Things are going great for Tesla these days. It has total command of the American EV market after the first six months of the year and also overtook everything else to snatch the title of the best-selling model in Europe. And it all happened with the Model Y crossover SUV.
However, the real driving force behind the image and branding of the American electric car maker is the Plaid – which is, of course, only available on the flagship models – Model S and X. That means you can't have both affordability and ultra-high, 1,020-pony's worth of performance. But that probably doesn't matter if you can beat a proper supercar with the family's four-door sedan, right?
And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have a proper example of putting all the EV talk into perspective. After yet another very long hiatus, the videographer behind the Drag Racing and Car Stuff channel on YouTube is back with feisty action from Bradenton Motorsport Park in Bradenton, Florida – both of the drag and roll variety.
Naturally, the true force of an EV is its massive, instant torque. As such, the traditional drag races are more advantageous than roll races, for sure. At least on most occasions, that is. That is illustrated by a crimson Tesla Model S that met on a high-wind day with a black, menacing McLaren 765LT supercar.
The first skirmish saw the Plaid take full advantage of its AWD and high instant torque, and it had a car's lead on the McLaren 765LT just as it passed the Christmas tree. However, going past second gear, the ICE-powered supercar gets into its element, and the race became one of those instances when it's 'close, but not close enough' as it almost recouped the entire distance – hence the 9.46s versus 9.73s result at 145 mph/233 kph and 148 mph/238 kph trap speeds, respectively.
The second skirmish was more of the same – with an even larger initial gap for the crimson EV and again the supercar trying to recoup the lost distance: 9.41s at 146 mph/235 kph for Tesla and 9.64s at 149 mph/240 kph for McLaren showed the two drivers were trying to extract everything from their rides. At long last, the third attempt proved the charm for the ICE-powered sports car as the owner nailed a perfect start and inched ahead of its adversary with a best-of 9.2s ET at 149 mph against the opponent's 9.39s at 147 mph (237 kph).
By the way, if you want to see more losses for Team Tesla, from the 1:05 mark, the well-known 'One Stop Solar' white Tesla Model S Plaid got some fair beatings on account of trying to trespass into roll racing territory when a modded Lamborghini Huracan and Nissan GT-R were on point. Cool, right?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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