When Tesla showed off a Cybertruck beating a Porsche 911 on a drag strip while towing another Porsche 911, everyone who knew anything about cars was a little, well, skeptical. As more information emerges and YouTubers took deep dives on whether the results shown by Tesla were actually possible, turns out it probably isn’t. Now, however, we have even more proof of it of Tesla the video (while a brilliant piece of marketing) was really a bit (read: completely) fugazi.
People in MotorTrend decided to put To CEO Elon Musk and Tesla’s claims to the test by recreating the drag race. They have two of the slowest Porsche 911s you can buy – 911 Carrera Tsborrowed 845 horsepower Cybertruck Cyberbeast from Out of Spec Reviews YouTube channel and even got the exact same Futura Club Sport aluminum trailer used in the Tesla stunt. What they found is good Cybertruck withdrawal a 911 T it’s just not as quick on the dragstrip as a regular 911 T with a manual transmission. In fact, it’s not even close.
here’s what MotorTrend found after six quarter-mile drag races:
In the first heat, the Porsche lapped in 12.5 seconds at 115.6 mph, while the Tesla followed in 12.7 seconds at 105.2 mph. Over the next few tracks, as the Porsche driver perfected his start, the 911 reduced the time by 0.3 seconds. Cybertruck posted just one faster move, a trivial improvement of 0.02 seconds. If we choose the fastest Cybertruck and the slowest 911—Tesla’s best-case scenario—the Beast still crosses the finish line 0.229 seconds behind the Porsche. (All of our drag race results have the drag race convention’s 1-foot rollout removed, but in the spirit of running a fair race against each other, we haven’t applied any time correction.) The chart below shows quarter-mile times for all six tracks, and if that’s not enough proof for you, check out the photo gallery for the receipts – the official graphics from Famoso Dragstrip.
A few weeks after Musk made the original quarter-mile claim, [Jason] Fenske posted a video on his Engineering Explained YouTube channel revealing that Tesla only showed an eighth-mile race. Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill responded by confirming that Tesla never actually ran the quarter-mile race, but still backed up the original claim. “The fastest 1/8mi CT tow time of the day was 7.808s at 88 mph, and the trailer tires were only rated at 80 mph, so we chose to call it a day before someone got hurt ” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Our simulations have shown that the entire 1/4 mile race will be close, but with the same net result, so there’s no need to take any chances.”
[Cybertruck lead engineer Sam] Morrill also claims that Tesla’s video doesn’t show the Cybertruck going the fastest. We’re not sure if that’s true, but we can say with confidence that Tesla didn’t put the Porsche 911 Carrera T through its paces. In four of MotorTrend’s six drag races, the Porsche 911 Carrera T beat the Cybertruck by the eighth mile. Pitting the best tracks against each other, the Porsche 911 Carrera T covered the eighth mile in 7.9 seconds at 91.4 mph. The Cybertruck does it in 8.1 seconds at 86.7 mph.
Well, to be fair to Cybertruck, it was clearly faster off the line. That makes sense. Starting an EV is very easy, and starting a sports car with a manual transmission – even on the best surface – is quite difficult. whatever Cybertruck has only its advantage for seven feet. Then, 911 Carrera T takes off and doesn’t look back.
MotorTrend and Fenske even had to meticulously weigh the drivers (and their helmets), all three cars and the trailer to make sure the results were as fair as possible. They also equipped the cars with VBox data loggersand they showed that the 911 T was faster than Cybertruck no matter how you split the data. Now, of course, without help Cybertruck will kick the absolute crap out of the base 911 T, but that wasn’t Elon’s claim, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Enough rattling. Head to MotorTrend run the full breakdown of this test and let the data flow to you.
