Elon Says Tesla Roadster Will Do ¼ Mile In Under 8 Seconds — #Plaid

In a recent Twitter conversation, Elon Musk confirmed that the upcoming Tesla Roadster will be able to complete the quarter-mile dash in under 8 seconds, thanks to the help of its cold gas thruster system. That’s around 2 seconds quicker than the best million-dollar-plus hypercars from Porsche, Ferrari, and the rest.

Musk divulged the new information about the Tesla Roadster in a Twitter conversation with Marques Brownlee and Manjot Singh on Thursday. After discussing with Marques the SpaceX-derived cold gas thruster system, he was asked by Manjot “Quarter mile in less than 8 seconds?” and responded “No problem.”

For context, the fastest current production car to cover the quarter mile is the drag-strip-focused Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, in a time of 9.65 seconds, but only when in the hands of the factory engineers, on 100 octane fuel, and when all goes exactly right.

Other production vehicles capable of the feat in a fraction under 10 seconds, if all goes exactly right, include the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, and Ferrari LaFerrari, all of which will set you back well over a million dollars to own. Newly on the list, the McLaren 720S can also just scrape under 10 seconds, for a relative bargain of $300,000.

The Tesla Roadster is intended as an electric halo car, which will definitively “give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline-powered cars,” as Musk puts it. Given that it will beat the quarter-mile time of those in the above list (representing the pinnacle of production gasoline car technology) by a full 2 seconds, and “can basically accelerate at the limit of human endurance” it seems like that aim will be achieved.