For years, Tesla CEO Elon Musk lamented the fact that Tesla had no real competition in the EV space. Sure, there is no shortage of EVs on the market today, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a vehicle that comes anywhere close to matching the style and performance offered by Tesla’s luxury Model S.
The launch of the Porsche Taycan changed all that. Years in the making, and fueled by the success Tesla saw with the Model S, the Porsche Taycan is an incredibly sleek EV with incredible performance. As Porsche executives boasted over the past few months, the Taycan isn’t so much an electric vehicle as it is a Porsche that just so happens to be an EV.
With a real competitor now entering the fray, Tesla’s Model S at long last has some legit competition. Over the past few days, we’ve seen a number of videos pitting the Taycan against the Model S in a variety of race conditions. The most widely circulated video in this regard comes from Top Gear and features a $200,000+ Taycan Turbo S going up against a $100,000 Model S Performance in a quarter-mile drag race. When the dust settled, the Turbo S had a time of 10.69 seconds compared to the Model S’ time of 11.08 seconds.
Truth be told, these tests are beyond irrelevant and have no real bearing on the driving experience, especially given that the times aren’t all that far apart. Having said that, there have been subsequent reports claiming that the numbers Top Gear used were old, and thus rendering the test results suspect.
All that aside, there’s no question that the Taycan has definitely had an impact on Elon Musk, with the Tesla CEO recently commenting on Twitter that the company is planning to roll out a new software update that will provide the Model S with additional 50 horsepower.
“There’s a software upgrade for Model S coming out that increases peak power by 50HP,” Musk said, “so Model S should beat Porsche Taycan Turbo S by a wider margin in 0 to 60 & 1/4 mile races.”
Again, this is largely irrelevant to most everyone, but apparently, for Musk, it’s a serious source of pride.
