Tesla’s P100D: I got 99 problems but not being able to go really fast ain’t one

Jonathan Gitlin

To coincide with the opening of its newest store in Washington, DC, Tesla asked us if we'd like to spend a few days with one of its latest Model S P100Ds. However, there was just one catch; we'd have to do all the driving ourselves. As one of the newest cars off the production line, this Model S was equipped with Tesla's own self-driving sensors (known in Tesla-world as HW2), but the company is still in the process of pushing out the software necessary to enable Autopilot in these cars. Scratch that plan of road-tripping up to New York-a proper test of the new Autopilot will have to wait.

Autopilot may have been absent, but this P100D did have a rather special trick up it's sleeve: an easter egg that makes Ludicrous Mode even more, well, ludicrous. So, rather than try out the P100D's humongous (for an electric vehicle) range-315 miles according to the EPA-we spent our days finding out just how fast it really is. The answer? Ludicrously fast.

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