Now the Model S is going away. During Tesla’s earnings call yesterday, Musk announced that his company will soon stop manufacturing the car that launched his empire. “That is slightly sad,” he acknowledged on the call. In a sense, it was inevitable. Tech products get killed off all the time to make way for something better; Apple no longer sells the iPhone 4. Indeed, the Tesla Model S has become irrelevant and overpriced compared with the company’s newer cars. (As a Road & Track headline put it in 2023, “The Tesla Model S Has Lived Long Enough to See Itself Become a Villain.”) Nearly all of Tesla’s global sales come from the more affordable Model Y and Model 3, leaving the original Model S unceremoniously lumped in with “Other Models” in the company’s financial reports.