Electric vehicles are hard to beat off the line, but if you own a combustion engined car with enough power and a long enough stretch of road to race on, it is possible to out-accelerate the quickest EV on sale: the Tesla Model S Performance with Cheetah Mode.
This clip comes from YouTuber DragTimes and shows three races down the quarter-mile between a Model S Performance and a Ferrari F8 Tributo. The races are competitive, but it is the Ferrari that has the advantage in all of them.
Off the line, the Tesla is too much for the Ferrari to handle, not that this is much of a surprise. In fact, the Tesla was able to hit 60 mph (96 km/h) in a mere 2.31 seconds during one of the three drag races, a time that’s simply impossible for the F8 Tributo to match.
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However, as the speeds start to increase, the 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 of the Ferrari proves to be too much for the Tesla, and it passes the Model S roughly halfway down the drag strip in each of the three races. As you’d expect, it also sounds far better than the near-silent electric saloon during these races.
On the night of testing, the Ferrari was averaging quarter-mile times in the 10.2-second range, while the Model S was hovering around the 10.5-second mark.
The F8 Tributo is the fastest mid-engined model in Ferrari’s U.S. range but soon, the first customer deliveries of the SF90 Stradale will commence and, thanks to its hybrid powertrain putting out 986 HP, it should be noticeably faster. As for Tesla, the tri-motor Model S Plaid is also just around the corner and promises to redefine straight-line performance for a production car.