We were impressed when we first learned of the ‘Tesla Model S P90++’, which we called the first ‘truly performance tuned’ Tesla Model S.
Now the car goes on sale and if you want to own this unique Tesla vehicle, you have to shell out $150,000.
Jason Hughes, the owner and creator of the vehicle, is well-known within the Tesla community for having uncovered tons of interesting tidbits of information through his tinkering with his own Tesla vehicles and the ones that he purchased through salvage auctions for his other projects, like his massive home energy storage system.
His original 2014 Model S P85 was often the subject of his tinkering and it received several upgrades, like a first generation Autopilot hardware suite.
But that’s not what justifies the ~$100,000 premium on the used electric sedan.
If someone wants a used Model S with first generation Autopilot, there are some for sale out there at a much more reasonable price.
While the Autopilot retrofit is impressive and even recognized by Tesla, Hughes justifies the price by the vehicle being ‘The most powerful rear-wheel drive Tesla in the world.’
He might be right. As we wrote when we first reported on the car, Hughes played musical chairs with his battery packs after he got his hands a 100 kWh pack and he ended up upgrading the P85 with a 90 kWh pack – turning it into a ‘P90++’. He even made the badge:
In order to unlock the full power of that 90 kWh ‘Ludicrous mode enabled’ pack, Hughes had to trick the car into thinking that it has dual motors, like all of Tesla’s Ludicrous mode cars.
He created a device with custom hardware and software to emulate the nonexistent front motor and unleash the higher power output.
The result is a 1420A peak input current compared to the ~1100A of the normal P85.
Hughes explains in his sale pitch for the car on TMC:
“Overall, the car is a monster for a RWD Tesla. It holds its own against a P85D, and it smokes a P85D from a roll and wins in the 1/4 mile. Non-performance dual motor Teslas, and every RWD variant of the Model S don’t have a chance.
It is quite literally the most powerful rear-wheel drive Tesla in the world. It has dyno’d at 553 HP at the rear wheels with 480 ft/lbs of torque. This is before I made some additional tweaks which have shown a bit more power consumption, which would proportionally increase performance. I estimate actual max battery power peak RWHP to be closer to 575HP now, but have not had time to confirm this.”
There are some inconveniences, for example, the vehicle is not receiving any new software updates since Hughes had to hack the software to make a P90D build work on what is technically a ‘P90’. Also, while the car is serviceable by Tesla, there’s no warranty on it.
Hughes says he is open to offer reasonable support for the vehicle and keep it on his network which is linked to the vehicle’s rooted system.
You can check out the rest of his post for more details and reach out to him if interested.
The Tesla tinkerer also says that he plans on using the proceeds from the sale of the vehicle to finance his next Tesla performance tune project. Like I wrote in my last article about the vehicle: Are we witnessing the birth of a new Tesla tuning business?
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