Last year, the Tesla Model S P90D shot up the 12.4-mile, 156-turn Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course in well under 12 minutes and set the record for the fastest “production” electric vehicle on the course. But this year, the long-doubted Faraday Future destroyed its time by more than 23 seconds.
The Tesla Model S was a gutted version of the car, typical of street-cars-turned race-cars, and Faraday Future’s car looks pretty stripped as well from the on-board camera. Racing in the “electric production” class in 2016, the Model S went up the hill in just over 11 minutes and 48 seconds to finish 64th overall.
It wasn’t blistering fast like the top-finishing Norma M20 RD Limited, but that thing was built for racing and had a reported one-to-one power-to-weight ratio. It clocked an 8:51 in the unlimited class.
Faraday Future’s FF 91 flagship production vehicle wasn’t a speed demon either, running the hill climb in almost 11 minutes and 25 seconds flat. The company said in a press release that its car was, indeed, the fastest electric production-designed car to go up Pikes Peak, so it must have met the same requirements as the Model S did last year.
But the FF 91 and the Model S are a lot different on paper, as far as production numbers are concerned—the Model S makes 762 horsepower in its Ludicrous mode, which seemed ridiculous for a four-door electric sedan at the time of its announcement in 2015. Then came Faraday Future, promising 1,050 HP in its electric four-door crossover-type thing.
So, yeah, that’s a big horsepower difference. But the FF 91 does look chunkier than the Model S’ 4,647-pound curb weight. Anyway, forget about numbers for now and watch it race:
Confirmed: Faraday Future has a car that can race up a hill faster than a Model S. That’s a step up from the catastrophe the folks on the inside described it as late last year, at least. Now let’s see if FF can pull off... well, pretty much everything else.