You wouldn’t expect anything less from Tesla, really. The California automaker has recently started to roll out a new driving mode called Track for its new Model 3 Performance and in the process turned its entry-level EV into a proper track-ready drifting machine.
Track mode is made possible by the Model 3’s proprietary Vehicle Dynamic Controls system, or VDC. This is the first time Tesla has built its own such system (a mix of the stability control system with performance enhancing features) which means more flexibility when it comes to designing different driving modes. Track is just one example.
As Tesla puts it, this new driving mode is designed to make a Tesla as insane sideways as it is in a straight line, essentially.
Track mode gives the driver the ability to use the electric motor’s phenomenal and immediate torque to make the rear wheels lose traction, much like you’d lose the rear wheels and the back end of your car if you floor the accelerator while turning the steering wheel in an icy parking lot.
Send power to the front wheels in such a situation, however, and the car will stop rotating. Track mode can do that as well. The end result is a Model 3 Performance that can drift at will, but that’s also a balanced cornering machine.
Track mode will also increase regenerative braking, improve cooling, and use the brakes to improve cornering. The new mode has been tested extensively and is starting to roll out this week on Model 3 Performance models.
[…] overall stability, pointing it on par with the Golf R he was driving at the time. Throw in a new Track mode with drift capabilities, and the Model 3 certainly has the performance part […]