The S is a Sports Utility Sedan. Elon says alot of things...Some happens, some is just wishful thinking. He upended a stodgy car business. Think of it like this. in 8 years, Tesla changed the car industry. That is a huge accomplishment. Tesla is not perfect but it made history and changed the world. I just got the LR version and its the best daily driver I have ever had. I love it. I love the sound of a V8 or V10 but driving this car is so much fun, I can't see myself going back to an ICE car, no more gas, oil changes, tune up, brake pad replacements.... Thats huge.
FYI you will still need to replace your brake pads. Regenerative braking does not mean that your brake pads "regenerate" lol. It just means that the electric motor can work backwards as a sort of generator that is powered by your kinetic energy (your car being in motion). It regens power back to the batteries. Now, obviously, this will REDUCE wear on your brake pads, but that is not the same as "never having to replace brake pads".
Plaid owner here. Tesla’s own wording now regarding 200mph is “paid upgrades.” So not looking like JUST a software update, as their wording has changed. Also, since one of the latest software updates you won’t by mistake press any buttons as they all require a hard press (soft touch is gone on all buttons now).
i don't think they are going to do the 200mph limiter update without higher rated tires/wheels. you might have to buy new wheels and tires for the update.
@@markplott4820 … I could be wrong but I think the $20k will include the software update and whatever else is needed to go 200mph. If so, the $20k sounds fair. If $20k is just for ceramic brakes, I’ll pass.
Overall balanced, but, as a Tesla owner: 1. Air vent controls are on the touch screen so that you can set them as part of driver profiles. That way you always get your settings when you enter the car. 2. Most Tesla owners have a clear understanding as to what they are getting, or not getting. The fact that the semi, or Roadster 2 is not out yet, doesn't impact the purchase of the cars that are available. I didn't purchase FSD and understand that it is not a fully autonomous vehicle. Finally: No one beats Tesla on price versus performance, range, technology, or public charging.
According to CarScoops’s article dated Sept. 25, 2021 the maintenance cost of that Bugatti is about $500,000 over 4 years. I know that’s number is greater than the cost of 3 Model 3 Plaid cars plus charging for 5 years (at 10,000 miles per year at $0.30/kWh). On top of that I would have lots of fun at the drag strip beating most challengers with the Model 3 Plaid.
Gives you the acceleration feel and a nice car. But a bit of a stretch to compare fun to 3m supercars. The sound and the rawness is a different world. But sure really awesome what you get for 130k.
Hi all, I'm new here. Wasn't kidding when I said we threw this video together during my first week with C/D in Michigan, but I was glad we were able to do it! This Plaid has a ton of things to be excited about, but also some big issues, as I mention in the video. Anyway, I hope you enjoy our work, and I'm looking forward to showing up here more often.
Unplugged Performance brought out Carbon Ceramic Brakes for the Plaid. Tesla is going to also bring out Carbon Ceramic Brakes for the Plaid in Mid 2022.
@@aussie2uGA they work for daily driving, but repeated high-speed stops with a 5000lbs vehicle are going to heat-soak pretty much any steel brake system. The thermal capacity just isn't there
Car &Driver - According to PEPSICO , Tesla is Delivering some SEMI Trucks to Frito-Lay in Q4 2021 n MODESTO, CA and is building a MEGACHARGER to support the SEMI Fast charging.
You just couldn't resist all the digs at the end of your video.....I assume that's Car and Driver policy since C & D makes no money off Tesla ads....which in itself is a huge story....That Tesla is so successful eschewing traditional auto marketing traditions.
Mark, can you post a copy of that time slip OR a video where we can read legibly the scoreboard. Ever video I have seen of that accomplishment has had a blurred scoreboard!
Timelines are not Tesla’s strong suit, but the semi is in production currently and there have also been features and range added unexpectedly. Imagine shouting “waypoints!” At a Ford or GM exec….they’d laugh it off. A coupe months after that happened at the Plaid reveal, Tesla customers got it via over the air updates. 👍
You can buy a plaid in every color for the price of just 1 Bugatti, and have plenty left over. I can't imagine how insane the Tesla Roadster with SpaceX package will be!
As an owner of the Plaid after driving 1000miles the steering wheel controls works just fine. The Plaid is the deal of the century and I can overlook all those little things. Mountain Pass Performance is going to have bigger rotors and more aggressive brake pad in early January and they will should cost under $3K. Also, a Taycan is more expensive by $55k for a base Turbo S with zero options, it can only seat 4 people, it has less cargo, less range, slower charging, no charging infrastructure, no free AP, slow infotainment, 3 year battery warranty if you don't follow Porsche charging procedure and bunch of other stipulations vs Tesla 8 year battery warranty. etc etc. I can buy two set of carbon ceramic rotors with calipers from Tesla and still have $15k left vs buying a Taycan Turbo S.
@@gabeh7373 My wife like that car and I did as well; she thought it was sexy haha. Very reliable for the way it was abused. With straight pipes it sounded great. I did had some issues with the water pump leaking and the dash and door panels melting and falling apart. The car only had 40k miles and Lexus would not covered under warranty and they were $1k a piece. I end up buying used door cards from a IS350 I believe and staining the stitching blue to match IS-F color lol. Great car.
...they HAD battery swap stations. Nobody wanted to use them. They're dumb anyway because the EV industry is battery limited, so having spare batteries on standby isn't optimal.
charging times keeps getting shorter and shorter while range is getting longer and longer so no need now for battery swaps. 10min charge to 80% coming soon!
Tesla hasn't talked about battery swap in years. It definitely wasn't considered for the Plaid. I'm not sure why that was even brought up in this video. Talking about fast charging and at home charging would have been more pertinent.
To be fair promisses from Tesla usually gets delivered, but it can take quite some time. One example is FSD and this clearly has caught the Tesla engineers by surprise how difficult it has been to achieve this. I don't see this as an example of overpromissing and not delivering features promissed.
There are people who paid extra for FSD on their 3 year lease and never got a single extra feature than if they just went with the cheaper Enhanced AP option (no longer available). It's about the timeline -- you can't wait indefinitely forever, or keep saying "it's coming."
Yeah, to characterize buying into the brand as being caught up in a return on hype is not understanding why people actually buy these. Tesla has indeed delivered over the years - actually more than promised, and certainly more often than promised - but it sometimes really drags out. That said, the full ownership experience is significantly more advanced than any other brand (please see even just the promises made by other makers...), and the pace of truly useful improvements simply won't be matched for a very long time, if ever. They could be made a bit better, but continual manufacturing advancements will fix that.
It is proving a lot harder for every other company to deliver autonomous driving too, Tesla is by far not the only one who failed to deliver by when they originally expected. The big difference is that Tesla was selling the product already, and I get buyers being upset about that. But, you also bought at a significantly lower price than the current one, and that is lower than the price will be when FSD is ready too. And the price above what you would pay for the other driver assistance features was just another $2,000, and Tesla regularly changes the price on their cars by that and more. Yes it would have been great if Tesla achieved FSD years ago, but in standard Tesla fashion they realized how they were doing it was wrong and that they would need better chips and a better supercomputer and a better team leader and they went and got all of that but it took time. At least they are not these other companies doggedly refusing to admit LIDAR was a mistake...
@@michaelwbsin Buying FSD on a lease before it was out was pretty silly, though. However, I would say that a refund for those people is not unreasonable.
@@ArbitraryFilmings Oh, did they under-deliver FSD which is currently in beta and hasn't been delivered en mass yet? You know, it is a hard problem to solve, and Tesla's approach is a system that will be able to drive anywhere whereas other companies are limiting it to specific roads and specific situations. Tesla takes on the hard problems (even ones that others think are impossible). They'll deliver. On time? No, but you can plainly see that it's getting closer and closer every week.
In every video showing Plaid acceleration (and I mean every video, including this one) the Driver's face bursts into the biggest grin imaginable. Never gets old.
@@starflyer8503 says you , here we have open roads to the store and a thing called the interstate that requires quick acceleration to get on unless you want to wait forever
I don’t get it, so Tesla didn’t deliver Model 3 or model y or the car u r driving. It’s easy to criticize a company that might be late to deliver but do vs companies which have no plans to do anything.
They were early with the Model Y... can understand the delay on the 3... The delay on the roadster sucks... and I can understand the delay on the CT. I have a Model X Performance - and love it. Rented a Plaid last weekend... BEAST MODE +!!!!
The 1 million "robotaxis" is their normal cars. That is, their normal tesla with FSD. It's just the FSD program that hasn't been able to achieve robotaxi levels yet. Just this year they make almost 1 million cars.
So? People are still reviewing cars from the 90s and no one seems to care. It’s about what they say, not when they say it. The first to the scene doesn’t make it the best review of the scene.
Glad to see you again Carlos you where the reason I watched Motortrend and after you left I watched for a while with Jason but not anymore. Glad to find you here, also glad you praise Tesla for the good but also point out the flaws and broken promises that the cultist members refuse ever happened.
Bravo, I like the extra level of explanation on how your tests differ from other tests and why the results may vary. However, I find it interesting on your choice for your first review. The press, in general, likes to pick on Tesla's flaws and yet they always come back to Tesla because everyone knows they generate views. C&D screwed themselves with a previous Model S test and it's strange that this approach is much different. Has C&D changed its ways? Is this the start of a new C&D???
It's not the fastest accelerating 4 door it's the fastest accelerating car in the world. Now was that intentional? Or do you guys make that simple of mistakes?
@@PigglyWigglyDeluxe Yes it matters. Had they said “the fastest accelerating EV in the world,” that’d also be technically accurate. But it’s grossly downplaying the accomplishment. Specifically mentioning 4 doors implies that there are 2 door cars that are faster, which isn’t currently the case. It’s just misleading, but I’m sure it was just an innocent mistake, not an attempt to intentionally downplay the performance.
@@PigglyWigglyDeluxe saying its the fastest 4 door would lead someone to believe it's only the fastest 4 door and not the fastest car out right. oversights like that are usually intentional.
@Carlos Lago you did a good job for a rush! Lol This was a relatively balanced review, until you got to the end... Now, I know that you have to include anti Tesla comments to play to the wider audience, but when you accuse Tesla of "broken promises" over delays on aspirational timelines, or you miss that Tesla clearly advertises that the 200 mph capabilities will come later for additional cost, it shows that either you are lacking understanding of the subject, or you are intentionally spinning it to make it look as bad as possible. Elon is very clear that the timelines they give are aspirational, it's the company goal, not a promise. Tesla does have a lot of delays, just as any leading edge technology company does, because they are literally figuring out new ways to do things, and they often run into unexpected issues, but to try to hold them to their clearly stated aspirational goals, and if they have a delay call it a broken promise, is a sign of either lack of understanding of the situation, or bias against them. As an example, you called the Semi a broken promise, while right now a customer in Modesto is building the infrastructure to put a Semi to work. So if you think the broken promise was the original date they gave for production to start, then it's an issue of not understanding aspirational time lines, but if you think that Tesla is breaking the promise of production of the Semi, than you will likely be proven wrong soon. Anyway, when you start repeating the old Tslaq terms and lies, it makes you sound at best uninformed, and at worst showing an anti Tesla bias. Would you say that any of the other car companies who have had major delays on shipping their cars "broke promises", or would you just say that they are late to production due to delays?
Absolutely not true whatsoever. Any million dollar car has what this doesn’t; quality. Go look inside any Koenigsegg or Pagani or Bugatti. Plaid may be faster but I’d rather be inside any of those other three. Wouldn’t even think about it.
@@PigglyWigglyDeluxe that’s good for you. I’d rather have a Plaid and an extra $900,000.00 left over. Oh yeh, and drive away faster! Lol. Good thing we get to have our own opinions and do what works best for ourselves!
@@PigglyWigglyDeluxe You are thinking about the Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport at $3,960,000, the Pagani Zonda R Evolution at $6,500,000 or the Koenigsegg Regara Coupe at $5,649,996? I sure hope there is something special about those because a much more reliable environmentally friendly family sedan, with much better tech, is up to 46 times cheaper. I would prefer the Tesla Model S as it can be used as a daily car and, to the embarrassment of all hyper cars, accelerates faster. The other 45 I would rent out - should be a good business. 20,000 per day in net income?
Carlos! I prefer the MT vibe when you were there, this is a bit too relaxed somehow. Perhaps it's a different crowd, I prefer the MT "tiny bit crazier" feel. 🙂
Good video. I think you should have mentioned your test car with the 21” Arachnid wheels has a 48 mile range penalty compared to a Plaid with 19” wheels. That’s pretty significant. I assume the Model S LR you tested that got 320 miles had the 19” wheels. Also a few other things are unknown: what was the temperature outside when you range tested the LR? What was the temp when you range tested the Plaid? What was the soc when you did the performance testing etc?
Thought you were sounding intelligent until you said Full self driving may or may not ever happen. You must not have done any research into computer science, or machine neural network learning. It’s not a question of IF but when
Many contradiction's compared to those that actually own this car and share their stories. Not one U.S car publication has said anything nice about Tesla. Yet somehow trashing Tesla means its an un bias review.
I'm a Tesla fanboy and I thought this review was fair. Seemed positive but also addressed possible concerns depending on what a consumer would find important.
The whining and blabbing was unwatchable. If this had a Porsche or BMW badge on it he’d have been having a brofest with it. The bias was so blatant for best electric car by far. Not to mention the alien type speed numbers.
Great video on many levels. Excellent videography, and superb editing. I read the C&D online review of the Model S plaid. Your video complemented it perfectly. You have set the bar really high for future work.
Honest review Carlos- ---- and welcome to Michigan winter. Ceramic brakes for the Plaid seems like a necessity. How was the overall build quality on this Plaid?
@Carlos Lago Every car has a caveat if you look long enough. Nothing perfect in this world. The most important part here is, what you get for what you paid. In this case, Tesla is far ahead of competition. Remind me of how in the past Japanese car dominate market by delivering affordable car, with quality and durability that can't be match by European and American car. Have fun with your Tesla.
Tesla should have made that Yoke steering wheel optional instead of mandatory. Brakes are good but not great (for such an expensive high performance car). Otherwise, Tesla has done an amazing job with the Plaid.
Carlos, love to see how you rate the Plaid against what Ford or GM has to offer in this class, oh wait neither has anything or even a drawing of something they may have in say 3-4 years, if ever.
The Tesla OTA is just incredible. That’s one of the things I really missed on my Porsche Taycan Turbo S. The Porsche needed a service appointment for several hours to have the UI updated.
To go from MotorTrend to Edmunds, now Car and Driver, I'm curious as to what prompts the moves in the first place? I'm all about mobility and to seek out what's best for you and your family, but I don't know that world behind the curtains of auto journalism, so I've always wondered about that.
I agree the breaks could use some help. But to say compared to cars that go this fast, we’ll then your talking the cheapest taycan to a Chiron so more to 20 times more. It’s a great value. I daily mine. And smoke any one who wants a run and haven’t had a huge breaking problem. God Forbid i do The breaks IMO could use a ceramic option. But still a great Car for the Money.
For the yoke to work, it needs to have Infiniti-style steer by wire. That way, the vehicle could make the steering wheel never need to be turned fully around, and also be able to dynamically correct hundreds of times every second.
Who cares if it won’t do 200 mph. That would land you in jail in most western countries (except Germany). It’s better than other cars in the 100-150k range. It’s not supposed to be better than a $3M Chiron.
I would personally take a Taycan GTS Sport Turismo over the Plaid. I'm just not a fan of Tesla's interiors or build quality, though they do have rather comfortable seats.
Awesome review! Thank you for being completely unbiased and for providing a really good overview of all that is good and not so good about the Plaid. There are far too many reviews by fanboys and haters alike (including some by reputed publications) and it is most refreshing to see one that tells it like it is. I loved your enthusiasm as well!. Of course, that is exactly what I would expect from Car and Driver!
Carlos, you said that the steering gets light at 150 mph -- but you didn't say what you had the steering set to: Sport, Normal or Comfort. Sport steering is a lot heavier than the other two, and obviously would be recommended for high speed driving. Was that what you were using, or not?
Tesla had to know about the brakes. The Plaid should have upgraded brakes already. An extra 20k to upgrade them is B.S. There is an opportunity for Brembo or some other company to make some cheese 🧀. Say 5k to update the front brakes.
@10:51 Loved this video! Great information. Glad to see you even had a sense of humor with the 'fart noises' (As well as Tesla themselves). Crazy times! Was wishing more would've been said and/or testes about it's autonomous driving feature, although there are plenty of videos about that.
Car & Driver - LIKE IT OR NOT , Tesla is the ONLY EV car company with OVER 2 + Million ROBOT cars on the Road Today , ALL of them Come with AUTOPILOT as Standard and for FREE, and they can UPGRADE to Tesla FSD for $10,000 or Subscribe for $199, its a BARGIN. and TESLA simply has the WORLDS BEST Autopilot FSD in a PRODCTION Vehicle , that is 10x SAFER than a HUMAN Driver.
I feel like Tesla made the yolk smaller in order to lift pressure off of the mechanism that allows for automated driving. Maybe he cut back on the material and went with a different design to cut back cost and the new design didn’t require the extra weight of a circular steering wheel so he cut it and trimmed it and made it more affective.
Cool car, what they need is a Track Package, that addresses brakes, wheels, tires, software that allows early application of power coming out of corners along with appropriate suspension setups for really hustling down the track. Might even require flares for wider rubber. Then it could be “all world”. BTW, where’s this year’s Lighting Lap? I’ve been waiting by my mailbox for months????? Also, did you all run the Plaid at VIR?
Carlos Lago, you have done the best job of critiquing the Tesla Model S Plaid, and provided an honestly critical, if somewhat realistically cynical, appraisal of the company that produces it, issues unfulfilled promises, and yet, delivers the very best combination of performance, safety, lavish entertainment, style, in an environmentally friendly fashion, setting a standard for the industry. The praise is warranted, and substantiated by comparison to the Bugatti. The areas in which it falls short of Car and Driver's standards help to clarify the gap in the Plaid's capability for the sports car enthusiast, who might feel that Porsche's understated and fully developed (most of the time) models are more fulfilling to their sportier pretensions, or fantasies. The Plaid is not yet ready, as delivered, for Laguna Seca. Don't race the Porsche GT3's on a course where agility and turns predominate over straights where the Plaid torque best shows, and don't count on durability (brakes, and cooling). However, for an 85 year old who prefers his G's in a straight line, the Plaid torque in a stealth package, is just what I need for the freeway on ramps and the drivers who speed up attempting to cause the braking of entering vehicles, particularly those that appear innocuous on superficial evaluation, and especially if driven by some old codger with gray hair and a beard. I look forward to your imprint on C&D, as you bring substance to a magazine that often veers off in the direction of attempting to be to cute, but is loaded with creativity and guts. Thank you!
Carlos. You have that typical Detroit slant on automobiles, and must toe the line to keep that new job Im sure. You did a passable job of damning the best car built so far with very faint praise, which I imagine is just what was expected of you.
He dug pretty deep to find the slightest faults. Then glossed over how Tesla is already addressing most of those issues. Wrote them off as Tesla giving lip service with out proper comparison to how other companies take 5 years to address similar issues, if ever. No mention of maintenance and charging costs. Definitely some underlying bias in this. Way more fair than most legacy reviewers.
