But Tesla serves another purpose, too. It is acclimating us to the end of the automobile as an object of desire.

The Model S might be a supercar under the hood (actually nothing’s under the hood; the motor is attached directly to a gearbox above the axle), but it’s hardly one elsewhere. Take a look at this video of a P85D street racing against a 670 horsepower V12 Lamborghini Murcielago (don’t street race, kids!):

The Tesla can almost keep up despite being 1,300 pounds heavier. Impressive. But just look at it. If the Tesla wore pants, they’d be Dockers. Pleated ones, smelling of Tide, flanked by a dangling convention lanyard. The Lamborghini, by contrast: low and rawboned, reeking of grease and cologne, engorged with zeal and pride. Sure, dumb pride, excessive, dangerous even, but still.

It was invariably masculinist and often gross, but the automobile has always been a symbol of the self. Especially in America, where we don these steel exoskeletons alone as we traverse our sprawling, be-freewayed nation. If not the testosterone-addled supercar, then something else: the more affordable muscle-car alternative, of course, but also the rugged pickup, or the ostentatious SUV, or the cute coupe, or the sleek sedan, or the granola four-wheel-drive wagon, or even the practical minivan. In America, the automobile is us, and we are it.

Until we’re not. The Tesla is perhaps the first supercar actively to eschew the lust once inseparable from the segment. It’s not unattractive, but it sure is humdrum, its ordinary lines rehearsing ordinary deeds. Car & Driver called the new Aventador Superveloce “the very definition of a bedroom-poster car.” Everyone may want a Tesla, but nobody wants one adorning their wall. This is a practical dream, stripped of carnal passion. A supercar with love handles instead of haunches.

Undermining the supercar identity fantasy isn’t just an accident; it’s part of Tesla’s future legacy. The Tesla is not just any old car, after all. It’s the electric car that sounds the death knell for ordinary automotive life. If Elon Musk has his way, soon many more of us will be able to buy one. And if you live in a city such that the 200-mile range isn’t a hindrance, why wouldn’t you? They’re clean, energy-efficient, and fun to drive.

The Ford Model T was famous for being available in any “color that he wants so long as it is black.” Mass production required standardization, and in exchange, the automobile became affordable for the middle classes. In the ensuing century, automobiles became status and identity symbols. Now they are descending back into the realm of commodities. And Musk, the ultimate dispassionate futurist, is helping us discard our foolish emotional attachments to automobiles, partly by stripping them of anything worthy of attachment.

Take the new Tesla Model X, a crossover electric vehicle with seating for seven, officially released today. It’s got the same power (and high price) of the Model S, but looks shorter and squatter, with a rear pair of gullwing doors (Musk insists on calling them “falcon doors”). Chimerical, this is the kind of car Napoleon Dynamite might fantasy-sketch on looseleaf. Full of earnestness, ticking all the boxes, earning closed-mouth smiles but also shameful private eyerolls. It’s not that Teslas are ugly, or even plain-Jane. That would make things easier. No, Teslas are aesthetically incongruous. A supercar that looks like a Hertz weekend rental. A monster with the head of a Mazda and the gut of a Bugatti. The final victory of Pontiac Aztec over Pininfarina.