Tesla’s Elon Musk Announcement Puts Model S into Hypercar Territory

Tesla’s flagship Model S P85D is already one of the fastest things on four wheels, with its Insane mode selected, it is capable of accelerating from 0-62mph in 3.1 seconds. Apparently, this heart pounding and tunnel vision inducing performance was not adequate for the engineers at Tesla and they have been working hard on making the car even faster.

Announced during an international webinar, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk delivered the news that a new, “Ludicrous” mode will be available, making the nondescript P85D even faster – 0-62mph in 2.8 seconds. To put this into perspective, the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder do 0-62mph in the same time.

Mr Musk exclaimed that it is, “faster than falling”, as that speed of acceleration is more than the force of gravity, at 1.1 G.

However, unlike other Tesla updates, which have occurred as free over the air (OTA) software patches, Ludicrous mode requires new physical hardware. In simple terms, the P85D requires a new fuse to be installed and it’s not quite as cheap as the 13amp one you might have in your computer’s power lead. Ludicrous mode is attainable as an optional extra at £8,300 for new buyers but requires the range upgrade too, making the new king of the hill the P90D. Therefore, this hypercar embarrassing model will set a new owner back a cool £85,700 (after incentives and petrol savings) – a bargain considering its outright performance and unrivalled pace.

During the webinar, Mr Musk also mentioned the introduction of a new base model to go below the 70D. The simply titled Model S 70 will feature rear wheel drive only and costs £45,800 (after incentives and petrol savings). Additionally, owners of any Model S with an 85kWh battery can pay £2,500 to up-rate to 90kWh, providing additional driving range. This has been achieved by using a new silicon cathode, rather than adding more batteries. The simple swap shouldn’t take long either, with the Model S’s ability to simply drop the old one out and simply have a replacement bolted in.

Little was mentioned of the forthcoming Model X and Model 3 aside from first shipments are likely to begin within the next couple of months, while the latter Model 3 will arrive sometime in 2017.