Gadgetory

for all its advancements the Tesla Model S was missing some pretty basic things all wheel drive and any kind of driver assist they just got caught up let's drive 2015 Tesla p85d check the tip rather quickly now on the outside as you can see these nudie model Tesla Model S's are very familiar it's what's happening underneath in two broad areas first of all the details you've got dual motors which also rolls in all-wheel drive secondly a whole new wave of autonomy driver assist to the degree of self driving even is coming in phases let's start with the drivetrain though now a Model S traditionally had a single motor at the rear driving those wheels these new D cars add a second motor at the front to drive those wheels to the tune of 188 horsepower at each end if you get a P or performance model like we have the rear motor gets bumped way up to 470 horsepower and the front a bit higher to 221 for a massive 691 total that gets this nearly five thousand pound car to 60 in just 3.2 seconds range is down but only slightly from a standard rear wheel drive model S overall charge time doesn't change much in the new car with a single charger that comes built in about eight and a half hours option the dual charger you get that down to about four Tesla supercharger gets you 170 miles of range in 30 minutes and if their battery swap stations come to fruition you'll swap the whole pack in just three minutes now all-wheel drive comes in many flavors of course there's that which is aimed very much at dealing with tough conditions and that which is aimed at performance this one is clearly looking more like a performance setup though it's certainly going to help you when you've got lesser traction then there's the new autopilot which is what Tesla calls their driver assists that means adaptive cruise that maintains speed and distance to other cars along with the ability to come all the way to a full stop and resume to be honest nothing other cars didn't have a couple years ago did oh this cars new ability to read speed limit science and alert you to the correct speed now highway lane changing is interesting you can do it by just signaling our car currently just does the acceleration part for you but automatic lane change steering is coming as well self parking in a Tesla means the car not only parks in a spot that you pull alongside of but eventually will bring itself out of that spot and to you at least on private property now inside the Model S nothing has changed on the p85d just to give you a quick refresher these cars are laid out differently than yours here is the giant Center LCD that can be used in one or two modes you see Google Maps is one you'll commonly have up here's one that may be an eye-opener a live web browser that even works while you drive over there in front of the drivers and all LCD instrument panel with your main sort of speed and range gauge in front of you on the left you'll get navigation when you're under navigation and then on the right you've got about a handful of very quick shortcut menus that largely replace things that are buttons on other cars and the media choices on these cars are similarly monitoring of am/fm HD radio of course then standard they include streaming radio like slacker and tune in through a built-in 3G radio interestingly optional is satellite radio only with a pricey audio upgrade and of course you've also got bluetooth streaming and a couple of USB ports for mobile devices now screens that show the new features of this car are under the controls menu first of all if you go to driving here's one that's very telling acceleration can be sport or insane that takes full advantage of both motors at full tilt and under settings you've got what Tesla calls their autopilot technology and then adaptive cruise control by the way should be able to take us all the way down to zero and then back up to full freeway speed as traffic conditions warrant ok I'll be honest with you if I'd done a top five improvements I wanted in the existing Model S greater performance would have been number six just listen on my list these are all good performing cars however this is now one that has notable performance as you saw in the zero to sixty numbers these PID fives by the way if they're P models they also have an improved sport suspension that is also highly variable in height so combine all of that with the fact that you've got that big old belly full of battery keeping this thing planted and low centered and it's just an amazingly Rippey stuck to the earth performance sedan it always takes me a little time to get used to the fact that I have basic needs no drive controls in this car you just have the pedal on the right and that's it no sport mode no Sport Plus no need me need to get this in that dialed in you just step on it harder it's amazingly elegant but we're so used to having gadgetry between us and that it's a little jarring when you drop this thing into insane mode like I showed you it's insane how can a car that weighs nearly five thousand pounds do what that thing just did however it's also a bit of a head-fake I would trade all of that insane mode nonsense and all of the seconds they've shaved on it serviced 60 time for a vastly shorter battery charge let's not lose the real fact on electric cars these p85d which are top of the stack performance dual motor models are coming in at around a hundred and six thousand base and then we would add about another $8,000 in options but due to the almost $10,000 in tax credits available at least here in California we end up actually below the MSRP but still not a cheap car this technology will also be very interesting as we see the all-wheel drive get much more accessible in the coming Model X more cars driven CNET style standing by now at CNET on cars.com click on the road