Motor Trend Confirms 1.98 0 to 60 for Tesla Model S Plaid

Motor Trend confirmed that the Tesla Model S Plaid accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 1.98 seconds. The tested model was using 21 inch wheels.

The Plaid launches so ferociously hard, it generates more than 1.00 g from 0.2 second to 2.6 seconds after launch, peaking at 1.227 g at 32 mph. That’s more g than the car generated in its best 60-0-mph stop, which required 104 feet and peaked at 1.221 g.

The Plaid at the standard Motor Trend track was able to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 2.07 seconds which was 0.2 seconds faster than the previous fastest Motor Trend tested production car. The previous best was with a Model S P100D Ludicrous+.

SOURCES- Motor Trend, Warren Redlich
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com (Brian owns shares of Tesla)

17 thoughts on “Motor Trend Confirms 1.98 0 to 60 for Tesla Model S Plaid”

  1. The original Motor Trend article says that the car had custom Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres.
    Now the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyre is an off the shelf (albeit the top shelf) tyre for high performance cars. What the "custom" means in this line I can't say. It usually refers to a size that was developed to match a particular vehicle.

  2. Some road racing experience in vintage circles. While zero interest in drag racing, that spec is quite impressive.

  3. If you read the original article https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-s/2021/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/

    you see that, as Brian is prone to do, he has mixed up two different stories.

    On a prepared drag strip, the Plaid pulled 1.98 seconds.

    On a strip of normal tarmac, such as you would normally be driving on, the time was 2.28 seconds. It is that second, slower time, that their number of 1.227g comes from.

    And that 1.227 only applied after the initial 0.2 second launch, which might have been even harder.

  4. Just think of how much harder it is to things while this is happening! Is the surface of a planet the right place for an expanding technological civilization?

  5. What am I missing here? 60 mph = 88 fps; 0 to 60 in2.0 seconds is 44 fps/sl 1 g acceleration = 32 fps/sec, so AVERAGE acceleration for a 2 second 0 to 60 must be 44/32 = 1.375 G. Last I checked, 1.375 was noticeably greater than 1.25

  6. Do Tesla's get delivered with unrestricted full power enabled (subject to traction control limitations)? Or are they set to something reasonable and the owner has to unlock the full power mode? I vaguely remember there was a launch mode you needed to unlock, which apparently strained the batteries so bad you might get dinged for warranty service.

  7. Interesting idea. Would the anti-crash system prevent a collision ever if the driver TRIED to collide with something?

  8. I don't think that this is something that people will be doing daily. This will probably be limited to rare occasions.

  9. Traction control can prevent a face-to-face with a palm tree (F&F Alumni Paul Walker.) How often outside a track groomed to deliver traction, will you find the grip to hit peak torque for a sub-two-second run?

  10. What truly makes this car amazing is that as well as being the fastest it is also one of the safest cars ever made (by crash testing). Now the insanely rich can feel comfortable getting their teenage son the car he wants, knowing that he is also driving an extremely safe car. This does not even consider the built in safety features that will automatically apply the brakes when junior drives recklessly.

  11. Perhaps the production model will be scaled back a bit to preserve battery life – I would imagine giving up a few 1/10's of a second will be an exponential benefit to the rapid discharge issue you're poking at.

  12. One kind-of-sort-of has to wonder about what accelerating at 1¼ G does to the critical joints throughout the frame, (probably not terribly bad, all in all), but also the ∑cycles of the batteries. You know, the faster the discharge rate, the lower the total ∑cycles before the battery's degraded capacity drops below-spec.

    Already, this is a problem with the super-über-foober Chargers, Model III.  The 250 kW of charging power gets well into the ohmic heating region of the individual cells. Only through competent internal temperature metrology and feedback to the charging loop, does Tesla keep cars from catching fire. Thank the gods for that.  

    Still 250 kW is at least 2.5-C as it is called for a 100 kWh battery.  Much higher for the tiny 50 kWh batteries.  5-C.  

    Maybe I'm over-worrying.  5-C isn't that high, at least as far as charge rates for radio-controlled playthings, and for commonplace construction hand-held battery powered tools.  

    Yah, i'm over worried.  

    If the ultimate life of a modern cell is maybe 2500-C in terms of best-case charge-discharge cycling, rates, depth-of-charge, commutated overcharge … then the best case only derates to 2000-C or so with such modest per-cell charge rates.  

    Nevermind my original objection.

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

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