The videographer behind the “Wheels” channel on YouTube is a very big fan of The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the four-lane quarter-mile dragstrip in Nevada, and they recently caught a very nice Mopar versus Tesla skirmish.
There are ICE versus EV battles, and then there are the Mopar versus Tesla skirmishes, of course, which tend to become slowly but steadily a category of their own. Dodge even tried to combat the EV ‘plague’ with an electric model of their own, the eighth-generation Charger Daytona based on the new STLA Large platform, but they basically failed.
Besides the fact that the Dodge Charger Daytona, an all-electric “muscle car,” is a major sales failure, the American rivals from Tesla shot themselves in the leg of their own free will: they recently ended Model S and Model X production to make room for the promised Holy Grail of Tesla Cybercab autonomous cars and Optimus robots. So far, none of them have been too successful or anything more than gimmicks.
As such, this race right here is the definitive battle for Mopar and Tesla fans: a large and muscly Dodge Challenger of the SRT Hellcat variety fighting the large and aerodynamic Tesla Model S four-door liftback sedan of the Plaid variety. That’s about 700 to 800 hp without any interference from aftermarket outlets against exactly 1,020 horsepower when the battery is around its peak charge.
So, the setup has become known: a Tesla Model S Plaid – this time around a white example- comes out to the quarter-mile dragstrip for a brawl with a feisty representative of the ICE division. This time around it’s a white and black-wheel Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat of the L-body generation. Traditionally, if the Mopar is stock, there’s a bit of total annihilation from the EV with more power and all-wheel drive at its disposal.
But we always like to keep an open mind because there’s a tendency to see the unexpected at the local quarter mile. This time around, the surprise was pretty big, indeed. That’s because we don’t believe the Dodge was tuned beyond a nice drag-oriented rear wheel setup, whereas the Tesla Model S performed completely unexpectedly.
So, the two white knights aligned like experts after the Dodge pulled a classic pre-race burnout, and they proceeded to race like usually: the Tesla Model S, which has the advantage of instant torque and AWD, pulled ahead and led the race as they got past the Christmas tree. However, the surprise came swiftly as the Dodge gained the lost ground and soon pulled in front of the EV behemoth.
Much to the dismay of EV fans, things got clearer along the way: the Hellcat-powered Dodge Challenger was on the verge of winning the skirmish and roared its way into a nice surprise. The result was pretty clear: 11.55s at almost 123 mph for the Mopar and only 12.19s at 110 mph for the Tesla Model S Plaid.
