It will take a very special, probably modified and possibly not road legal ICE vehicle that could beat a Tesla Model S Plaid for acceleration off the line. Based on what we’ve seen in this video, a 710 horsepower Ferrari F8 Tributo and a modified twin-turbo Audi R8 V10 are no match for it; the Tesla actually makes these ridiculously quick cars appear slow.
With a claimed sprint time to 100 km/h (62 mph) of 2.9 seconds, the Ferrari F8 Tributo is seriously fast, especially considering it is rear-wheel drive-only and it doesn’t have any added torque from an electric motor. Few cars in the world could even come close to matching its acceleration, yet the Model S Plaid just cruises ahead.
In this video uploaded by the Tesla Plaid Channel, the owner takes his Model S Plaid to a drag strip where he races both the F8 and the modified Audi R8 V10. He lets both vehicles have the move - this means they get to start first and the other driver only reacts after the first car is in motion - but reels them in ridiculously easy thanks to the Tesla’s mighty power output.
The Plaid was also delivering peak performance during the runs, starting with 93 percent in its battery pack. Launch mode was used for all the runs, and the Model S achieved a best quarter-mile time that day of 9.29 seconds at a trap speed of 148.48 mph.
Probably the most interesting run was not against the two high-power, high-profile supercars, but against a gutted hillclimb Model S Plaid that had been modified to run at Pikes Peak. It is hillclimb champion Blake Fuller’s car and aside from the stripped out interior with a roll cage, we also notice he uses a round steering wheel in place of the factory yoke.
It’s also running very grippy and very wide 315-section Toyo Proxes RR semi-slick tires on all four wheels, but according to Blake Fuller, it’s these larger (and heavier) wheels that actually make his Plaid slower than a stock one, even though it’s been lightened. He only manages to do a 9.71 quarter-mile run, way behind the stock Plaid, and he has a lengthy explanation as to why that was the case.
