The high water mark for Tesla range was set in June when a P100D owner managed to drive their car 560 miles on a single charge around a closed 16 mile course in Belgium. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted in June that more was possible, predicting that a range more than 1000 kilometers, or approximately 621 miles, was possible in a Model S P100D "with the right tires." As of Thursday, Musk's claim was confirmed, when a tweet by Tesla Owners Italia showed a picture of a Model S P100D having managed 1,078 kilometers, or 670 miles, on a single battery charge.
Peak efficiency in a Model S is reached at approximately 40 kph, or around 24 mph, meaning that it would have taken close to 28 hours of driving at this speed to deplete the battery's charge. It appears the driver stopped to savor the moment of crossing into four digits at around 10:21 PM Wednesday, before soldiering on until the battery expired at 12:25 AM, having covered 77 more kilometers in the following two hours. The club that set the record streamed the moment on Facebook, but the video is 84 minutes long, and entirely in Italian, so it may be difficult to understand.
Hypermiling like this is no new practice, as people have been over inflating tires, taping up panel gaps, and cutting unnecessary weight in the name of gas mileage for decades now. Doing so in an electric vehicle such as a Tesla is considerably less practical, however, due to the lower speeds involved in extracting maximum efficiency. Most internal combustion vehicles are at their most efficient when they can run with minimal throttle in their highest gear, typically between 50 and 70 miles per hour, whereas electric motors become less efficient as they spin faster.
Regardless, the ever-improving range of Tesla's fleet bodes well for the future of the electric car. After all, we now know that they aren't just efficient, but quick, too.