Model S Plaid

Make
Tesla
Segment
Sedan

The Tesla Model S Plaid has come under fire recently - quite literally - and although a car bursting into flames is not something that we would ever take lightly, there are still numerous reasons to appreciate the car. Even with only half its battery capacity, the Model S Plaid is quicker than most supercars. In fact, it's so quick that even an aging talk show host (we love you, Leno) can set a new quarter-mile world record in the car. But as the clip below highlights, no matter what numbers you throw at some people, there will always be something that a car enthusiast doesn't like about an EV.

The YouTube video comes from DragTimes, a channel that whose content we've featured here a few times. As you can see from the garage, channel owner Brooks too is a genuine car enthusiast, with epic machines like a Ford GT, a Lamborghini Huracan, a McLaren 765LT, and more. But when he took delivery of his Model S Plaid, people continued to whine about the cars lack of soul, saying it doesn't make any noise and is "just an R/C car".

Well, it turns out that Tesla has a solution for that, and it's a system that allows you to upload any sound clip you want and have it played through the car's external speakers. In this case, the sound clip of choice is a Dodge Challenger Hellcat with some mighty aggressive cams in it.

The sound is fairly authentic and can be replaced with any noise you want, whether that be the wail of a Lamborghini or the scream of a superbike. The video cuts out just as the car is accelerating away, but we're pretty sure that's because the sounds the car can make are not linked to speed and therefore are just a repetition of a short recording - in this case, a modified Hellcat at idle.

That said, we're sure that authentic speed-sensitive sound clips will eventually be among the features of a stock Tesla and other EVs. We're not saying it's the right thing to do, but novelties like these certainly help attract new buyers. Ironically, the Dodge Challenger is going electric too, so a muscle car will sound like a Tesla before the converse truly happens.