If you want a fast electric car that you can also use to haul your kids to school, a Tesla P90D or P100D certainly fits that bill—especially the “fast” part. Watching a liter bike get repeatedly railed by these two cars really drives home just how astoundingly quick a 2.5-ton, battery-powered car can be.
This video is filmed from the POV of the rider of a 2010 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R. For those that don’t know bikes, this a type of motorcycle known as a “liter bike,” meaning a large displacement capacity with performance in mind. It has around 175 horsepower and revs all the way to 11,700 RPM, while weighing just around 450 lbs. Do the math and you realize that, on paper, this bike is incredibly quick. The owner claims that the ZX-10R has a K&N filter but is otherwise stock with a 225-lb rider, making the combined overall weight 675 lbs. The P100D makes around 588 horsepower and has 920 lb-ft of torque, but weighs 4,960 lbs. Still, it’s enough power to make people very upset at the drag strip.
The bike owner also mentioned that the pulls were occurring starting in first gear at 5300 feet above sea level. It is important to note that while electric cars will maintain whatever power is made available to them as long as the battery is sufficient, an internal combustion engine (ICE) struggles the higher above sea level it travels. There is a mathematical equation that accounts for this loss, and it shows an overall horsepower loss of around 15.9 percent at that elevation.
But numbers don’t really do justice in this circumstance. The Tesla reaches its software-limited top speed of 155 mph in 29 seconds, at which point the bike would begin to show its true colors as it skyrockets past the electric cars to reach its limit of 185 mph. I don’t know if many people would be gutsy enough to push two wheels that far; just watching these three push for road-supremacy is enough for me.
Watching any motorcycle, let alone a liter bike, get left in the dust is surprising. But when it happens by a car that weighs over two tons and is powered by batteries, it’s even more astonishing. Tesla’s P-series cars are quick, and the dual-motor cars with Ludicrous mode are even more of an eye-opener on how electric cars will begin to make their run at high-horsepower street monsters.