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Tesla Model S Plaid takes its place as production EV king with Porsche Taycan Turbo S beatdown
Very, very few cars can make the Porsche Taycan Turbo S look like it’s standing still in a quarter-mile race, but here we are. While the Taycan Turbo S is already unnervingly fast, all it apparently takes for Porsche’s flagship all-electric performance car to look like a slow car in the drag strip is a Tesla Model S Plaid, even one without a full battery or an experienced driver.
Drag racing veteran and DragTimes host Brooks Weisblat recently took delivery of his Tesla Model S Plaid, and so far, he has been testing the vehicle’s performance both on the drag strip and on the streets. In a recent YouTube video, Weisblat put his new Model S Plaid against the Taycan Turbo S, a vehicle that was able to beat the “Raven” Model S Performance in a heads-up race.
The two high-performance EVs faced each other in three quarter-mile races, and each time, the Tesla Model S Plaid soundly beat the German electric sports car. So dominating was the Model S Plaid that in the first race, it completely left behind the Taycan Turbo S despite its driver having issues with his launch and the vehicle not being fully charged. Speaking after the first race, the Model S Plaid driver noted that he had not been able to engage Drag Strip Mode at all.
But despite this, the Model S Plaid dominated the race, hitting the quarter-mile mark 0.8 seconds faster than its German-made competitor. The next two races were equally one-sided, with the Tesla simply blitzing away from the Taycan all the way to the quarter-mile mark. In later comments, Weisblat and a colleague who drove the Model S Plaid remarked that Tesla’s latest flagship vehicle is nothing short of a monster — one that makes the automotive world’s future very exciting.
After all, with the Tesla Model S Plaid beating down the Porsche Taycan Turbo S completely, there is a good chance that the German automaker would respond in kind. And when that happens, Tesla may have the next-generation Roadster ready, or perhaps even the Model S Plaid+, which might be equipped with the company’s new 4680 cells. Needless to say, the Model S Plaid seems to be the ultimate performance electric car in production today, and its successors would likely be nothing but amazing.
Credit must be given to Tesla, however, for making such an insanely powerful car for $130,000. At that price, nothing, electric or otherwise, comes close. This point was so evident in DragTimes‘ latest video that after the first bout of the two high-performance EVs, the Porsche Taycan Turbo S owner promptly got his phone out and headed to Tesla’s official website, where he configured and ordered his own Model S Plaid.
Watch the Tesla Model S Plaid battle the Porsche Taycan Turbo S in the video below.
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Tesla has entered an interesting situation with its Full Self-Driving suite in California, as the State’s Department of Motor Vehicles had adopted an order for a suspension of the company’s sales license, but it immediately put it on hold.
The company has been granted a reprieve as the DMV is giving Tesla an opportunity to “remedy the situation.” After the suspension was recommended for 30 days as a penalty, the DMV said it would give Tesla 90 days to allow the company to come into compliance.
The DMV is accusing Tesla of misleading consumers by using words like Autopilot and Full Self-Driving on its advanced driver assistance (ADAS) features.
The State’s DMV Director, Steve Gordon, said that he hoped “Tesla will find a way to get these misleading statements corrected.” However, Tesla responded to the story on Tuesday, stating that this was a “consumer protection” order for the company using the term Autopilot.
It said “not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.” It added that “sales in California will continue uninterrupted.”
This was a “consumer protection” order about the use of the term “Autopilot” in a case where not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.
Sales in California will continue uninterrupted.
— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) December 17, 2025
Tesla has used the terms Autopilot and Full Self-Driving for years, but has added the term “(Supervised)” to the end of the FSD suite, hoping to remedy some of the potential issues that regulators in various areas might have with the labeling of the program.
It might not be too long before Tesla stops catching flak for using the Full Self-Driving name to describe its platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi suite has continued to improve, and this week, vehicles were spotted in Austin without any occupants. CEO Elon Musk would later confirm that Tesla had started testing driverless rides in Austin, hoping to launch rides without any supervision by the end of the year.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Tesla enters interesting situation with Full Self-Driving in California
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
