Last night Tesla displayed a graph of HP for the Plaid model S. I took a shot at converting that data into the equivalent engine torque you would need in an internal combustion engine, assuming a Nissan GTR drivetrain. The idea is to see what engine torque you would need to produce to make the same to the ground horsepower of the Tesla. This doesn’t take into account the cars mass and how that effects acceleration… but it is a very interesting look.

A couple of observations – 1st gear torque requirements are quite different from the other gears because the power output shown on the Tesla graph are much lower at low speeds…. none the less you would still need 570 lb-ft of torque at 1800 rpm to match it. That is part of the reason for the excellent 0-60 times.

I modeled this shifting the ICE at 7500 RPM, so the upper gears are only represented in that range. Once in 2nd gear you are looking at 900 lb-ft, falling down to 700 at redline. 3rd through 6th are all very similar with exception of the spike needed going into third of over 1000 lb-ft.

You can see the falloff of torque at higher RPMs, which is obvious from the flat HP curve. Still, it represents a very good combination of low end torque and high end power. This also assumes zero shift time, so there would be some slight loss there.

The engine torque is as measured and down converted at the wheels, but that assumption is mostly because the Tesla ‘drivetrain’ has very very little loss owing to no transmission.