The Electric Drako Motors GTE Can Smoke A Tesla, But At $1.25 Million It Had Better
With 1,200 horsepower, the Model S never stood a chance.
How do you keep track of all these electric vehicle startups when a new one seems to spring up every day? Newcomer Drako Motors found one way to be memorable: big numbers. Its all-electric GTE, which debuted at last year's Quail show in Carmel, California, supposedly packs 1,200 horsepower, and it comes with a $1.25 million price tag.
But Drako wants people to know it's not messing around. The company pitted its car against a top-spec Tesla Model S P100D in a drag race. Humiliation followed, at least for the Tesla. Drako took the GTE and Tesla to a closed runway for the race and there, the team set up a start and finish line, put the two cars into their respective all-out attack modes, lined them up, and let the flag fly. See the result below:
As you can see, though not hear with the eerily silent drag race, the Drako walked Tesla’s most powerful production car.
The fight, though, was never really fair. While the Model S P100D uses twin motors, one on each axle, which together delivers 588 horsepower, and is clearly a wildly quick automobile, the GTE puts down nearly twice as much power. The company also says that the GTE uses four electric motors, one at each corner, and a 90kW battery pack. The GTE also produces 6,500 pound-feet of wheel torque, which is a lot, though wheel torque is calculated differently than standard torque. (Tesla says its upcoming Roadster redux will have 7,400 pound-feet of wheel torque. Math not being my strong suit, you can learn about how wheel torque is calculated here.)
If the Drako GTE looks familiar-ish, it's because it's built on a Fisker Karma chassis. The hybrid setup from that car was replaced with the eyebrow-raising electric drivetrain described above, but many visual cues inside and out remain the same. And of course, what was once Fisker is now Karma Automotive, out there doing its own thing with performance hybrids. Confusing? Sure. Enjoy these Wild West EV startup days while you still can.
So the GTE can smoke a Model S, but with a $1.25 million price tag and those power specs, it had better. There are, as mentioned, certainly some fairly large caveats, including that chest-clenching price tag, the massive difference in performance output, and not knowing whether Drako turned up the wick and decreased the battery pack’s longevity.
That said, seeing the performance difference between the two cars, and knowing how violent the Tesla’s launch system is, makes me slightly terrified, yet eager as all hell, to get behind the GTE’s wheel.
