Result is in, future vs the past

cossie1600

I finally had a chance to test my Model 3 Performance against my old 370z at Laguna Seca. I had purchased the Model 3 to replace my Z as my dual purpose car for a host of reasons. I had high hopes for the new car as the paper specs look way more impressive and it was more expensive, I had to justify the purchase somehow right.

Anyway as expected, the Tesla completely destroyed the Z in terms of lap times. It drove like a GTR more than the Z did with the massive traction advantage and power under throttle. That's the good side, but the future still has a lot of short coming. For one, the performance drop-off between lap 1 and 2 is more than half a second. The drop off between lap 2 and lap 6 are several seconds. (I should add even with the giant performance difference, it was still faster than most cars) With a gap that big, you have a very limited gap in which you can squeeze the most out of the car. If you think the Z is annoying with the fuel starvation issue, the Tesla requires a 15 min trip to the supercharger after each session. Forget about hanging out at the track, you are lucky to be able to make it back before the next session. The Z had the oil temp issue, well the Tesla had battery and inverter temperature issue. At the end of the day, I think we are at a cross road between future and now. The future is going to win out, but there are still drawbacks that it has to work out. The good thing is that most are solvable problems, I think it is a matter of time.

For all the problems on the Tesla, spongy brakes and everything else, there was no ice mode!!!!

The Tesla was around 3 sec faster on the 1st lap, the Z was 3 sec faster than the Tesla after the car ran through half the battery. That's the range you are talking about.