Tesla Model S Plaid Review // When Science Goes Too Far

all right you ready for this i thought i was but i what if i have to turn i'll be right back okay maybe i can just get used to it if there's any systems gonna happen so just here you go probably that way leopard leopard up and down yeah this line we'll just just stretch her around right the old stretcher now now it's a normal steering wheel sort of oh that looks like it's from factory good to go you're watching throttle house i'm thomas and i'm james and this is the model s plaid [Music] [Music] you're looking at a four-door almost 5 000 pound executive car that can go toe-to-toe and even embarrass some hyper cars here's a few numbers 1020 horsepower 0-60 in 1.99 seconds a top speed of 200 miles per hour and enough range to get you and passengers comfortably from san francisco to la without ever stopping this is the model s plaid three motors zero normal steering wheels and apparently ten teraflops of processing power so today we want to find out what it's like when you actually push this thing and more importantly we want to find out what the hell a teraflop even is and a huge thank you to nazar and his team at favorite motors a pre-owned superstore here in toronto as one of the very lucky first deliveries they are the ones that provided us with today's model s plaid and in exciting news you can have one of your own because we've teamed up with omaze to give away a model s plaid and twenty thousand dollars we'll talk about it more at the end but all you need to know right now is that to enter go to omaze.com throttle house for your chance to win and the good news is your entry goes towards helping a great cause okay plaid time if you're new to us we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing around so subscribe and hit the bell [Music] okay over a thousand horsepower 5 000 pounds preparing for launch suspension entering cheetah stance ready to launch wow braking zones disappear in this car for more than just one reason it's severely under braked and also it's so fast what is this makes you feel like you're in the matrix when he says he can learn kung fu and he says more yeah that's uh anything above 10 seconds and a quarter mile just doesn't exist to me anymore just over nine seconds that's the sweet spot this thing is so heavy it's it's undeniably impressive now i've been very excited to try this because it's actually a very exciting time to be an eevee especially a tesla hertz just bought a hundred thousand of them and i was just in england and there was a petrol crisis so everyone was lined up down the road getting fuel and all the teslas and kona electrics and id3s and honda electrics and honda ease were all just smirking as they drove by and also gas prices are a fortune in north america however a tesla model s plan is not really a cost-saving exercise because it costs almost 200 thousand dollars i suspect a discount from something like a thai car turbo s but the impact of this car is undeniable listen i remember three things vividly in my life the day i had my first kiss the day i realized that pay-per-view doesn't actually include paper and the day i drove a tesla model 3. in that moment it made everything feel like a dinosaur because it is just so easy to get on with and it makes so much sense the throttle input from to the braking to the size it just answers so many questions and now tesla have gone up the ante because just as we were starting to get familiar with the model threes and wires of the world they've added this plan and we've already raced the tesla model s performance which which was absurd they've reinvented the wheel a bit here and i i i would probably rather have that leather print cover to be honest but how's it like to daily smooth this has fsd it has summon you can literally drive the car from your phone we've been moving it around the track all day so to make it easier for us it has every every little bell and whistle you can imagine i'm comfortable the driving position is good the gauge cluster this huge screen they've modernized it and it has power that really nothing can compete with and we were recently in the lexus lfa and i said that the only thing this had on the lexus was blinding speed and it is absurd and driving this around the track which is not where this car belongs by the way it is fantastic on the road but driving on the track i stand by what i said because there's a lot to be desired at the limit but i forgive it for that because it's a road car thomas is a little bit more how do i say scrutinizing scrutinizing what that's not me in fact right off the bat a complaint that everybody has that i don't think is an issue is the steering wheel yeah it's a yoke yeah it's a gimmick but you know what if you have correct steering wheel technique it's not an issue at all your hands are supposed to stay at nine and three even when i'm crossing over in a parking lot i don't find an issue on the road usability i got no issues with this car on the track though it's uh what's the word dangerous not dangerous in a cool way dangerous in the way that it's dangerously under-breaked really really like with worse brakes than a hellcat red eye with more power really really really not like the braking zone for the straight away here is about 15 to 20 car lengths earlier than any other car i've driven and now i'm braking and it's not stopping coming come on find some grip man there's the abs stay out of the abs come on and into the first corner next issue that i have with it when you really start to drive it is that as soon as you start to get any slip out of it the power steering can't keep up and it it gets so heavy right there oh tesla's have this issue with weight too many cheeseburgers oh turn turn turn turn turn to its credit it's not understeering very much in fact it kind of actually stays fairly neutral as you go through a corner but there's just so much mass and all that oh okay this doesn't have the full track mode yet that like the model 3 performance has so i can't turn the traction control off so i'm just kind of stuck waiting for it to bite in which it does too early sometimes and too late other times okay oh there's no power steering oh come on oh my god it's something breaking breaking breaking breaking break you break it break break break break slow down i know you think i'm being dramatic but i'm just not i'm just not it's a thousand horsepower in the brakes of a camry so conclusions this car if you buy it and start to really rip it on on and off ramps or even think about taking it to the track it completely falls down in the way that a big heavy german sedan would not the germans would make sure that the car can do all of these things as a cruiser and as a thing to show off to your friends just how quick it is in a straight line it does that in spades and the novelty of this right here here's the thing about electric cars that i've discovered i've driven a lot of them now they start off exciting when you first get in them wow the torque then they get boring okay they get boring because it's the same thing over and over again just g forces but then there's a moment and it just so happens to be at a thousand horsepower when it gets really really exciting again oh man this is a very very flawed but very fun car please don't take it to a track okay the lap time i do need to mention that the battery for this lap was just over 60 percent such as the reality of driving a tesla to a racetrack and then doing a few runs also as mentioned this one doesn't have track mode yet so i really had to focus on driving around the stability control and i was only able to do one hot lap because the brakes were dangerously overheated at the end of this lap as for the car itself i really can't stress enough that this car doesn't belong anywhere near a track or near 10 10 driving i mentioned the brakes already and i wasn't joking when i said that the power steering couldn't keep up any fast steering corrections were fully unassisted which made driving at the limit very difficult and as is the case with most teslas i've driven on the track the plaid doesn't have suspension stiff or sophisticated enough to deal with its mass thankfully though as soon as you get this thing in a straight line the science fiction level thrust makes up a lot of time let's watch the rest of the lap okay um i have the lap times okay we there's a lot of caveats i'm going to list them ready go on okay wasn't full battery correct yep okay so that's number one that's a significant issue uh number two um that's pretty much it traction control oh there this is the track mode yeah yeah yeah yeah that's fair there's no track mode yet for it okay so it did a 112.5 so okay so that puts it where does that put it mustang gt toyota supra toyota supra area for an almost 5 000 pound car that isn't doesn't have track mode that's pretty good sure i'll give i'll see your that's pretty good but i will also say you know an m5 yeah would you know has still crushing straight-line performance and can do corners right i'm just putting it out there and it has brakes that work yeah this breaks the biggest issue slightly under brakes slightly severely really severely yeah um otherwise i i really think that time's pretty good it's fine i'm gonna guess that in perfect conditions and everything's said and done yeah there's maybe a 110 in it the problem is for me like i'm usually pretty good at judging breaking zones yeah i use my vision some people use markers on the track i use vision i judge how much how fast i'm going and what i know the car can do this one it the the braking zone was like the end of the braking was so far away from where i had to start braking i felt it on the straight yeah yeah just like do i think i should start breaking now and you're like oh no that wasn't early enough all right okay how does it look well it looks very much like a model s they haven't changed it that much but they've stuck to it like and i kind of i kind of appreciate that it's like the porsche model they they still look like a 911. the new range rover yeah oh that just looks like a range rover but modernized so they're modernized they've done it well but there's nothing else there's nothing aggressively plaid going on visually no it says the plaid on the back which is really cool no you know what i i like the way this car looks i've always liked the way this car looks i think it looks great in black like super sleek it's really neat and the black with the white interior is awesome look at the inside yeah okay no soft clothes by the way yeah come on come on elon you get to a certain price yeah you expect it okay so this is like basically just a cleaner version of the also the screen the obvious difference is the screen is going this way now and it's massive it is massive yes but the advantage of model s over a model three is that you get a gauge cluster and a really good one a really cool one yeah and now you can see it unhindered thinks that there's no more steering wheel okay listen uh yes there it is elon think of what your stock cars actually do just wait two trillion listen okay so elon is i'm gonna end my words there but i'm gonna say that i don't mind this and i can't believe i'm saying that because honestly this is how i hold my hands in every car at nine and three just like this and when i'm like how do i hear i put this into drive here tap tap the card okay and then press the break to drive there it is okay when i when i cross over i do this it feels totally normal it feels completely normal to me i haven't had a single issue with it right i spent too much time on my simulator practicing for autocross to like be able to do hand over hand properly this just feels so normal to me i've had an issue with it there's no we can't drift this thing yet so like when we get one that has the the track mode i can try and drift this might be an issue but otherwise i think it's cool well we we've sat in testers before and said that the steering wheel just simply isn't exciting enough and they listened yeah yeah you know we need less of it that will make it more exciting we can't complain if it doesn't exist and speaking doesn't exist we've lost the stalk that allows you to choose your your gears yeah yeah so it's over here now or automatic i believe right yeah i haven't personally tested the automatic but it's kind of neat but i honestly don't mind this you slide up and down it's quick it's right there it's right by your hand we have gone capacitive touch for a few things like the even the door handles and the buttons on the steering wheel something you were very upset about in the ferrari roma yeah but tesla does them better than ferrari and they're quick yes they're quick and they there's like a i don't know there's there's a little bit of haptic feedback to it yeah right so it doesn't it honestly doesn't bother me you click it again okay the whole infotainment's quick yeah you get netflix and your radio your satellite radio and youtube there's an arcade right you know it's it's tons of fun here's the thing a lot of people give tesla a hard time yeah right like a lot of people like you know and then the the the tesla fans come out and enforce but my issues with tesla are not i think what most people's issues are people say like oh this is gimmicky and this is gimmicky and i don't like the lack of a gear selector blah blah blah i don't care about any of that the only issue i have with it is the is the the delta between how fast it is in a straight line and how well it can break and go around corners it's an easy muscle car an even muscle car from 1970 when it was ridiculously fast and had drum brakes that's what it feels like i picture this as an s-class that can go really really really fast in a straight line yeah and then they forgot to put the brake pads in it yes um yeah i don't mean to beat a dead horse but anyway i like the big this is really neat i've always liked that there's such a sense of occasion in here now that there wasn't in the previous gen and and kudos to tesla for having the balls to actually do white this is white white it's not off-white well they've had that for a while then yeah in the model x we have thank you it does look old eventually but some carbon fiber accents going on yeah the build quality in here is is totally it's totally acceptable we haven't actually noticed many gaps on this car no no there's there's uh there's there's a little bit of a panel gap in the rear like it doesn't line up perfectly but it's like so minimal i don't care okay so let's just let's just jump a bit more meta for a second because okay we're so used to seeing a model s pad can dust that yeah and that might be true in a straight line it is true it is only true we've also tested it in maybe some upcoming videos yep but allegedly from a performance perspective from a thrill perspective even the plaid can't match well it it's it's it gives you the same thrill that skydiving does in that you jump out of a plane it's terrifying that's how you feel when you're at 270 kilometers an hour and you don't know where the end of the track is it's pretty scary it's that moment of like okay i'm going really quick um yeah it's it is a really unique vehicle i think i think it needs some work in certain departments and i don't think it's ready for the aggressive but no i don't think it's ready for on-ramps and off-ramps personally but that's my opinion um i think just just respect the weight please respect if you have one of these seriously respect how quickly it can get to speed and take it take your time going around the corners and judge your breaking zones don't hit a kitten basically is what we're saying um conclusion time i yeah i think this is all that needs to be said so the award for least assuming fastest straight line executive sedan goes handily to the model s plaid nothing and we mean nothing in its class or even a class above comes even close to the raw speed this car brings but make no mistake this car's performance and speed demand respect from competition and driver alike as for our gripes we have heard that there may be some performance upgrades coming which could go a lot of the way to controlling its mass when driven at the limit but as the silent comfortable hyper car level speed machine that it was born to be the model s plaid for now reigns supreme and you can win one of your own thanks to omaze for your chance to win the car and twenty thousand dollars go to omaze.com throttle house to enter not only do your entries give you a chance to win but they also go toward helping a great cause in this case it's reverb an organization committed to empowering action on important environmental and social issues like reducing greenhouse gas pollution and disposing of over 3 million single-use water bottles so go there donate good luck james did we ever find out what a teraflop is actually i did it's a measure used to calculate processing power thomas in this case it's 10 to the 12th power floating point operations per second or 2 to the 40th in other words the tesla has 10 trillion flops so you still don't know what it means then not a clue [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Throttle House

Views: 1,983,145

Keywords: Tesla model s plaid, model s, tesla plaid, model s plaid acceleration, tesla 0-60, model s plaid 0-60, plaid 0-60, plaid launch, tesla model s plaid launch, 2021 plaid launch, 2021 tesla, 2021 tesla model s, model 3 performance, 2022 model s plaid, tesla plaid drag race, tesla plaid review, tesla plaid drift, tesla plaid highway pull, tesla plaid reaction, 2022 model s, 2021 model s, tesla roadster, tesla sound, tesla crash, tesla drag race, tesla vs rimac

Id: Hn9QWjxFPKM

Length: 21min 10sec (1270 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 31 2021

Reddit Comments

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[u/HighHokie]

Credit to throttle house for giving a review of plaid that’s well after its release date, but still finds an important point to make that to my knowledge, hasn’t really been brought up before.

[u/WiseShepherd]

Why does the power steering cut out?

[u/cookingboy]

I really think ThrottleHouse is one of the funniest and best YT car channels out there. The chemistry between the duo is great.

Edit: this clip of when they were making fun of how hard it is to get into a BMW i8 always crack me up:

https://reddit.com/r/Unexpected/comments/qilrja/how_to_get_into_the_bmw_i8/

[u/krully37]

Damn that braking part is concerning. Can Plaid owners chime in on their feelings about it?

Could a brake upgrade fix it or is it flawed by design? I know it’s heavy but it seems like it could do better despite the weight?

[u/LGCGE]

Throttlehouse >>>

[u/Pokerhobo]

Tesla really should have a ceramic brake option for the Plaid

[u/Xaxxon]

I'm confused how they had so much trouble on their with it on their 1-minute track yet it did really well at nurburgring.

Any thoughts?

[u/[deleted]]

Could someone in the know explain what would better brakes achieve if they said that the ABS kicked in? Wouldn't that mean that the brakes can in fact block the wheels, but there is a combination of weight with to little tire contact surface/not performant enough tire compund? Maybe wide and sticky tyres would be of more impact...?