Last week BBC’s hit show Top Gear released a comparison video between the Tesla Model S and the new Porsche Taycan Turbo S. Much to the surprise of the hosts, and everyone watching, Top Gear claimed the Porsche beat the Tesla in a ¼ mile race by nearly half a second.
It didn’t take long for people to start questioning the result of the test. First, it appeared the Tesla was in Range Mode (essentially the opposite of Ludicrous + mode) and didn’t use launch control. Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded on Twitter that the numbers didn’t make sense, and Drag Times published a video where it was shown Top Gear used the exact same numbers from when they tested a Model S two years before.
Top Gear responded in an official blog post stating the they did in fact use older times from the Model S, because the one they tested on the day with the Porsche achieved even worse times than a 2 year old (and much slower) Model S. It just wasn’t passing the smell test.
Now Drag Times has released another video, showing on a regular road that his Model S was able to achieve much better times, and much faster speeds, than what was claimed in the Top Gear episode. It was also pointed out that Top Gear claimed, and showed in the footage, the Taycan beating the Tesla but about a car length, yet the times they used showed the difference of about half a second. In a race at that speed and distance, a half second time difference equates to much more than one car length, and should actually be more like 5+ car lengths.
That’s not to mention the results showed the Taycan with a faster 0-60 time, yet the video shows the Model S ahead off the line and for at least the first 3-4 seconds, well past the time needed to reach 60mph.
All things considered, it appears that Top Gear staged the race, for who knows what reason. If we had to guess, Porsche put a little extra money in the pockets of BBC, as they didn’t want to see their brand new darling child EV getting spanked by a Tesla.
