Watch A Tesla Plaid Race A Dragster

Apr 26, 2023 2 min read
Watch A Tesla Plaid Race A Dragster

Which one do you think wins?


For the last few years the mainstream media has had some fun showing videos of Teslas smoking all kinds of performance internal combustion cars in drag races. The message is clear: your dinosaur juice-fueled vehicles are lame, EVs are superior, give up and buy the Tesla. However, those in the know are well aware EVs aren’t the hottest cars on drag strips, even if they can be surprisingly quick.

Learn why Avis is getting sued here.

That’s where this showdown between a Tesla Model S Plaid and a dragster becomes an interesting matchup. After all, one was purpose-built for blasting through the quarter mile as quickly as possible and the other is a giant iPhone, we mean the future of the auto industry.

The EV crowd loves to go on and on about how the full torque delivery from a standstill makes their beloved cars so much better. Sure, it can make them quick off the line, and that’s fun to explain to a cop when you’re driving through the city, but they often are found lacking in the top end. But dragsters are typically excellent at launching and have plenty of power at the top end, so this Tesla might have met its match.

As an added bonus, the Tesla Plaid goes on to race a new Shelby GT500, plus a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk and a Chevy Camaro. Each one of those cars takes a different approach to speed and rocketing down the drag strip, so to see how they handle a 9-second EV is definitely interesting.

Ultimately, what we learn is EVs can be quite formidable against non-modified cars on a drag strip, but they certainly aren’t invincible. But we don’t expect most of their rabid fans to understand or ever acknowledge this because they’re too busy preaching down to gearheads instead of learning more about the hobby.

Images via YouTube

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