KURT NIEBUHR: Get up, get up, get up, get up!
CARLOS LAGO: Do what you got to do to win.
[LAUGHTER]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: Three, two, one, go!
CARLOS LAGO: Hey, Carlos Lago and Edmunds, here. And I'm in a Tesla. that we'll talk about in a second. But first, let's say hi to Kurt, over there in the Tesla Model Y. Hi, Kurt.
KURT NIEBUHR: Hey, Carlos. I am in our long term Tesla Model Y Performance. We bought this is part of our long term fleet. There's a link, down below, you can click on that, and learn more about the fleet. This is very quick. This, in our kind of, makeshift bracket racing series that we've gotten, has taken care of the Shelby GT500. It's taking care of the Jeep Cherokee Trackhawk. It's taken care of the Porsche Taycan. It's taken care of a BMW X3M. Yeah, it's embarrassed a lot of pretty fast vehicles.
CARLOS LAGO: I think it basically tied our Corvette in the quarter mile. That is a very, very quick car.
KURT NIEBUHR: Yeah, you wouldn't know it, to look at it, because it just kind of looks like a compact, electric SUV, but this thing has a kill count.
CARLOS LAGO: The problem is, this is an even quicker a car. This is the Tesla Model S Plaid. It has over 1,000 horsepower. It's got a quarter mile in the low-to-mid nine second range. And we brought these two together to show you the difference between a quick car and a really quick car. That's what we want to see in this drag race.
KURT NIEBUHR: So basically, I've been brought here to lose.
CARLOS LAGO: Yeah, Yeah.
KURT NIEBUHR: I don't like losing.
CARLOS LAGO: If you enjoy watching Kurt lose, go ahead and tell us about it in the comments below. If you don't want to see Kurt lose, tell us in the comments below, as well. Like and subscribe if you enjoy videos like this one. And visit edmunds.com/sellmycar to get an instant cash offer on a car you want to sell, because it's slower than this Tesla Model S Plaid.
KURT NIEBUHR: Let's race.
CARLOS LAGO: The launch control process in the Model S Plaid is kind of a long process. If you already are familiar with it, go ahead and skip through this bit. You can on the timeline below. But for those who aren't familiar with how the launch control works, in this car, first, you have to engage drag strip mode, on the dash, here. That's going to precondition the battery to make it get into its most highest performance level. And that can take minutes, if not 10 minutes. It depends on the state of the car, and all that stuff. Once you're in launch control mode, then you mash-- your in drive, obviously-- you mash both the brake and the gas pedal. A little light appears in the gauge cluster, and starts growing bigger and bigger, while the car gets into cheetah stance. It lowers itself. It tells you when launch control is ready. At that point, you release the brake pedal, and you just zip off into the distance. The Plaid shows up on the gauge cluster, here. It's really nifty. It is a long process, though. Such that you probably wouldn't be able to exert the maximum acceleration, on a drag strip, with timing lights, because you've got to be able to move quicker than that. That's neither here, nor there. Let's dust that Model Y off this track.
KURT NIEBUHR: I'm going to lose. And I know I'm going to lose, because this car is slower than that one is, by, like, two seconds, two and a half seconds. I don't want to cheat.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: OK, drivers. Race in three-
KURT NIEBUHR: I'm going to cheat.
SPEAKER 1: --two, one, go!
KURT NIEBUHR: Oh! That's--
[LAUGHTER]
KURT NIEBUHR: Wow, that's fast. That's a lot faster. That's a lot faster.
CARLOS LAGO: So Kurt, I know what it feels like launching that thing. What does it look like from your view?
KURT NIEBUHR: It looks great for a second, maybe half a second, and then I just watched that thing just power by. It probably looks like it looked to fighter pilots, in World War two, in a propeller driven aircraft, when a jet went past them.
CARLOS LAGO: You know, and you're right. The two actually launched pretty similarly. I guess there's a limit on how much power you can deliver to four tires, regardless of their width and size. Yeah, once you're underway, the power difference really becomes obvious.
KURT NIEBUHR: I don't even know how much faster you were going, but it was considerably faster.
CARLOS LAGO: Yeah, it's like you stopped accelerating, it kind of looked like.
KURT NIEBUHR: But I was trying really hard.
CARLOS LAGO: We know there's, like, a two second difference between the quarter mile of these two. I think I'm going to give you a two second advantage on the next launch, to see if we can get close to crossing the finish line at the same time.
KURT NIEBUHR: You are nothing, if not benevolent.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
KURT NIEBUHR: A two second head start. That's embarrassing. I mean, they're both made by the same company, but that's how much faster the Model S Plaid is. And this car is fast enough.
CARLOS LAGO: Yes, so Kurt, if you leave on the two.
KURT NIEBUHR: Leaving on the two? I might be able to beat him. I don't know. Let me switch off the AC. Anything I can get.
SPEAKER 1: All right, drivers race in three, two, one.
KURT NIEBUHR: There we go. Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Run! Oh, look. He's in my mirror. Oh, dude, that thing's fast.
[LAUGHTER]
KURT NIEBUHR: Aw, that's fast. I like the unfast stuff, if you couldn't tell. You know, it took a little bit longer to pass me than I thought it would. And I actually had my hopes go up, just a little bit.
CARLOS LAGO: I think we should have given you another second, there. I passed to you like you were standing still.
KURT NIEBUHR: I turned off the AC, for that run.
CARLOS LAGO: I did not. And I'll say, we have quite a bit of shutdown room, here. But man, I'm entering turn one, here at Willow Springs, at a very high rate of speed.
KURT NIEBUHR: I'm going fast enough, but this car's pretty close to its limits.
CARLOS LAGO: You did a launch control run at the test track. What was your impression of this?
KURT NIEBUHR: It's disorientingly fast, because there's not the sound that you associate with that sort of acceleration. So your spacial awareness is off.
CARLOS LAGO: Like a roller coaster ride that shoots you out from a stop. And that's what it feels like. The acceleration is there, but none of the other sensations are. Like the typical sound, issues with traction, and all that stuff. It's just wild. If that difference looked big, it's because it was. The plaid is the quickest vehicle in Edmund's testing history. At our test track, it did zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds. The Model Y, remember, a very respectable performer, was one and a half seconds slower. And if you're wondering why the Plaid wasn't as quick as Tesla's claims, it's because we don't factor in a one foot rollout, and we test on a street surface. Because we like to reproduce what happens in the real world. Anyway, the plaids acceleration is so strong that, by the time it passes the quarter mile in 9.4 seconds, it's going 150 miles an hour. That's 35 miles an hour faster than the Model Y. And again, remember, the Model Y does the quarter in the Hi 11's. This is a whole new world of speed. OK so, last thing, we got to do a role race, now. We know what the result is going to be. But just to eliminate the launch, and see how big that horsepower difference is, that's going to be wild.
KURT NIEBUHR: Yeah, and I'm OK with seeing that thing go by.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CARLOS LAGO: Kurt, I believe in you.
KURT NIEBUHR: I believe in me.
CARLOS LAGO: 30, 40 miles an hour?
KURT NIEBUHR: Let's go with 40. Why not? [CHUCKLES] Again, I'm going to try and cheat, because it's about the only thing I have in my favor. I can just-- I can just try to cheat! Get up, get up, get up, get up! Go, go, go!
CARLOS LAGO: Cheater.
KURT NIEBUHR: Come on!
CARLOS LAGO: Do what you got to do to win.
KURT NIEBUHR: I'm going to-- what the hell!
[LAUGHTER]
KURT NIEBUHR: Oh, that's great! Oh.
CARLOS LAGO: I love the effort there, Kurt. The effort was great.
KURT NIEBUHR: If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. You know what the best part of cheating is? Winning. Except when you don't. Let that be a lesson for all you cheaters out there, you cheat, you're going to lose, especially against a Plaid. [CHUCKLES]
CARLOS LAGO: That's just wild. How quickly this thing reeled you in, right before the finish.
KURT NIEBUHR: Yeah. It seemed like you were, kind of, just hanging on. I think that's because, this car is genuinely quick, but that car is genuinely fast. And so the top end, like it would be with an internal combustion engine, the top end is where all the power is. The faster that goes, the faster it goes.
CARLOS LAGO: [CHUCKLES] That's going to end this drag race. Thank you, guys, for watching this video, and others like it. Give us a like. Tell us your favorite part, in the comments, below. And click subscribe. Check out edmunds.com/sellmycar to get an instant cash offer on the car you're trying to sell. And we'll see you guys next time.
