in the UK are crazy expensive

The bad news about trying to rent a Tesla Model S electric vehicle in the UK for a day is that it will run you about $580. The good news? You get 200 free miles worth of driving. The good news? Considering British fuel prices of about $9 a gallon and fact that the average fuel economy in the UK is around 38 miles per gallon, you're at least getting around $45 worth of travel for your $580. And you're doing it in one of the most popular EVs around. UK-based EVision is offering right-hand drive Model S to motoring enthusiasts at a starting rate of about $100 an hour (with a three-hour minimum, of course), reports Transport Evolved. That jumps to $580 for the full day. And for a week of pretending that you're James Bond in your sparkling Model S, the car will run about $3,300. And you though rental rates for London flats were expensive. California-based Tesla started delivering the Model S to the UK in June. The model is priced at about $84,000 and Tesla said at the time that more than 3,400 Model S vehicles had been sold in Europe during the first four months of the year. Those figures were helped by Tesla's decision to reduce the price of the Model S on the continent because of the strengthening Euro.

Tesla Model S Easter egg turns car into submarine

When thinking about Elon Musk, the first thing that comes to mind may not be his sense of humor. However, the Tesla boss is embedding a pretty funny Easter egg in the company's cars that references a part of his own collection. Musk famously purchased the Lotus Esprit submarine from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me for about $967,000 in 2013. At one point, he even intended to install a Tesla powertrain and make it fully transformable. From anyone else that plan would sound like pure fantasy, but Musk has the money and the means to make it happen, if he wants. Now, every Tesla Model S driver gets to share in just a little of that very cool ownership experience. A person on YouTube filmed how to access the Easter egg, and it's extremely easy. Just hold down the T on the infotainment screen for a few seconds, enter the appropriate code 007 and check the suspension settings page. Instead of seeing a Model S, Bond's submersible Esprit now appears. As another cool touch, users can set the vehicle's depth in leagues, and the options max out at 20,000. This is almost certainly a subtle reference to the classic story 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Maybe someday Musk can get the Lotus' conversion complete, and we can see it working for real. Until then, this a neat way to show the unique car off. Related Video: