Tesla has been subjected to quite a lot of criticism from enthusiasts because even though the cars are seriously quick, the company’s EVs tend to gradually lose performance when the battery charge drops. That’s true to some extent, but in the case of the new Model S Plaid, a nearly depleted battery still has enough juice to help the electric sedan deliver hypercar levels of acceleration.
YouTuber DragTimes is an early adopter of the Plaid and he decided to conduct a performance test while the battery was at a 20% state of charge. His range-topping Model S consumed most of the energy while racing “all night long” at the drag strip where the EV did roughly 40 quarter-mile runs, losing about 2% of the battery charge with each run.
The brand-new Plaid only needed 2.33 seconds to complete the sprint from 0 to 60 mph, which is nearly on a par with the 2.28-second time achieved by Motor Trend without a rollout. The Plaid is now the magazine’s fastest car ever tested, matching the time registered in 2017 with a Model S P100D Ludicrous+. Getting back to the video at hand, Brooks Weisblat from DragTimes completed the quarter-mile in 9.94 seconds at 136.4 mph.
These numbers go to show that even with a 20% SOC, the Plaid remains one of the quickest production cars ever made, beating virtually all gasoline and hybrid hypercars. Only the Rimac Nevera trumps it for the time being, with the very same guy behind the DragTimes channel managing to cover the quarter-mile in a mind-boggling 8.58 seconds at 167.5 mph.
Mercedes is coming after the Plaid with an AMG version of the EQS debuting next month at the IAA Munich in Germany where the EQE will be unveiled as well. The smaller (and presumably lighter) electric sedan is expected to spawn a performance derivative sooner or later, and logic tells us that one is shaping up to go against the Plaid.
Source: DragTimes / YouTube
