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Comment by FilterSweep | Hacker News Reader

It accelerates faster (3.2 to 4.1). It has a lower top speed (155mph to 176mph).

Unless you live in Germany you're not really ever going to hit that top speed. You will however have ample chance to take advantage of the acceleration.

Raced a Porsche Cayenne Turbo on the 101N in Palo Alto, kept up till around 140mph, at which point my transmission ran out of gearing and he kept going. I was impressed.

Sure you can, just take it to a track day at local race track.

Sure, but I start my car from a standstill many times a day. I take my car to a test track -- once every five years?

Do you accelerate at 100% each time though? I dont think I ever floor my car "off the line", I think I only use maximum power to go from 60-80 on the motorway.

Not all the time but sometimes for fun. I would do it a lot more in an electric because the "gas" is "free" (assuming it is charged with solar). At least it is something I can legally do, as opposed to going 155mph.

Oddly enough accelerating like that isn't always "legal". Where I'm from it could be classed as dangerous driving, and I believe in the USA it could fall under "Exhibition of Speed".

By and large it is more efficient to accelerate at full power, assuming your goal is to reach a certain top speed regardless, so if you were _really_ concerned about conserving petrol then you should be going full blast off the line. That said I expect the fuel usage such a situation to be negligible anyway, especially to someone who can afford/justify a car that does it in 4 seconds.

My car isn't that fast, or particularly economical, but I know I've never thought "I'd love to accelerate at full power here to show how fast my car is, but I just can't justify the pennies it will cost me"! Outside of hyper-milers I wonder how many people do actually think about it.

Huh, I just looked up my state's statute on this and it contained verbiage like "Includes, but not limited to". How the heck can they get away with defining a law so vaguely? I guess I wrongly assumed that a law had to actually define what it was making illegal.

i wouldn't be bringing a 2.5 ton car onto a track, but i also can't afford it, so my opinion probably doesn't matter anyway.

The above poster is drawing a distinction between faster (top speed) and quicker (acceleration). Auto-journalism usually uses this language. In everyday speech, "faster" is ambiguous.

The origina posted qualified it with 0-60, which lets you know he means acceleration. A car can't have a "faster" 60mph than another.

You do 0-60 -- or more realistically, 5-65 -- at every highway on-ramp in the country.

When do you go faster than 100 mph?

You floor the car each time you get on the highway? Also if we are talking about rolling start Tesla's advantage over the Turbo S would practically melt away.

Since Teslas don't make a super-annoying noise when floored, yes, it does appear that Tesla owners frequently floor it, from stoplights, stop signs, and on highway ramps.

Yes, a rolling start is a big help on highway ramps. Doesn't help much at stop signs and lights.

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