Tesla comes in for the occasional mocking around here, mostly due to Elon Musk being… something of an unpleasant character, let’s say. But the man can sure build a car, as Consumer Reports just demonstrated.
As we all know, Consumer Reports isn’t in thrall to auto industry advertising, and as a result, a good rating from the company is highly prized. Tesla’s new high end luxury car the Model S P85D, though, pulled off something that’s never happened before. Namely, it broke the company’s 100 point scale.
In rating it, however, we faced a quandary: The Tesla initially scored 103 in the Consumer Reports’ Ratings system, which by definition doesn’t go past 100. The car set a new benchmark, so we had to make changes to our scoring to account for it. Those changes didn’t affect the scores of other cars.
Why? Short answer, the P85D can go from zero to 60 in 3.5 seconds, has better braking and handling than its lower-budget forefather the Model S, and still gets the equivalent of 87mpg. In short, it’s what you’d expect a supercar designed to show off its company’s stuff to be like in the first place. Consumer Reports still had a few objections, mostly surrounding the firmness of the ride, but breaking the review scale is hard to argue with.
With a price tag of $127,820, most people aren’t getting a P85D. But it’s a good demonstration of just how effective Tesla’s technology is, and just how much further electric cars can go.
(via Consumer Reports)
