The Tesla Model S Plaid Plus has been canceled, according to company CEO Elon Musk. He was tweeting on Sunday in advance of the Model S Plaid deliveries beginning this week and said that there was "no need" for the higher-specced Plaid Plus. The reasoning Musk gave, though, doesn't seem to quite ring true.
Musk was teasing a potential high-performance Plaid powertrain as far back as 2016 but it was only announced in 2019. Plaid and Plaid Plus variants of the Model S sedan were ultimately unveiled in January this year, along with a Plaid variant of the Model X crossover. While the Model S Plaid and Plaid Plus had been delayed to varying extents, though, only the Plaid will now end up in the hands of customers.
Explaining why the Plaid Plus has been canceled, Musk said the "Plaid is just so good" that the Plaid Plus is unnecessary. He pointed to the Plaid's acceleration of 0-60 mph in under two seconds and it being the quickest production ever made as evidence of this, saying the performance of the Plaid "Has to be felt to be believed." However, speed and acceleration gains were not the main difference between the Model S Plaid and Plaid Plus.
Tesla Model S Plaid Vs. Plaid Plus
The Model S Plaid and Plaid Plus were to share a tri-motor all-wheel-drive drivetrain that would deliver 1,020 hp and 1,1000 hp, respectively. The Plaid will hit 60 mph from a standstill in 1.99 seconds and the Plaid Plus was pitched as doing marginally under that. Both shared a 200 mph top speed. The main difference between the two variants was that the Plaid has a range of 390 miles, while the Plaid Plus was to do somewhere north of 520 miles between full charges.
That is perhaps a clue as to why Tesla has actually pulled the Plaid Plus. The Plaid's 390-mile range is in the ballpark of the average gas car range and will more than suffice for most day-to-day driving, including most long commutes. Anyone who's routinely driving more than in a day — assuming that electric cars are charged primarily at home overnight — is likely to be put off buying an electric car until the charging network is far more developed. That remains a barrier to uptake, even as Tesla is showing that electric cars can surpass the performance of gas cars, and it would be no surprise to find that it simply hasn't been receiving as many orders for the Model S Plaid Plus as it needed to make it viable.
Source: Elon Musk/Twitter