Sometimes, you just have to crank the volume to eleven.
This, it seems, was the line of reasoning at Consumer Reports, which gave Tesla's latest and greatest variant of the Model S sedan -- the P85D -- 103 out of a maximum of 100 points.
Consumer Reports -- a non-profit organization that refuses ads and purchases all the vehicles it tests -- said the Tesla Model S P85D was the best car it ever tested. Tesla's luxury sedan received "excellent" marks for everything related to driving -- acceleration, transmission, handling and braking. Safety marks were also all excellent, with only some details of the car's interior, such as driving position, rear seat comfort and controls, and display getting "very good," "good" or "fair" grades.
The result was so good that it "broke" Consumer Reports' ranking system, scoring 103 out of a possible 100. As a result, the organization had to tweak the rating system to accommodate the Tesla, so the final score for the P85D is a perfect 100.
"The car set a new benchmark, so we had to make changes to our scoring to account for it. Those changes didn’t affect the scores of other cars," wrote Consumer Reports' Mark Rechtin in a post Thursday.
Is there anything bad at all to say about the Tesla Model S P85D? A few things. At $127,820, it's far from cheap. It's louder than the regular Model S, and materials used for the interior don't match ones in other cars in that price range.
Rechtin also points out a very important detail: Consumer Reports' rating does not take into account the car's reliability, which is average, according to owner-survey responses.
The original Tesla Model S received a stellar 99 points from Consumer Reports in 2013. The P85D improved on that model with an all-wheel drive system, faster acceleration, as well as (according to CR) better braking and handling.