The Tesla Model S comes equipped with a 17-inch touch screen in its center console, from which drivers can connect to the Internet and browse the Web -- even while the car is in motion. And what online info is so important that Tesla riders can't wait to get out of the car to look up? A digital advertising firm has the answer, and we have to admit we're a little surprised by what it is.
According to a study by Quantcast, 54 percent of webpage views on the Model S sedan's built-in web browser were spent on news websites, with a full 10 percent of all page views going to right-leaning news aggregator Drudge Report.
Sifting through more than 460,000 page views, the digital advertising firm looked at the websites Tesla Model S drivers favored between Feb. 24 and March 23 and found that Tesla drivers also get much of their news from local sites, with these sites accounting for 26 percent of page views.
When Tesla drivers weren’t looking for the latest headlines from Matt Drudge or their local news source, they were spending their time on finance or sports news sites. Quantcast noted that surf report website Surfline.com was one of the top three sports news sites visited by the in-car browsers of the Model S sedans.
But Tesla owners apparently don’t strictly limit their in-car browsing to news sites. Entertainment websites accounted for 14 percent of page views, and lifestyle sites amounted to 12 percent of page views. Fifteen percent of page views came from something Quantcast calls "service sites," which Mashable defines as “restaurants, finding/purchasing entertainment, auto-related services, real estate, travel, shopping."
With all this in-car web browsing information, we now know that the average Tesla driver is a conservative financier with an affinity for surfing. In other words, the theoretical love child of 1980s movie characters Gordon Gekko and Jeff Spicoli.