CR: Tesla Model S P85D not quite as insane as promised

While customer satisfaction for the Tesla Model S remains high, every now and then we get reports of some chinks in the public perception armor. The recent Supercharging letters, for example, are causing a bit of confusion. But when it comes to getting a long-term, independent view of what this important car is all about, we turn to our friends over at Consumer Reports. They went and purchased a Model S and, over the years, discovered problems with the door handles, overall reliability, and general maladies. Of course, CR found lots to love about the EV as well, calling the Model S the best car they've ever tested, giving it 99 out of 100 points. CR has just released a new video testing their $128,000 P85D and, it turns out, the car's new 'Insane' mode is just mildly crazy.

As you can see in the video above, when independently tested on the track, acceleration in the P85D is not as fast as Tesla claims. The laser-tested 0-60 time was an 3.5 seconds. That's unquestionably great, but not quite the insane 3.17 seconds that Tesla promises (others have been able to meet or exceed Tesla's promised figures). The results from CR's avoidance maneuver and braking tests were also superb. To stop from 60 miles per hour, from example, it took the Model S just 118 feet to come to a stop on dry pavement, and 129 ft on wet pavement. And all of this from an electric car that gets the equivalent of 87 miles per gallon.

Do those 0.33 seconds really matter? As the first public owner of a P85D said back in 2014, the new 'insane' mode is "night and day" different from the previous standard model and you can have a lot of fun testing it out (see this or this). But CR's results do seem to show that the official numbers from Tesla need to be taken with a grain of salt, something that is likely also true when we're talking about the 2.8 second 0-60 time in the even newer 'ludicrous mode.'