It's been a monster year for Elon Musk. He bet most of his own money on two of the riskiest businesses imaginable -- space and automobiles - and from the looks of it, it's finally starting to pay off. In the same year he sent his SpaceX Dragon rocket to the International Space Station and back, he also released one of the world's most impressive new luxury cars -- the Tesla Model S - which won our 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year award. We caught up with Musk shortly after he learned of the honor to ask him a few questions about his feelings, what the award means for Tesla, and where the fledging American car company goes from here.

MT: What was your first reaction to hearing that the Model S had won Motor Trend's 2013 Car of the Year?

MUSK: I did a double-overhead high-five with George Blankenship [Tesla's vice president, Sales & Ownership Experience], who told me the news.

MT: What does winning the award mean to you? To Tesla?

MUSK: Winning the Motor Trend Car of the Year award, I think, is actually incredibly powerful. Certainly, it's going to be a huge shot in the arm to the whole Tesla team. It was a huge team effort, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, to create this car. Hopefully, what it will mean to the public is something very powerful. It should symbolize the transition to electric. What we were really aiming to achieve with the Model S is to create a car -- an electric car -- that was the best car. Not the best car among the electric genre, but the best car overall. Motor Trend's Car of the Year award is the top award, obviously, in the car industry and the most respected, so for Motor Trend to say that the Model S is, in fact, the best car is a huge vindication and, I think, what will be hopefully seen historically as a turning point in the transition from gasoline to electric.

MT: Motor Trend has been awarding COTY since 1949, and this is the first time a vehicle without an internal combustion engine has won. There will be controversy. How do you respond, and is there anything you'd like to say to your detractors?

MUSK: I think that it's better if that's talked about and written about because more people in the general public will take notice and start to think, well, perhaps they should be buying an electric car instead of a gasoline car and we can begin the transition to sustainable transport.

As for the detractors of me or Tesla, I think, hopefully, the Model S winning the Motor Trend Car of the Year award will get other car companies to consider a much stronger initiative in the direction of electric cars. I don't have anything bad to say to prior detractors except perhaps, hopefully, this will cause people to reconsider their ideas about electric cars and be more in favor of them.

MT: Conversely, what would you like to say to the supporters that have stood by you through the years?

MUSK: For all the supporters of Tesla over the years, and it's been several years now and there have been some very tough times, I'd just like to say thank you very much. I deeply appreciate the support particularly through the darkest times.

MT: The Model S is the first car Tesla designed and built from the ground up and it has won COTY, an award that many established brands have yet to win. How do you top that? Where do you go from here?

MUSK: I'm certainly very proud of the Tesla team that, for the very first car we've made entirely ourselves, that we should win the Motor Trend Car of the Year award. I'm really super proud of the team for that. In terms of where we go from here, I think we've got some really products coming down the pike. We've got the Model X, which is really trying to apply some major innovation to the SUV and minivan segment. We've got our third-generation car, which is a mass-market electric car. That's actually the one that I'm most keen to bring to the market. We'd like to do an electric supercar. We have this idea for an electric truck that could really be a big improvement in truck technology. I'm really excited about bringing out a whole series of cars that address a wide range of consumer interests and needs. I do think it will be interesting to do self-driving cars, perhaps working in conjunction with Google, who's quite close to us in Silicon Valley. Larry Page and Sergey Brin are longtime friends of mine, so it would be great to work with them, maybe to do self-driving .

I hope this award encourages people to come and check out the Model S, get a test drive, and consider making it their car.