2015 Tesla Model S P85D Hits the Dyno, Trolls Us with 864 LB-FT of Torque

The crew over at Dragtimes has strapped a 2015 Tesla Model S P85D to a dyno to see what the all-wheel drive electron dance can do. We'll remind you the thing packs a 471 HP electric motor at the rear and a 221 HP unit up front, with a combined rating of 691 hp. As for the overall torque, this sits at 687 lb-ft (931 Nm).

Still, on-paper numbers are one thing and dyno pulls are another thing, so let's move on to the latter. The P85D's dyno sheet shows 413 hp and 864 lb-ft (1,171 Nm) of torque. Obviously, this is the output at the wheels. Or is it?

The odd results were predictable

Yep, the aforementioned numbers appear to be on the ridiculous side. First of all, power is on par with the single-motor Model S P85 415 hp dyno rating, while the torque is almost 200 lb-ft above the expected figure.

Well, only the EV-uninitiated would expect a dyno run for such a vehicle to run according to the internal combustion engine plan. You see, dynos have various ways of measuring and calculating output, which, on many occasions, don't fall in line with what electric motors deliver.

From missing rpm values to coefficients that are specific to ICEs, there's plenty of room for error here. In fact, the single-motor Model S P85 already has a history of trolling dynos.

Speaking of trolling, the P85D wasn't exactly cooperative when it came to playing with the roll machine

"Since we know from past dyno results on the previous Model S P85 with just one motor rated at 415HP, most of the big torque and power is down low, so we attempted to start the dyno pulls as slow as possible. However, the instant torque of the P85D spun the tires on the dyno during first few attempts, causing the car to pull back power. After a couple more tries, we were able to successfully roll into the power low enough to get some big results with the P85D putting down 864 ft-lbs of torque to the wheels during multiple runs. While the car doesn’t hold that torque number for very long as you can see in the graph below, it’s long enough to propel the Tesla off the line amazingly well," the aforementioned source explains.

Before you check out the dyno footage and graph below, you should know that this run is.... double irrelevant. While we've already established how hard it is to trust the dyno on this one, the second reason comes from Tesla itself.

The automaker announced the coming months will bring two performance updates for the P85D. First of all, the top speed limit will move from the current 130 mph (209 km/h) to 155 mph (250 km/h), while "an over-the-air firmware upgrade to the power electronics will improve P85D performance at high speed above what anyone outside Tesla has experienced to date." Here's another reason to look forward to 2015.