Rolls-Royce Ghost vs Tesla Model S

What's the difference?

It’s finally happened: Rolls-Royce has become so divorced from the everyday world of common folk that it's no longer even sharing the previously agreed meanings of words. Rolls has its own meanings, possibly its own language, which must be spoken with a plum on the tongue.

They’ve been heading here for a while. For example, at Rolls, “affordable” means the car we're driving today, the Rolls-Royce Ghost Series II, which is yours for just $680,000 (an indicative price, bumping to $800K for the Black Badge). And “iconic British marque” means, obviously, “BMW bought us in 2003, so there might be some German bits”.  

It turns out that “driver-focused” means something different at Rolls-Royce, too. Thanks to a smattering of chassis innovations, Rolls says this updated 2025 Ghost is “the most driver-focused V12 Rolls-Royce ever”. Which is “a side of Ghost’s character that our clients increasingly and enthusiastically embrace”.

Don’t fall for it. The Ghost’s extra focus is not actually very focusy, and its additional dynamism is really only more dynamic in the way that a bed that could corner at all would be more dynamic than a normal bed. None of that matters. 

The reason it doesn’t matter is because the Ghost Series II is wonderful. Indeed, it is very nearly perfect. Which is a word that even Rolls won’t quibble over.

If you have even a passing interest in the Tesla Model S, you'll have seen the endless internet videos where someone has lined up a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or another fast exotic car you could name, to race against it.

There's a long build-up, usually involving men who can't operate a baseball cap, a drag strip and idiotic words in the headline like "destroys" or "rips", or whatever. There's usually a bunch of honking bros with bad haircuts watching on, already planning their next viral video where they set a perfectly good mobile phone on fire.

It's facile and idiotic and doesn't give you any real clue as to the depth of whatever supercar it has "humiliated" or, just as importantly, the depth of the Model S and its spectacular engineering.

So, I won't be spending the next thousand words building up to the conclusion that the Model S P100D with Ludicrous Mode is up there with the world's fastest production cars from 0-100km/h, because I'll tell you now that it is, and it does it in a claimed 2.7 seconds.

Now that's out of the way, there's quite a bit more to the Model S than a "broken" Nissan GT-R owner weeping into their bento box.