2019 Tesla Model S 100d

Although Tesla is seen as a disruptive force in the automotive industry, he made a splash using a proven and true method for success: Speed. From the beginning, Teslas has impressed with the smooth, silent and fast acceleration, and when Elon Musk added the playful acceleration mode to the Model S, the luxurious four-door electric turned viral thanks to countless YouTube videos showing Wide-eyed drivers and passengers pushed back to their seats by delivering surprisingly instantaneous torque from Tesla’s electric motors.

This is a safe strategy to build hype, but it is not the only way to convince the world of the legitimacy of your car company. There are other considerations for building a competitive electric car, and the shooting range is the boss between them. Thus, in addition to its centered velocity, the first-line version of the model S called the p100d, Tesla also offers a less extreme 100D model that is not so, ahem, ridiculous in its scope.

Without the P (for performance) turned to your logo, the model S 100D puts emphasis on going further between reloads rather than on drag-pull releases. The 100 in the name denotes the largest battery pack that Tesla offers, a unit of 100.0 kWh that resides under the floor of the car, while the D means the dual electric motors, one in the front and the other in the rear part , which supply a total of 483 horsepower. Without the additional Grunt of p100d’s or the acceleration modes of release control or scanning of electrons, the 100D has the longest estimated EPA range of any current Tesla, and any electric car, with its rating of 335 miles. (The p100d NIPS on its heels with an estimate of the range of 315 miles.)

Read more: 2019 Tesla Model S Specs

The only other EV in the pinnacle of the 300-mile mark, according to the EPA, is also made by Tesla: Model 3, 310 miles. As with a gasoline-powered car, these numbers are calculated using the results of the cars in the EPA test cycles, where the model S 100D achieves 101 MPGe in the city and 102 MPGe combined and on the road. As with a gasoline car, its mileage may vary, as it did on our 75-MPH fuel economy Test Road, where the model S could not match the government result and got 91 MPGe. Still, our tests showed that it is possible to navigate to 75 MPH for 270 miles in the S model. Although that’s almost 20 percent away from the EPA number, it’s by far the best of any EV we’ve ever tested.

We don’t want to reduce the acceleration performance of the S 100D model with all this range talk, because it’s still pretty fast, going from zero to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and running the quarter mile in 12.4 seconds to 113 mph. While that’s more than a second out of the beat on both metrics of a model S now outdated P90D we tried almost three years ago, the electric motors give a generous, instantaneous response when you step on the accelerator, and the fast progress of the car towards Forward is even more noticeable when it is considered to weigh almost 5000 pounds.

Since Avoirdupois, the 100D performed admirably in our driving and braking tests, achieving 0.92 g around the runway and stopping from 70 mph in only 161 feet. Like many EVs, Tesla benefits from having the significant weight of its battery pack mounted low on its chassis, and the inerrant stability of the S model and agile responses are due at least in part to the low center of gravity of the car. The optional 21-inch rims of this particular example ($4500) with Continental ContiSportContact 5p tyres (19-inchers are standard) surely helped as well, making our observed range much more impressive.

Read more: 2019 Tesla Model S Horsepower

Despite the numerous upgrades of batteries and electric motors that Tesla has given in the Model S, not to mention the continuous updates of software on the air, the car feels much the same as when it first came over six years ago. The exterior design is much less distinctive than it once was, due in no small part to its relative ubiquity today. Compared to the incredibly minimalist and modern interior of the latest Model 3, the model S cockpit now seems a bit outdated, which with its more conventional controls and numerous pieces taken from Mercedes-Benz, such as the geared shifter mounted In column and the stem of the wiper.

2019 Tesla Model S 100d

This slight obsolescence inside and out erodes the value equation for the S model. For the money — our test car rang in a whopping $119000 — many other luxury vehicles significantly offer more presence and sumptuousness. But even when Audi, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz Enter the EV space, none have mounted their vehicles with a large battery pack like the 100D, and none produces a car that reaches a rating of 300 miles in a single load. For now, the S model remains a unique proposition in offering what could be the truest luxury of all in an EV: a surplus of driving range.

Price
$99,950 – $176,000