Tesla Model Y Drags GLE and Cayenne SUVs, Feels Like an Adult Playing With Toddlers

Since its rise to fame a little over a decade ago, automotive and clean energy company Tesla has mostly hedged its performance bets with the flagship sedan and crossover models. As such, over the years, they have lifted both expectations and hype surrounding their EVs with help from P85D, P90D, and P100D performance variants up to the point where they just abandoned the numerals and went for Raven and Plaid greatness.

Now, of course, every time one of them comes out to play – both on and off the world's tracks, ICE-powered vehicles usually tremble in fear. But here's the catch, when the EV foe switches to a lesser Model 3 sedan or Model Y crossover, the roles are usually reversed. Well, as per the quick quarter-mile dragstrip races we will show you, not always. The videographer behind the Wheels Plus channel on YouTube is a massive fan of the Mission Raceway Park dragstrip in Mission, Canada, but moved to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for these ICE vs. EV encounters.

As such, he abandoned 'Thunder by the River' in favor of the big Nevada motorsport complex located in Clark County – just 15 miles (24 km) northeast of the (in)famous Las Vegas Strip. The venue has multiple tracks, including a couple of road courses, an Oval Bullring, a Dirt Track, an Off-Road Course, a Dream Racing Course, plus 'The Strip.' The latter is a quarter-mile dragstrip almost unlike any other – one of the few with four lanes instead of the usual two.

On this occasion, though, only the classic configuration was needed as a white Tesla Model Y duked it with an import rival – a W166 third-generation Mercedes-Benz GLE, which may or may not have been an AMG hero. Anyway, we suspect that it was not that great – or the driver had terrible reaction times because even with the Model Y racer giving the head start, it still was not enough to secure victory, hence the 13.65s versus 14.33s result!

This race sure felt like an adult playing with toddlers, and judging by the cheers and roars from the audience, they all loved how the Tesla Model Y quickly turned the tide of the battle. Alas, giving an advantage to a Porsche Cayenne is not exactly wise – which is why the second race of the night, which kicked off at the 0:41 mark, between the white Model Y and a dark blue Porsche Cayenne was quite a different match altogether.

On this occasion, the Tesla driver took full advantage of the Model Y electric powertrain's instant torque and shot out of its lane the same instant as the green light came up from the Christmas tree – leaving the mighty German performance crossover in the proverbial 'trail of (electron) dust' and nailing a bus-length gap that translated into a 12.24s (at 112 mph/180 kph) to 13.13s (at 109 mph/175 kph) victory. Oh, by the way, if you're not necessarily a fan of EVs or imports, there are always solutions for our quarter-mile dragstrip guilty pleasures. For example, how about close to four hours of nitrous and turbo rides with fast no-time grudge-style races courtesy of the Jmalcom2004 channel on YouTube?