The Good Astonishing performance and range and, finally, the handling to match.

The Bad Visually, it's time for a bit of a reboot inside and out.

The Bottom Line Subtle changes mean big things for Tesla's premier sedan.

The Model S is more than a familiar face at this point. The early concept version rolled out way back in 2009, while the production car first hit the road in 2012. Since then, other than a little nip and tuck in 2016, the car has remained visually unchanged. That's a long time for any car to stand still, but in the luxury sedan market, where the prevalence of short-term leases reflects the constant desire for something fresh, seven years is an absolute eternity.

But you know what they say about judging a book by its cover. The 2019 Tesla Model S Long Range you see here rolled into my life with some significant changes under the familiar skin, including new suspension, a new motor and all sorts of wonderful new software updates to bring it all together. The net result is a car with an amazing 370 miles of range, but that's just the beginning.

Tesla Model S Long Range takes us back to the future

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What's new

The hallmark feature of the new Tesla Model S Long Range is, of course, its range. 370 miles puts it well ahead of the competition, going nearly twice as far as some of the new crop of luxo-EVs from Audi and Mercedes-Benz and the like. I won't get into a debate about how much range people need, because that's a complicated question, but suffice to say that 370 miles is enough to banish range fears from the minds of even the most anxious of drivers.

The truly fascinating thing is that 370 miles -- 35 more than before -- is delivered by exactly the same 100 kilowatt-hour battery pack. Where'd Tesla find that extra range, then? It required a series of tweaks, some subtle, some more substantial.

That 370 miles -- 35 than before -- is delivered by exactly the same 100 kilowatt-hour battery pack.

Far and away the biggest contributors are the new motor and inverter. Well, new to the Model S anyway. Both are actually a transplant from the Model 3, but where the motor sits in the rear of Tesla's newer sedan, in the Model S that motor sits up front. Interestingly, this motor is of the permanent magnet variety, whereas the older motor at the rear is still of the induction type. 

There's a lot of nuance in comparing permanent magnet motors to induction types, as individual motor design and construction can counter general performance concepts, but suffice to say that those of the former variety tend to be smaller and more efficient, but more expensive. The greater efficiency here means more effective regeneration (more important at the front than the rear of the car due to the weight shift forward), but it also means a boost in power at the front relative to the previous Model S. More on that later, but the net result is a 0-to-60 sprint in just 3.7 seconds. Yes, that's fast, and this isn't even the Performance. 

Suspension is also new, revised dampers at each corner that can dynamically adjust both compression and rebound in just 10 milliseconds. That means when you toggle into the new sport driving mode it happens really quickly, but more importantly it means the car can dynamically react to your inputs, adjusting stiffness from side-to-side to, for example, mitigate body roll. 

This has led to a host of other suspension tweaks, including revised spring rates, smaller anti-roll bars and a raft of new software to tie it all together. As a part of this change, the Model S has a new location-based highway mode, where the car will automatically lower itself (and its aerodynamic resistance) when entering a highway. Previously, this was purely based on speed. Now, even if you hit traffic and have to slow down, the car will stay low.