It’s hard to tell what’s different on the car in Tesla’s teaser, but it’s apparently still capable of hitting 200 mph.
Tesla has announced the Model S Plaid is about to get even more… Just, more. That’s because it’s getting a Track Pack upgrade that’ll turn the wick up even further on one of the quickest EVs in the world.
Tesla teased the option in a brief 10-second video on Twitter, showing the car testing at Formula 1‘s French Grand Prix venue, Circuit Paul Ricard. It doesn’t show the car in any detail—it just teases it from a distant aerial shot along the back straight and a blurry flyby before cutting to a shot of the gauge cluster. It surges to read 322 before the screen blacks out.
Though the teaser deliberately obscures many details, we can still glean a few things from it. For one, the fact that the test car uses Tesla’s round steering wheel instead of the newly optional yoke, which previous Tesla race cars have tossed out. While the speedometer’s units aren’t legible, they almost certainly read in metric units, which converted to mph top out at 200—within the known capabilities of the Plaid. Whatever changes have been made, they don’t seriously compromise the car’s top speed.
They probably don’t include a large rear wing according to offboard shots, though a lowered front end and large splitter appear likely, while a subtler rear spoiler may still add stability. As a package, the Plaid Track Pack could end up mirroring the changes made to the car used for Tesla’s Nürburgring record attempt. That car got upgraded aero, carbon brakes, and performance tires, while extra cooling wouldn’t hurt on the 1,020-horsepower EV.
The Model S has already offered a track mode for over a year, though new hardware will go much further toward making the nearly 5,000-pound sedan better suited for track use. As always with Tesla announcements though, this one makes you wonder if there’s something unsavory going on that the Shiny New Thing is meant to distract you from. Or more immediately, what “coming soon” means to Tesla. After all, we all know how flexible Elon Musk’s definition of “next year” is by now.
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