Shootout: Tesla Model S vs. Audi S7 for high-tech performance
Shootout: Tesla Model S vs. Audi S7 for high-tech performance
13:30

Shootout: Tesla Model S vs. Audi S7 for high-tech performance

Cars
[MUSIC] It's a lovely day and we're here at the track with this sinister beauty it's the 2016 Audi X7 It's an executive sports sedan with four, wait. What's happening here? Dude, are you seriously crashing my video right now, what's happening? [LAUGH] Yeah I saw it was a beautiful day out here, you've got the Audi S7, I brought a Tesla Model S 90D 90D, so not only are you crashing my video with an electric car at the racetrack, but you didn't bring the P90D, the most powerful Tesla they make. Well yeah, that one is definitely more powerful, more performance oriented, that's the P. But I feel this is better matched with your car, I mean price wise, yours is 82,000 base, mine base is at 88,000, and we're both auctioned up to about $95,000. Okay, so I don't know how that range is going to help you on the racetrack today but I will give you that they are pretty evenly matched on price and design now that I look at it. And probably performance actually. I've got the 4 liter twin turbo charged V8 engine that gets me 450 horsepower and that's going to go through a 7 speed DSG on it's way to Audi. Sport [UNKNOWN] system. With 406 pound feet of torque, my 0 to 60 time is 4.5 seconds. What have you got? Well, that's a really good engine. I really like that. I actually have two electric motors, one on each axle. So I've got all wheel drive. Each of those motors is 250 horsepower and that somehow adds up to 417 horsepower. I don't know how that math is done. But it also adds up to 485 pound feet of torque. And I've got the 90 kilowatt hour battery here. Tesla says that gets this car to 60 miles per hour in 4.2 seconds. That's faster than your car. It's gonna be close. And it looks like you've got me beat significantly on torque but I've got you beat on horsepower. So it looks like we've got a battle of torque versus horsepower. New fangled electricity versus good old-fashioned turbocharged gasoline. Do you want to put them head to head? Yeah, let's do a drag race. We got the whole track today. Right? So why wasted. Let's do some circuit handling. I think that this Audi gonna show that Tesla a few tricks. Okay. But we'll do the drag race next. Right? Okay will get a round to it if you got some range left to the end. [MUSIC] [NOISE] Okay, so we're in the Audi now and one of the first things that you're going to notice is something you can't get in that [INAUDIBLE] of yours and that's just [INAUDIBLE]. [INAUDIBLE] the engine, know, if you listen to that. That's a good roll, that's a nice growl. It just underpins the whole thing. And when you light it up, you hear that backfire, and that's pretty cool. Yeah, really good acceleration, [INAUDIBLE] from the dsg, and we've also got a lighter car here that's handling it better here, [INAUDIBLE] Around these tight turns. Yeah but I'm also feeling weird body stuff. If feels kind of soft and there's definitely some body motion in these corners. Yeah well a little body rolls good but that's mostly because we're on Audi's air suspension and that's going to have dynamic and comfort settings, right now we're in dynamic. And it doesn't do a great job of mitigating roll but it does a pretty good job of making sure we've got grip were we. Where you need it. And fortunately we've got Audi's torque vectoring system on the Sport Quattro to really help us rotate in these turns and make this big old car feel really dynamic. Yeah, I've been feeling that, that really just rotates the car in the corners cuz it overpowers that outside rear wheel. So, yeah, that helps you around the corners really Nicely. Yeah the other is a more involved vehicle. You've got a good seat of the pants feel. There's a lot happening around you. But you feel really connected the road I think. again surprising because this is a pretty big vehicle. Okay I'm pretty well convinced by this car's handling character. So let's see what your electric toy can do now. [SOUND] [NOISE] Do you hear that? I don't hear anything. That's right, that's the sound of electrons, that's the sound of the future. That's the sound of the 90 [INAUDIBLE] one hour battery bag riding this twin electric motors. [LAUGH] And that's the sound of the wheels spinning around these corners. Yeah if it were not for the wheel spin the future would be sounding pretty boring right now, [LAUGH] [NOISE] Now I got to say in this handling test. I'm having more fun than I thought I'd have. Yeah your really taking these corners a lot better than I thought it would do. [LAUGH] I almost lost us there. Yeah there's some under steer. But, this has an air suspension, and it's really holding the car nice and stable in the corners. That means it's a lot better then I thought it would. Yeah, but you dont have the same sort of torque victory rotation that you can kinda feel when the Audi is on the edge. That's true, I mean this does have the all-wheel drive, but it doesnt have that bit of pro level Cornering ability that this does and we'll find that out on this really tight corner here. [SOUND] Got some good wheel spin and not a lot of thrust off the back of that turn. One thing I'm gonna say that I'm kinda liking from the passenger seat is sort of the immediacy of the electric engine There is no waiting for the gears to shift even. [LAUGH] Cuz it's just power, immediately. Yeah, it is a very efficient drivetrain, it just puts that power directly to the wheels. So this car is pretty good on the handling. It's got good chops. it was better than the S7? Maybe, not quite. [MUSIC] So that was fun. Yeah, I guess we can say that the Audi handily wins the handling contest, right? [LAUGH] Yeah, it is definitely the better handling car, although model S did push well. We gotta give it some credit there. [UNKNOWN] Well, before we get to that, neither one of these are race cars. They're Luxury sedans let's see how they do in the real world what sort of creature comforts we have before you waste the rest of your battery on it. Yeah okay this one is pretty good on public roads here I gotta point out a couple things that are innovative about this car. One is the infotainment we've got this massive touch screen here 17 inch portrait style and it Quickly, this car's connected, it's got a built in nav 3G connection, I believe it is. I see an LTE logo. Wow, that's crazy. And that's a big old screen man, that's a lot of pixels. I mean what do you even need that much Much screen for? [LAUGH] Well, for navigation, for one. We're looking at Google Maps here, showing satellite imagery. Really Googled, see exactly where we are. We can also switch around different screens. Here, I can push for audio. I get to see my audio source. [UNKNOWN], I can look at the energy consumption, I can even look at the full on web browser here, tap this twice, and. I guess you got this car before me. Yes, that's definitely my Instagram feed and that is the Audi [UNKNOWN] grill. Okay, okay. Okay, there's one more thing One of the things I've got to show you about this car it looks really cool. Auto pilot. So they built in a lot of sensors in this car if I just want to cruise down the road. So how's it going? So you're showing off and I'm instagraming right now. It's hands free it's kind of driving itself. It does a good job of keeping itself in the lane. In fact If I'm on a [UNKNOWN] road I can just hit the turn signal and it will change lanes by itself. This is really [UNKNOWN] of the future. There it is really being aggressive. So the Tesla is so boring you don't even want to drive it. Let me show you what a real drivers car is like and we'll hop in the Audi next. [MUSIC] Okay. So, now that we're not on the track I'm gonna go ahead and put the Audi into it's comfort mode. I've got different modes Here. Four of them, one of which is customizable. And that allows me to manually sort of put the car into a more relaxed mode when I want to just cruise and chat. And that means that the car doesn't really guess what I'm trying to do. It can actually just deliver the best. Driving experience for me. I like that. Well, yeah. Apart from that, this does feel, as long as it's comfortable, it's a Model S just on public road. It is a little bit louder, though. You've got meatier tires and there's that engine droning away up front, but another thing if you were just sort of Sort of bragging about is Google Earth integration. Well I've got Google Earth right here in the dashboard as well. I'll push this button and it shows up right here in the system. And I can also show that map in my instrument cluster. As a matter of fact, a lot of the functions that are entertainment functions can be shown right here in the instrument cluster. So I never really I don't even have to take my hand off of the steering wheel just to do things, like choose the song, or initiate a phone call. [MUSIC] You know, I also like this carbon fiber trim in this car, [UNKNOWN] thing. Yeah, and on the whole, Audi has better materials in it's cabin And it seems more like a premium, like a luxury sedan as opposed to the Tesla which is very sleek and futuristic. The materials in this car just make it seem more put together. [MUSIC] Another thing that I kinda want to concede is that I don't have nearly as Or of our time with driving features as you do. I've got things like adaptive cruise, and lane departure warning, and lane keeping assist, but no where near as autopilot, like as what we saw in the test looked up. I'm gonna have to give you that point, as well. Okay. So just for like on the road, an every day car, where do we land? I'm leaning Model. I'm actually also leaning Model X. That car is a lot quieter which makes it a little bit easier to live with. And you've got more gee-whiz features. And the Tesla also gets updated via software where as with the Audi, this car is getting a little old. All right, so drag race then? Yeah. BB down. Let's get her down onto that drag race, and let's see which one of these cars is faster in the freeline. Okay. [MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] Do my best to win this. [MUSIC] [NOISE] Three, two, one, go. [NOISE] Go. [SOUND] [NOISE] [LAUGH] [BLANK_AUDIO] [INAUDIBLE] you jumped ahead of me. [LAUGH] Yes I can't believe you won that drag race how did you do that? Well the Audi has a launch control feature something the [UNKNOWN] Tesla model S over here does not have. So I was able to get off the line a little bit quicker than you. I've gotta admit I was hanging on to the drag race til the end cuz I thought I was gonna lose. Yeah, well we do have to come to a conclusion, which car we like the best. So where do we stand on that? So we both agree that the Audi is the more dynamic handling car and we both saw that it wins the drag race. But, I've gotta admit that the Tesla's quieter and I think I'd rather be in it on a day-to-day basis. It's more future proof.>> Yeah ,for some people the electric drivetrain is gonna be the deciding factor, but I know we both like to drive Fast, we both like a good handling car. So I'm leaning Audi S7. Right, gotta pick a winner today, so two our of three we're gonna have to give to Audi. So that's it, today's winner of the CNET RoadShow Shootout is the 2016 Audi S7. [MUSIC]

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