Tesla shows powerful Plaid Model S with acceleration to 100 km/h in less than 3 seconds

Tesla chief billionaire Elon Musk F unveiled the new Model S Plaid in Fremont, Calif.

“This electric car is smashing,” Musk said as he drove the Model S Plaid onto the stage. “Faster than any Porsche, safer than any Volvo,” the billionaire stressed. The new Model S Plaid accelerates to 100 km per hour in 2 seconds, without recharging the electric car can travel more than 620 km. And this proves, according to Musk, that electric cars powered by clean energy “can be the fastest, safest and coolest in every way.

At the same time, Tesla has canceled an improved version of the Model S Plaid+ electric car with a 33% longer range (about 840 km) and increased power to 1,100 hp. “The Plaid+ is being cancelled. It is not necessary, as Plaid is already good,” Musk wrote earlier on Twitter. Ahead of the unveiling, the company raised the price of the Model S Plaid by $10,000,to $129,990. The price of the previous Model S was $79,990.

During the presentation, Musk said that Tesla expects to produce 1,000 Model S Plaid electric cars in the next quarter. He said the Model S Plaid charges faster, has a roomier rear seat and an improved “Level 5 PlayStation” entertainment system. “If we think about a future where the car is often in autopilot or fully autonomous driving mode, entertainment will become more and more important. So you’ll want to watch movies, play games, use the Internet,” the entrepreneur explained.

The new Model S Plaid is designed to stay ahead of competitors from Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Lucid Motors in the luxury electric car segment, Reuters noted. “The Model S Plaid is definitely designed to help reduce the migration of current Tesla owners from Tesla. We see that Tesla can no longer operate in a vacuum,” Ed Kim, vice president of consulting firm AutoPacific, told the agency.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Tesla has so far overlooked this year’s growing demand for luxury cars, which tend to be more profitable for automakers. According to research firm J.D. Power, sales of cars worth more than $80,000 in the United States more than doubled in the first five months of the year compared to the same period in 2019. “Consumers have plenty of cash,” Tyson Jomini, head of data and analytics at J.D. Power, told the newspaper

That said, Tesla sales have fallen in recent years as the company has focused on developing more affordable models. Tesla sold 57,085 Model S and Model X electric cars in 2020, down from more than 101,000 in 2017.

Tesla shares were up 1.89% before the launch of the new model in Fremont.