Anyone who initially wrote off Tesla as not lasting should start officially eating their words. I mean that literally... go write down what you said on a piece of paper, stuff it in your mouth, and start chewing. The upstart automaker recently turned a profit in the first quarter of 2013, and then it went ahead and turned another one in the second quarter. Now though, Tesla can rejoice a little bit about its latest star model because the Model S just earned a five-star crash rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

That may not sound that impressive, since most automakers can produce vehicles that earn this rating. Still, Tesla is fairly new to this game so it's quite an achievement to be belting out a brand-new car that hits the appropriate safety marks. Getting that full five-star rating means top scores in the rollover, side impact, and frontal impact crash tests.

As Tesla continues to evolve as an automaker, it's vehicles will too. Up next, we're eager to see how the Model X handles itself in the same type of crash tests. Additionally, will electric vehicle shoppers flock to the Model X as they have to the company's silent sedan? Our guess is a strong probably, as the Model S has begun to take over the roads around Southern California. We expect Model X sales to fall not terribly far behind. And since we're automotive journalists that usually predict the opposite of what the consumer wants, you can expect to see even more of these on the road than the sedan.

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