A Model S P100D running Ludicrous mode took on a pulley-swapped, drag-radial-equipped Dodge Hellcat at Atlanta Dragway, and the margin at the stripe came down to hundredths of a second. This piece breaks down what each car actually brought to the line, why reaction time mattered as much as horsepower, and how Dodge’s own SRT Demon was built a year later to answer exactly this kind of race.
Running a YouTube channel built around drag racing your Tesla is a good way to end up with a target on your back, and the owner of this Model S P100D found that out fast at Atlanta Dragway. A modified Dodge Challenger Hellcat — complete with a pulley swap, a fresh tune, and a set of drag radials in place of the factory rubber — rolled up looking to settle the score. On paper it should be no contest: a built Hellcat pushing well north of its stock 707 horsepower against a luxury sedan most people associate with quiet commutes, not quarter-mile bragging rights. But anyone who has felt a Ludicrous-mode launch knows electric torque does not play by the same rules as a big cam and a blower. Who actually crossed the stripe first?
What the P100D Brings to the Line Stock
Before any modifications enter the picture, the Model S P100D in Ludicrous mode already ran the quarter mile in the low-to-mid 10-second range, with a 0-60 time around 2.5 seconds thanks to all-wheel drive and a launch that delivers full torque the instant the accelerator is pressed. That factory number put Tesla’s flagship sedan in the same performance conversation as purpose-built supercars costing three times as much, which is exactly why V8 owners kept lining up to challenge it in the first place. There is no clutch to slip, no torque converter to multiply through, and no need to wait for an engine to build rpm — just instant, all-wheel grip from a dead stop.
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What a Hellcat Pulley Swap Actually Buys
A stock Hellcat’s supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi makes 707 horsepower, enough on its own to run mid-11-second quarter miles on street tires. Swapping the factory supercharger pulley for a smaller one spins the blower faster, forcing more air into the engine and typically adding somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 100 additional horsepower once paired with a supporting tune. Add drag radials in place of the factory all-season rubber, and a built Hellcat like this one becomes capable of mid-10-second passes, close enough on paper to make a genuine race of it against a stock-bodied EV sedan.
Instant Torque vs. a Built Hellcat on Drag Radials
The P100D in Ludicrous mode launches with essentially zero lag — all-wheel grip and instant torque delivery that hits full force from a dead stop, something no supercharged V8 running through a torque converter can match off the line. The Hellcat, running a pulley swap and tune well past its stock 707 horsepower plus real drag radials for traction, claws hard through the back half once that supercharger fully spools and the Tesla’s early advantage starts to shrink.
A Margin Measured in Fractions of a Second
When the pass was all said and done, the P100D edged it out by roughly seven hundredths of a second at the stripe and about a quarter second in elapsed time — a genuinely tight race considering one car was running on batteries and the other on 91 octane and boost. It is the kind of result that still gets an old-school Mopar guy shaking his head, even while tipping his hat to the technology.
Why Reaction Time Matters as Much as Raw Power
In a race this close, what happens in the first tenth of a second off the line often decides the outcome before either car reaches half-track. The Tesla’s launch control removes almost all of the guesswork, cutting reaction time down to what the computer allows rather than what a human foot can manage. A supercharged V8 depends on the driver nailing the exact rpm and boost level at launch to avoid either bogging the engine or lighting up the tires, which means a slightly early or late trigger pull can cost more time than the horsepower difference ever will.
The Bigger Story: What This Race Actually Proves
Races like this one are not really about crowning a winner — they are about showing just how far electric performance has come in a straight line, even against a car built specifically to dominate one. A 707-horsepower Hellcat with a pulley swap and drag radials is about as serious as street-legal muscle gets, and it still could not shake a luxury sedan off the line. That does not make the V8 obsolete, but it is a genuine wake-up call for anyone who assumed instant torque was just a party trick rather than a real threat at the strip.
EV Drag Racing’s Rapid Rise on YouTube
Channels built around Tesla drag racing exploded in popularity through the mid-2010s precisely because of races like this one — a format that pits electric torque against the loudest, most established names in American performance. Viewers who had never cared about a spec sheet suddenly found themselves invested in whether a family sedan could hang with a purpose-built drag car, and the surprise factor of an EV actually winning kept the format fresh long after the novelty of an electric car existing at all had worn off.
How the Demon Changed the Conversation a Year Later
Dodge answered races like this one directly, unveiling the SRT Demon just months later with 840 horsepower from the factory, a trap speed and quarter-mile time engineered specifically to reclaim bragging rights from cars just like this Tesla. The Demon’s factory-installed drag radials, transbrake, and Torque Reserve launch system were built to eliminate exactly the kind of driver-dependent inconsistency that let a stock-bodied sedan hang with a modified Hellcat in the first place.
What Owners on Both Sides Take Away
For Hellcat owners, the takeaway is not that the V8 lost — it is that even a well-built one has to fight for every hundredth of a second against a car that never has to worry about clutch slip, shift timing, or heat soak. For Tesla owners, races like this one became the proof point that convinced skeptics electric performance was not a gimmick. Neither side walked away converted, but both walked away with a genuine appreciation for what the other platform had actually accomplished at the strip.
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Will Santa bring you a muscle car for Christmas?
I’ve said it for years. If they ever get the batteries figured out for electric cars. The internal combustion engine will never compete with it. Don’t get me wrong I love my gas powered muscle cars. But I saw writing on wall when I race electric RC cars that at scale speed ran 300-450 mph. Only for 5 minutes but it all about the batteries.