Increased Voltage will indeed help as Power is just Volts times Amps. I most likey will jump on the eCar train at some point, as part of the fleet. But, I think I am going to wait at least until the Mission-E comes out. But, if I may paraphrase a bit, they are going to have to pry my big HP noisy gas guzzling pollution spewing beast out of my cold dead hands.

 

I passed a Tesla in my 991.1 C2S at the bottom of the canyon and he proceeded to play catchup when there were breaks in traffic. I was surprised that I was pulling away a little each time while reaching speeds of up to 100. Particularly because at my altitude where the .1 is down 10% on horsepower. I knew I could really pull the Tesla above a ton.
It must have been a little frustrating for the guy after seeing all the YouTube videos of Teslas killing exotics from a standing start and not being able to humiliate a little old P-car.

 

We had a guy in P85D come to a "come and try day" - really nice guy asked a lot of sensible questions and decided to leave. He hadn't done a track day and just wanted to see how they were run.

I went through all the safety stuff, run off areas, passing protocols, flags pit lane entry and exit etc. I took him up to scuitineering (this was funny) - e.g. where do you put the blue battery triangle - I could see he was nervous. He asked how I thought the car would go. So I posed a simple question - "Given the weight of the car and the fact its on street tires, with street brake pads would he be prepared to run off into the sand traps at the end of the home straight at 220kmh" His answer was no.

We had a good chat, looked at some GT3s and he clearly gained a sense of what a track capable car was like. He thanked us and said he now got the picture "wide screen". He then left - a very nice guy and a very sensible Tesla owner.

At another similar event we had another P85D arrive in a flurry of 0-60 times etc - he managed either 3 or 4 laps before going into some form of limp mode, his tires were toast as well. In the end he left with his car on a flatbed truck - I'm not sure why, I'm pretty sure the car didn't fail. I suspect he may have had a flat of perhaps flat and wheel damage and was just being sensible. (I forgot to add the owner did not fit his dorian so a time wasnt recorded).

I think the Tesla fan club which bangs on about 0-60 times etc thinks this translates into all aspects of performance - I think this is mainly through ignorance and lack of motorsport knowledge and experience. I do recall the Tesla guys having a collective melt down when Car and Driver put one through its "lightning lap" series. It pulled a time on par with a mini or something similar.

EVs will have their day in the sun, however this will be tempered by the scale and type of infrastructure required to support EVs. These are both enormous in scale and cost - this will slowly sink in and temper the pace of change. The time frame will be generational.

Please don't street race - take it to a controlled environment like a race track - here you'll find that its the driver that makes the car and not the car that makes the driver - that way you won't harm yourself or others - peace

 

Overall I think you're post is pretty spot on, but I wanted to add some comments on the above paragraph.

If by "Tesla fan club" you mean people interested in Tesla then I agree with you. But I don't think your comments reflect actual owners. Like with Porsche, there are many Tesla fans that aren't owners and aren't close to being able to be owners. I think judging the owners based on that crowd would be equally unfair as it would be to judge Porsche owners based on the teenage fanboy crowd.

I post occasionally these days on TMC (the Tesla equivalent of RL). In my experience, Tesla owners don't much care about performance in the way we Porsche owners do. A small subset is focused heavily on 0-60 times (which Tesla highly encourages through their marketing). But generally I think the community believes the performance thing is a ploy by Tesla to bring attention to Tesla and to EV generally - and man has it worked.

Tesla owners fall in to several categories (none that come close to track oriented) - tree huggers (the early, early adopters), luxury car buyers (generally praising Tesla's smooth ride, quiet and complaining about low grade interior), tech nerds (like me that geek out on autopilot, summon, etc.) and then small number of speed freaks (they like DragTimes). I can say from actual experience that there are very few Tesla owners who cross over to Porsche.

I'm an enthusiast of both. Each is a pinnacle in what it is trying to be. The Tesla is a marvel of innovation and technology. Musk is bold and has challenged an industry. The car is comfortable, enjoyable to drive from a tech perspective and never going to the gas station or changing oil is nice.

I have my RS because it (like Tesla) is currently the apex achievement of what it sets out to be. I track my Porsches and obviously the Tesla has no place on the track.

FWIW - The Tesla community rarely compares the Model S to Porsche. They see the alternatives as BMW 5-series, 7-series, Audi S7 (or RS7) and MB S-class.

For me, the perfect combination of cars is a Tesla and a GT3. Best of both worlds. High tech cruising/comfort when you want that and raw edged performance and NA 9K craziness when you want that. Why choose?

 

^^^

I enjoyed your considered reply and I can see where you're coming from in terms of your choices

As an engineer tho, I don't consider the Tesla product to be particularly interesting at any level. Also, I simply see Musk as a businessman desperate to generate a return to his shareholders as he should, as a Director of a listed company. However, a "Visionary" he is not.

Ultimately economics combined with government policy will determine how, when and if EVs are successful. It has to be rembered in large parts of the world they are simply a non - starter, or at best, need base load power delivered by coal, nuclear or gas. This is not a matter of conjecture.

The California, British Columbia and Norway bubble is not a reality for most.

The realities have to be addressed and this needs to be done in an open and honest fashion - the spin industry is in over drive in this regard and the lack of insight is incredible.