When Tesla revealed the Plaid variant of its Model S back in June, it was clear that it would have few competitors in the electric vehicle space, at least so far as the performance of four-door sedans go. The company has recently been busy proving its chops by sending a production version of the car around the Nürburgring, and CEO Elon Musk today claims that these efforts have resulted in a new world record for the vehicle's class.
The Model S Plaid entered the world as a 1,020-hp electric car capable of covering a quarter mile in just 9.23 seconds, and shuttling from 0-60 mph (96.5 km/h) in 1.99 seconds. This made it the first production car to break this two-second barrier and, according to Musk, positioned the Model S Plaid as the "most amount of fun on four wheels."
Tesla has had some fun at the Nürburgring with the Model S Plaid before, perhaps most notably in 2019 when it clocked an unofficial lap time of seven minutes 13 seconds with a finely tuned R&D prototype. This was a great deal faster than the record for production electric cars of seven minutes 42 seconds, set by the Porsche Taycan in August 2019.
The Plaid powertrain has also been put to work at California's Laguna Seca, where a prototype was whipped around the circuit in 1:36.555, a record-breaking time for a four-door sedan, electric or otherwise.
Now Tesla has returned to the 'Ring with an unmodified version of the production Model S Plaid, and navigated the notoriously testing circuit in a blistering seven minutes and 30.909 seconds, with an average speed of 166.320 km/h (103 mph).
Tesla Model S Plaid just set official world speed record for a production electric car at Nurburgring. Completely unmodified, directly from factory. pic.twitter.com/AaiFtfW5Ht
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2021
“Tesla Model S Plaid just set official world speed record for a production electric car at Nürburgring. Completely unmodified, directly from factory,” Musk posted on Twitter, with an accompanying photo of the time sheet. “Next will be modified Plaid with added aero surfaces, carbon brakes & track tires (all things that can be done without Tesla being in the loop).”
Such alterations will likely see the Model S Plaid clock even faster lap times, but it will have some ways to go to topple the hottest of hot laps completed by an electric vehicle, the six minutes and five seconds logged by the Volkswagen ID.R back in 2019.
Source: Twitter
