American manufacturer Tesla has unveiled its fastest electric car, the Model S Plaid. The presentation was personally led by the head of the company Elon Musk.
The Plaid version has been in development for at least two years, with prototypes spotted during testing as early as 2019. The new modification was announced as part of the January presentation of the updated Model S and Model X, but only now Musk spoke in detail about it.
The Model S Plaid uses three electric motors with up to 1020 hp. power. To increase the return, it was necessary to develop a technology for coating the copper winding of the rotor with carbon fiber. Traction batteries have also been improved, but technical details have not yet been disclosed.
Once again, the shape of individual body elements has been optimized, which helped to reduce the drag coefficient to 0.208. This is the lowest figure among production cars. For a standard Tesla Model S, it is 0.24.
To increase the efficiency of heat removal from electric motors and batteries, a modified heat pump was used. It can be used to heat the interior and traction battery in cold weather. Thanks to the improvements, it was possible to increase the range in winter by 30%, as well as to halve the cost of electricity for interior heating.
The Model S Plaid is capable of accelerating from 0 to 97 km/h (60 mph) in just 1.99 seconds. The sedan spends 9.23 seconds to cover a quarter mile. The maximum speed is 322 km/h. Claimed power reserve of 624 km.
Engineers have improved fast charging. The Model S is now capable of getting 300 km of energy in 15 minutes.
In the US, the Model S Plaid starts at $129,990. According to Elon Musk, 25 of the first copies of the super-fast Tesla have already been shipped to customers. In the next quarter, Tesla will be able to produce 1,000 Model S Plaid cars a week. In the meantime, production volumes are limited to a few hundred pieces per week.
Tesla introduced its fastest electric car: less than two seconds to "hundreds"
