Tesla to officially introduce Model S Plaid and Model X Plaid in China

Tesla took to its official WeChat channel to announce it is finally bringing the Plaid versions of both the Model S and Model X to China. The company will show off the cars at the upcoming CIIE which starts on November 5 in Shanghai.

This is the first time ever the Plaid models will be shown in China officially. The information posted by Tesla follows the recent approval of both models for purchase tax exemption in China by the Ministry of Industry and Information technology.

Entry into the MIIT catalog is the final step in vehicle homologation for the Chinese market. Chinese customers who have placed orders for Plaid versions of Model X or Model S are being contacted now by Tesla in order to finalize their purchases. The Model S Plaid is priced at RMB 1,033,990 or $141,660 at current exchange rates.

Tesla Model S Plaid and Model X Plaid were unveiled in the US two years ago and the deliveries began in June last year, the car has been on sale throughout most of the markets ever since. Europe suffered a bit of a blackout but recently both models are showing as available to order with deliveries between December of this year and February the next year.

Tesla advertises Model S Plaid in China as capable of 0 to 100 km/h sprint in 2.1 seconds with the so-called roll-out deducted from the sprint time – basically the time of the first foot of a distance traveled by the accelerating car is deducted from the total time. The car has been tested many times to find out if it can actually reach the advertised time in the standard trim and the results were a bit short – the fastest it managed was 2.07 seconds but from 0 to 60 mph which is 96.5 km/h.

Regardless of that technicality, the Plaid remains ridiculously fast by any standard and it will hold on to its Nurburgring record for a little bit longer – until Porsche brings out its triple-motor Taycan. Can anybody guess Tesla’s riposte? 4 motors? That’s coming from BMW with its next generation M models. The future is approaching fast, really fast.

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