Tesla does zero to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds – without hands

The questions that have been circulating for the past week about Tesla's 'Big D' and its 'something else' are now answered. The 'D,' it turns out, stands for a dual motor Model S that can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in as little as 3.2 seconds, while simultaneously improving handling with a digital all-wheel drive system. And the 'something else'? 'Auto pilot,' said Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk at the car's unveiling before 2,000 enthusiastic Tesla fans who gathered at Hawthorne Airport on Thursday night. Musk's factory has been stealthily incorporating a system of four autonomous driving features into its Model S cars for the past two weeks. In addition to forward-looking radar that scans the cars ahead and can see through fog, snow, sand and other impediments, there's a camera with image recognition that can read stop signs, distinguish pedestrians and look at traffic lights. There's also a 360-degree, long-range ultrasonic sonar system that 'establishes a protective cocoon around the vehicle' and can see even 'soft objects' like dogs and children, Musk said, even at the S's top speed of 155 mph. And there's a GPS system with real-time traffic. 'We integrate those four systems, and the car can do almost anything,' said Musk, adding a disclaimer: 'At this stage, [it is] auto pilot as opposed to autonomous. It's capable of sort of being autonomous, but the level of safety and redundancy isn't there. You can't fall asleep and safely arrive at your destination. 'We're essentially going to push the limit of what's safe with this level of hardware, and what's allowed by regulations. We'll do some fairly cool things.' In the future, the car might handle cool things like self parking in a garage - even plugging itself into the charger, a process Musk described as 'like an articulating sort of a snake.' And cool things like summoning the car to one's side. 'Using ultrasonic sensors ... '(it) can detect soft objects and will slowly make its way to you and stop and be ready to go. A step beyond that, if you have your calendar turned on, it will meet you there,' said Musk. Some analysts didn't think Tesla's D lived up to the substantial hype preceding Thursday's event. Tesla's stock price tumbled 8 percent on Friday. Musk didn't provide pricing for the technology upgrades, but Ivan Drury, a senior analyst with the automotive web site Edmunds.com, expects the new technology to add 5 percent to 10 percent to the price of the Model S. The Model S starts at $69,900 for the 302-horsepower version and as much as $108,970 for the 416-horsepower performance version. In some ways, the D is Tesla just catching up with its luxury-car competition. The share of premium luxury buyers who chose all-wheel drive rose to 46 percent from 33 percent from 2009 through the first half of 2014, according to Edmunds.com. 'Elon Musk is the boy who cried wolf. A dual-motor, all-wheel-drive vehicle is the logical next step to build sales and offer a vehicle with daily drivability,' Drury said, following Musk's announcement. 'Every competitor of the Model S offers these features. The more Tesla expands, the more it becomes traditional.' Tesla, as always, doesn't think or act small, and Thursday's event was no exception. The D was first presented to the crowd on a gigantic robotic arm that swung the unpainted chassis of its most performance-oriented P85D over the crowd, showing its dual motor system that allows the Model S to 'dynamically shift the power from front to rear at the millisecond level,' Musk said. This was done, he added, 'to achieve better road holding than a mechanically linked system with a single engine' while also increasing efficiency and performance. The D version can be driven in three modes - normal, sport and insane, Musk said. 'It will actually say 'insane,'' Musk said. Many of those in the Hawthorne audience arrived in their own personal Teslas. The event converted the small airport south of Los Angeles International Airport into a gigantic outdoor nightclub that pumped up the crowd with cocktails and electronic music. In keeping with Tesla's all-electric mantra, the jam-packed event was patrolled with electric Brammo motorcycles. Even the candles on the tabletops were battery-powered. Model S owner Mike Gaines took one of Tesla's D's for a test drive. 'It was pretty incredible just to hear how fast the car was. But then we got to test ride it and it was absolutely mind blowing ... It's like the first launch of a roller coaster,' said Gaines, 32, a visual-effects artist for Sony Television who lives in Beverly Hills and has owned a Model S for the past year. 'And the auto pilot features, they had a test track and the driver was able to take his hands off the wheel and not touch anything and it winded through an obstacle course and slowed down. And he hit the turn signal and it changed lanes for him. He didn't touch the wheel or anything.' Gaines was duly impressed, but he won't be updating his Model S to the D version anytime soon. 'I spent all my money,' he said. Earlier this year, Thai Nguyen, 63, participated in a parade of 130 Teslas. 'Every time they do something, I try to be there,' said the Newport Coast doctor, who attended the Thursday event with a friend and fellow Model S owner. Nguyen said he's already put down money on a Model X for his wife. That Tesla SUV is expected in early 2015. Prior to that, he drove a Mercedes-Benz S500. 'I think this is something that will change the world,' Nguyen said. 'That's why I'm so much behind Tesla and so much behind Elon Musk.' Contact the writer: scarpenter@ocregister.com