A Challenger SRT Demon 170 raced a Tesla Model S to see if modern EVs can deal with true American muscle

This Tesla Model S Plaid was pitted against a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 in a drag race.

Both cars are incredibly fast, but obviously for different reasons and in entirely different ways.

Both can do 0-60 in less than 2 seconds.

But there can only be one winner.

DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie

Tesla won, but with a catch

The Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 is designed specifically for this sort of thing and the drag strip is this car’s natural habitat.

It was actually the fastest car in the world when it first came out.

The 6.2-liter V8 is tuned to produce 1,025HP, has 945lb-feet of torque, and, in theory, does 0-60mph in 1.66 seconds.

The Model S Plaid, though is a totally different animal.

It doesn’t bark as loudly as the Demon does, but it’s just as fast.

Its all-electric unit gives it 1,020HP, 1,050lb-feet of torque, and Tesla says it can do 0-60mph in 1.99 seconds.

In the clip shared to YouTube by DragTimes, the Tesla Model S Plaid took on the Demon three times and won twice.

In the first race, the Demon took off like a bullet and left the Model S Plaid for dead.

But things changed during the second and third rounds, when the exact opposite happened.

The EV’s instant torque kicked in, and there was nothing the Demon could do about it.

Why EVs are often faster in a drag race

All things being equal, electric cars accelerate faster than gas cars, although internal combustion cars almost always win if there’s enough road ahead to catch up.

If there’s one thing that EVs can do it’s generate an enormous amount of torque off the line.

And some of these vehicles have enough torque to cancel out all the extra weight they carry in the form of the battery.

The Cybertruck Cyberbeast, for example, is apparently capable of beating anything in a quarter-mile drag race despite weighing around the same as a Saturn.

The record-breaking Cyberbeast has so far managed to beat a Porsche 911, a Lamborghini Aventador, and even other EVs, such as the GMC Hummer EV.

With a gas engine, your foot on the pedal translates into motion via a complicated process involving hundreds of components that perform their respective tasks in sequence.

With an EV, it’s like flicking a switch.

So here’s an important lesson for all you wannabe drag racers: Go EV!