It turns out that the only ludicrous thing here (other than the P90D’s drive mode) is having the guts to challenge a heavily tuned Ford GT from a rolling start.
Do we even need to talk about how things wend down when both cars launched from a stand-still? Probably not. The fact that the Model S is almost impossible to beat off the line is well documented, and whether it’s the P85D or the P90D, it doesn’t even make that much of a difference.
The Ford GT on the other hand, well, on paper this is the exact car you wouldn’t want to pin against the Tesla if all you were doing were standing starts. It has plenty of muscle, it’s rear wheel drive, I mean come on, it’s a loss waiting to happen, right?
On top of that, this particular Ford GT is packing over 700 HP which means that not only is it blistering fast (10.6 sec 1/4 mile at 133 mph), but you’re not launching it like it’s meant to be launched on anything other than drag radials on a drag strip.
Obviously, things went as planned for the P90D whenever they raced from a standing start, though the muscle car did claw its way back eventually. But when they did the 2nd gear roll, that’s when you could clearly see the difference between the Tesla and an equally powerful but conventionally-powered supercar.
Have we reached a point where we should no longer consider the Model S a drag racing champ because all it’s good for is being first off the line? Even if we did, here’s the thing (as one of the users points out in the comments section): The Model S is the future, while the Ford GT is the past.
Now, we can hang on to the past as much as we like, but there’s no denying which of these cars is genuinely better. Odds are, in another one or two generations from now, the Ford GT of the future might not have anything to do with the good old fashioned petrol engine either.