Top Gear and Tesla have a long history of not getting along, but that seemed to be behind us until this drag race video showed up a couple of days ago. New Porsche Taycan Turbo S drag races Tesla Model S P100D. Porsche wins. End of story? Not so fast!
The original Top Gear-Tesla controversy was way back in the Roadster era, with Jeremy Clarkson making it seem like the car ran out of juice really fast. It took a while for people to figure out that Elon Musk was kind of right, but in this case, TG is being called out immediately.
The problems people are pointing out can be divided into nit-picking and highly controversial stuff. For example, the Drag Times YouTube channel quickly published a video analysis where it pointed out how the numbers for the 0-60, 0-100 and 1/4-mile times were the same as in an old race against a Mercedes-AMG E63.
It's impossible to get identical numbers like that, especially when this isn't done at Top Gear's usual location. The magazine's editors later admitted to using fake numbers because they were better than the ones in the Porsche race and thus reflected what a Model S could do. But then this would imply the Taycan is faster than the Tesla on its best day.
Our completely unfounded suspicion is that TG's race was set up by Porsche but they tried to pass it off as a super-professional thing. They could have just done the video with no numbers and said this shootout will probably have to be repeated. "We ran the drag race five times and the Porsche won every time by a small but increasing margin with each subsequent race," the BBC-owned outlet states.
Tesla owners have posted much quicker times the ones here, but we're not going to linger on that for now. It could be down to using a box vs the equipment at the drag strip or the traction conditions. The two issues that could tear apart Top Gear's case are to do with what Model S they used and how.
The P100D is one model year behind, which is said to play a major part, and some have pointed out that both the MCU and the instrument cluster suggest it's not in full performance mode. Elon Musk didn't like this one bit: "Putting Model S in range mode is the opposite of launch mode, as it minimizes performance in favor of range. Show should be called "Low Gear"!"
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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