Tesla Model S Plaid does 0-60 in 'just' 2.59 seconds — what's going on?
How fast does the Tesla Model S Plaid go from 0-60 mph? According to Tesla, the car can manage that feat in 1.99 seconds. Which is incredibly impressive, and makes the car one of the fastest accelerating production cars on the market.
But your experience may differ, as shown by this acceleration test video from ICSI. This test that showed the car going from 0-60 in 2.59 seconds. That’s over half a second slower than what Tesla promises.
So what’s the deal here?
Well, there’s a lot of reasons for that discrepancy, the main one being that Tesla doesn’t measure rollout as part of its 0-60 timing. Essentially, this means Tesla is operating under drag race rules, and the clock doesn’t start until the wheels have made one full rotation.
In other words it means the car has travelled about a foot, and has already started accelerating before the clock starts ticking. ICSI’s speed test didn’t do this, and the clock started when the car started moving.
