The RC car is an excellent comparison. If the Plaid delivered power like that, there would be carbon fiber, axles, bearings, magnets, and who knows what all over the place. But it would be good fun! Once.Oh I see your point for sure, and the Plaid is absolutely being limited. But TC is absolutely still a factor. Remember, this is instant torque. You could have 400mm width drag radials on a prepped surface, and an EV this powerful will still instantly light up the tires. I used to be super into RC cars, and they illustrate this to a tee. You give it full throttle and it instantly lights up the tires. So imagine what's happening with the street tires on the Plaid.
So what I mean by this is there is always limiting going on, even if you can't feel it. The TC is just that good. So, extra torque would maybe play a minor role down low, but not much more, and I doubt Tesla would really see the value in bumping up torque like crazy. It would maybe bring the 0-60 down by a couple tenths, but the extra power would be felt and shown in the ET after that. I totally believe the car is limited after 60 mph, but there is only so much that can happen before. I hope we'll some some type of increase soon!
But what I'm getting at is that I do not actually believe the Plaid is traction limited (under normal circumstances of course, not for example in snow). I think the car is delivering a deliberate, consistent, amount of initial power that does not really tax a high traction surface. It is possible to achieve the same 60' time on the street or track and with 19", 20", or 21" wheels with the Plaid, again providing that traction isn't completely horrible.
Furthermore, when someone upgrades to lighter wheels, there seems to be a slight improvement in acceleration. And wider tires are not delivering improved 60' times. This also indicates that we're not dealing with a traction issue so much as a power management cap. I do not believe the street tires are limiting the Plaid's acceleration in any way. If it was we'd see 888's killing it by now. But what we actually see is that lighter (gutted) cars are running faster, into the 8's now.
All of this is what I've gleaned on forums and FB and whatnot. Just by doing my own, back-of-the-napkin, type of research, so I'm open to being incorrect. But I do believe that seeing higher traction surfaces or tires not really yielding better ET's is validating my thought process., which is put simply, if the Plaid hit as hard from the dig as it does at say 30-40mph, it would ET much faster. A tenth in the 60' usually equals 2 in the quarter. Although the trap speed likely wouldn't change much. I believe there's easily a tenth in the 60' left in the Plaid.
All speculation, but it's interesting to think about.
