Tesla's final Signature Edition marks the end of a 14-year EV revolution

Tesla has released a final Signature Edition to commemorate the end of the Model S (and Model X), a car that auto journalist Jason Cammisa and Hagerty says transformed an entire industry and will ultimately be responsible for killing off that whole industry. Cammisa got to go up close and personal with the final build for his video paying homage to the Model S.

Over its 14-year run, the Model S pulled off one of the slickest tricks in automotive history by looking remarkably similar on the outside while becoming a completely different car underneath. Cammisa notes that the original 2012 model was made of roughly 5,000 parts, while the 2026 version has only 3,000. Just 3% of those parts are shared with the original, a level of change that would typically take a conventional car company six generations and 60 years to achieve.

The car's constant evolution was driven by Tesla's unique structure, where engineers didn't have to put their "pencils down" just because a car entered production. Instead, they made thousands of rolling changes to improve efficiency and reduce weight. This was managed through a currency Tesla engineers call the "battery buck," which calculates the cost of adding a feature versus the cost of adding more battery to maintain range. This philosophy allowed the long-range Model S to lose 375 lbs and become 40% more efficient over its lifetime. It also led to innovations like Sentry Mode, which the company developed in just four days and deployed over-the-air.

Cammisa recalls his first road test in 2012, where the retracting door handles didn't work and he was sure the car would never make it. However, after waking up to a beamed software update that fixed the handles, he realized, "Oh my god, these people mean business. This car is going to change the world." While the Model S earned a reputation for terrible build quality, it offered a desirable experience with a 265-mile range that made competitors like the Nissan Leaf look outdated. It was the first to do things like over-the-air updates and the full touchscreen, which Tesla had to design internally because the iPad didn't even exist yet.

In the end, Cammisa argues that the Model S is the most important car of a lifetime because it proved what was actually possible. While traditional car companies have sometimes "kneecapped" their own electric versions to protect their gas-powered business, Tesla never stopped developing. He believes that the companies currently canceling their EV programs have sealed their fate, as the Model S has already shown consumers a future of software-defined vehicles that never stop getting better.

As Cammisa puts it, "The Model S isn't just the most important car of the year. It's the most important car America has made in an entire lifetime."