{"id":29411,"date":"2022-08-17T06:03:53","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T10:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=29411"},"modified":"2022-08-17T06:03:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T10:03:53","slug":"tesla-model-s-plaid-road-test-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=29411","title":{"rendered":"Tesla Model S Plaid Road Test Review: The new American muscle sedan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Short of being a fighter jet pilot, an astronaut or a race car driver, it\u2019s unlikely that you\u2019ve experienced acceleration at the same level as the Tesla Model S Plaid<\/a>. It\u2019s dumbfounding. Mind-altering. Verging on uncomfortable. The speed at which nature passes you by through the windshield and the side windows is akin to pushing high triple digits in an old \u201cNeed for Speed\u201d video game, watching the world bend and stretch around you in that game-ish way. It\u2019s difficult to comprehend without being in the car and feeling it. We knew it was going to be ridiculous, but it still managed to catch us \u2014 journalists who drive quick cars all the damn time \u2014 completely off guard. There\u2019s no denying it. The Model S<\/a> Plaid is a special car, and its rapidity is guaranteed to shock you.<\/p>\n

That acceleration is but one part of this big sedan\u2019s stat sheet. The Model S Plaid<\/a> has been on sale for a little more than a year, though we haven\u2019t been able to get our hands on it until now. Since Tesla<\/a> doesn\u2019t provide test cars for review<\/a>, we got this one through Turo (more on that experience soon). It\u2019s the one and only Plaid available for rent in Michigan, so we snagged it for one day, which allowed us a maximum of 100 miles of driving. Despite the low mileage limit, we spent the entire day tinkering about, getting familiar with and learning everything we could about what it\u2019s like to drive and operate a Model S Plaid. Just like getting a new phone, though, diving into the interior of a Tesla requires an acclimation period.<\/p>\n

The new and weird hits right away with the yoke of a steering device. Our quick take? The yoke ain\u2019t it. There\u2019s only one thing it does better than a steering wheel, and that is to provide a superior, wide and flat resting place for your hands on long highway journeys. Beyond that, the yoke is inferior to a traditional steering wheel in every practical way.<\/p>\n

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If a turn is 90 degrees or sharper, making said corner is just plain awkward. Want to execute a quick turnaround maneuver? Instead of a convenient rim to grab and keep turning, you\u2019ll find open air. And don\u2019t even start to think that you\u2019ll \u201cadapt to it,\u201d or \u201cget used to it.\u201d Given more time to really get the hang of operating the yoke, it would still be annoying and undeniably worse than a wheel when you need to go lock-to-lock. Even when you\u2019re arcing the Model S through wide sweepers at speed and testing the handling, it is disconcerting. It\u2019s never possible to adjust your grip upward or move your hand around the steering wheel from corner to corner, as one might want to do on a meandering road with slow and fast corners of differing radii. If you do shift position, that one hand loses contact entirely. We found ourselves gripping the yoke tighter and with a greater sense of self-preservation \u2014 a nagging fear that it\u2019d whisk out of our grip never went away \u2014 than we ever have with a steering wheel.<\/p>\n

Also worth noting: The yoke\u2019s covering was largely worn off on our 19,000-mile Model S tester. And sure, perhaps that\u2019s due to heavy hand sanitizer\/Clorox use throughout this rental\u2019s life in a pandemic, but it was a sad sight to see after just a year of use. We\u2019ve rented other cars in the past year-plus with similar mileage that didn\u2019t look anywhere close to this bad.<\/p>\n

As for the digitized Ferrari-like turn indicators on the steering wheel, those worked better than expected. The Model S is smart enough to realize when you\u2019ve put the indicator on in a merging situation versus signaling for a turn at a traffic signal. Without fail, the car would automatically turn off the signal right after completing a lane change, so a duplicate press was never necessary. Operating the windshield wipers in a similar manner \u2014 no stalk \u2014 wasn\u2019t problematic either, mostly because you can just set the wipers to auto, and they\u2019ll smartly do their thing. The touchscreen shifter worked well enough, but the \u201cauto shifting\u201d feature where the car is just meant to magically know which direction you want to head did not. We resorted to manually swapping between drive and reverse most of the time. And don\u2019t worry, we tried out the silly sound effect \u201cBoom Box\u201d horn, too. Senior Editor James Riswick is right<\/a>. It\u2019s a public nuisance.<\/p>\n

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There really isn\u2019t much to speak of throughout the Model S Plaid\u2019s interior outside of the massive screens in front of our faces. Yes, screens. Plural. While the cheaper Model 3<\/a> and Y<\/a> get one screen to rule them all, the Model S retains its digital instrument cluster. A head-up display (HUD) would be a welcome addition, but apparently you can only ask for so much with an approximately $150,000 luxury sedan<\/a>. In all fairness, companies like Porsche and BMW will force you to pay extra for luxuries like a HUD, but at least they offer it.<\/p>\n

The yoke affords an uninterrupted view of the minimalist cluster screen, but due to its width, it actually blocks your view of the bottom right corner of the infotainment system. We\u2019ll call it a zero-sum game for yoke visibility gains and losses, as the blockage of the screen makes it such that you need to peer around the yoke to see the climate control button and the main vehicle settings menu quick toggle. Directly below the main infotainment system are a pair of wireless phone chargers that charged our phones quickly and never overheated them \u2014 take note, BMW. Really, offering two wireless phone chargers in luxury cars<\/a> should be a more common feature. Your passenger might not have a cord with them 24\/7.<\/p>\n

Since this Model S is the Plaid, it gets the sporty carbon fiber<\/a> trim all over the dash, doors and center console. It\u2019s subtle, as far as carbon fiber trim goes in luxury performance cars, favoring a matte finish as opposed to the glossy carbon you\u2019ll find all over European luxury cars. The white seats that contrast with the black trim in this Plaid were less white and more stained at this point. Again, that\u2019s after 19,000 miles and about a year of use as a rental car<\/a>. Unlike that yoke, this may be more typical for cars with white leather interiors. Either way, anybody who is thinking of ticking the box for the white interior should consider this propensity for staining before doing so.<\/p>\n

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And if you were curious about other build issues, yes, the Plaid lived up (well, down) to Tesla\u2019s reputation with mismatched panel gaps (it was particularly poor where the hatch and fender meet) and misaligned trim. The glossy black window trim was embarrassingly lopsided, and that\u2019s something you\u2019ll see every time you get in and out.<\/p>\n

Your seating position is up high for a performance-oriented sport sedan, but it\u2019s at least consistent with other EVs. The battery<\/a> pack under the floor tends to push everything upward in EVs, which in turn makes visibility over the low hood excellent. We can say the same for the view out the sides, but looking through the narrow rear window is distorted. Finding a comfortable seating position requires using the touchscreen \u2013 there were regular seat-mounted controls in the original Model S interior. We can’t say this is progress.<\/p>\n

How the Plaid drives and responds to the road is largely dependent on how you set it up via the drive mode selections. Accelerating in \u201cChill\u201d mode makes this tri-motor EV feel more like a Nissan Leaf<\/a> from a standing start. Pop it into \u201cPlaid\u201d mode, and forget about hanging onto your butts, because you\u2019ve already left them at the last stoplight by the time you realized they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n

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The ludicrous (see what we did there?) part about taking off in the Plaid is that going full throttle in \u201cPlaid\u201d mode results in acceleration that is already going to change your perspective about what it means to be quick<\/em>. Somehow, using the Drag Strip Mode (it requires an approximately 10-minute preconditioning program to run for the battery and carbon-sleeved motors) makes those previous \u201cPlaid\u201d mode pulls feel normal. Its \u201cCheetah stance\u201d ritual where the air suspension puts you into a lowered launch position sure does amp up the drama beforehand. The warp speed animation in the cluster that pops up on takeoff might look childish or silly (Genesis does a similar thing with the GV60\u2019s<\/a> Boost function), but one acceleration run will have you thinking it\u2019s apt. The big Tesla\u2019s weight doesn\u2019t show at all when under acceleration, but it makes an abrupt appearance when cornering and braking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The brakes offer an assuring stiffness from the pedal, but this big sedan doesn\u2019t slow down with as much enthusiasm as its straight-line performance might suggest. Handling is par for the course when it comes to big grand tourers, but with the usual electric twist. Its low center of gravity imbues confidence to send it into a corner with speed, and the Michelin Pilot<\/a> Sport 4S tires make sure you don\u2019t run out of grip. That said, the Model S Plaid feels a bit unsure of itself and a little twitchy when you start pushing harder. On one long highway cloverleaf, we actually heard and felt the front tire under load briefly rub against the wheel liner. That isn\u2019t supposed to happen! We\u2019re left with the fairly obvious conclusion that the Plaid is no sports car<\/a> with sports-car handling. We also weren\u2019t expecting it to be. The yoke also does more to hurt matters here, as it seems to require a lot of minute steering inputs, and the width of the yoke itself is just plain awkward to contend with when you\u2019re pushing this stupid-quick EV down a twisty road.<\/p>\n