The Kilowatts is an electric vehicle enthusiast account on Twitter and YouTube. The team has a lot of members roaming in and around California taking photos and videos of new electric cars, or ‘refreshed’ variants. Recently, a team from The Kilowatts visited the Laguna Seca Raceway, with the hope of catching something interesting. And they did.
There were a couple of Tesla Model S vehicles making test runs around the famous racetrack in California. They were a little late to arrive at the scene, and so, did not notice which variants they were. According to their guess, it was either a Model S Plaid or Plaid+. And it wasn’t just test runs – there were potential attempts to set lap records.
The Kilowatts started shooting videos of several such potential lap records. Through their data, they were able to put together a raw video of the two quickest laps. At this point, the lap timings are unconfirmed, but according to their calculations, the best lap time was an impressive 1:29.9. If confirmed, this will be the quickest lap timing by a production electric vehicle at this track.
The second fastest was 1:32.6. The following video shows the fastest (red car) and second fastest (black car) laps.
Tesla’s Attempts at breaking the Laguna Seca Record
The Kilowatts reiterate that the lap times are estimated and based on unmodified video footage. They share the following bullet points along with the unmodified video:
- The Red test vehicle is shown on the top half of the screen and is believed to be production representative of a Model S Plaid or Plaid+ and scored an unofficial 1:29.9 RECORD lap time
- The Black test vehicle is shown on the bottom half of the screen and is believed to be production representative of a Dual Motor Refresh or a Model S Plaid and scored an unofficial 1:32.6 lap time
The Kilowatts also tweeted the footage, initially saying that this will be in the top 10 fastest laps of all time. They then tweeted saying that it is actually in the top five, as five of the other vehicles are not street-legal.
*Correction: This could be in the top 5 production vehicles. 5 of the vehicles in this list are not production/street legal.@RandyPobst holds all the production records and was not behind the wheel during this specific test. ?https://t.co/e4sdRxbbrg
— The Kilowatts ?⚡️ (@klwtts) May 17, 2021
Just to put things into perspective, McLaren Senna has the official record at California’s popular track at 1:27.62. Porsche 911 GT2RS is a close second with 1:28.30. Tesla Model S’s latest attempt is very close to the McLaren 720S and Porsche 918 Spyder, which stand at 1:29.78 and 1:29.89 respectively.
Of course, these are the official lap records for production vehicles. The all-time record belongs to Acura ARX-01b, which completed the lap in 1:10.1. This is, however, not a street-legal car. Is that a record that maybe the much-awaited second-generation Tesla Roadster may break?
Our Opinion
Tesla unveiled the possible specs for the Model S Plaid+ earlier this year. On paper, it looks insane. A tri-motor powertrain capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph (96.5 kph) in less than 1.99 seconds (claimed) and a top speed of 200 mph (322 kph) looks very good to challenge other high-performance electric sedans (rear Lucid Air Dream Edition). And it’s not just performance, the new battery pack will also help it achieve a claimed range of ‘at least’ 520 miles (837 km). If the Plaid+ variant does deliver these specs, it could very well redefine the high-performance electric sedan segment.
