Tesla Model S Plaid Loses Giant Rear Wing, Does One Nurburgring Lap at a Time

As you can see, the sole remaining test car has received further modifications, its giant rear wing having been replaced by what appears to be a see-through Polycarbonate spoiler that's quite a bit bigger than the first one it used back in September.

Of course, these are not the only visual dissimilarities between the first two Tesla Model S Plaid prototypes that came to the Nurburgring and the remaining blue one. The latest one is wider, has a pair of air intakes behind the front wheels, there a deeper chin lip and a downright massive aerodynamic diffuser at the rear.

For those who haven't been keeping with Tesla's adventure on the Green Hell, the U.S. carmaker has set up a base at the Nurburgring, which now also includes a Supercharger station.

Hand-timed by our spy photographers, the first time it went there it also destroyed the Porsche Taycan Turbo lap time, while a couple of weeks later it went dangerously close to the 7-minute lap time mark. That said, one of the two prototypes was also crashed in the process, so all is not well so far in the Tesla camp.

Speaking of which, it's getting a bit nippy around the Nurburgring to keep pushing for lap records, so the reason for Tesla still doing rounds on the Green Hell is getting more mysterious. When asked about more footage of the blue prototype on track, the car spotter who shot the following video said that the car only made one lap at a time and then retreated at the garage, presumably for recharging and downloading test data.

We should remind you that the so-called Plaid drivetrain used by the model comprises three electric motors instead of two and will probably top the 1,000 horsepower mark. Elon Musk said that it should go into production at the end of 2020, so there is plenty of time left to smash Nordschleife records.