Video: Tesla Model S races a plane in Australia

Hearing the name ‘Tesla’ can make many things spring to mind: electricity, the environment, green energy... anything like that.

However it probably won’t remind you of, say, a huge commercial jet, what with the massive, fuel-guzzling engines they’re able to carry under their wings from continent to continent.

So it would be fair to say that Tesla and the airline industry have very different ethoses, but in spite of this, even Elon Musk’s future-preserving company couldn’t pass up the chance to race one of Qantas’s Boeing 737s down a runway in Australia.

Capable of producing 50,000 pounds of thrust, the 737 will eventually get to a cruising speed of 528mph at the right altitude, which roughly equates to 70% of the speed of sound.

The Tesla meanwhile – fully equipped with the insatiable Ludicrous Mode – only has a top speed of 155mph, but it will do a quarter mile in a very rapid 10.9 seconds.

So who wins?

Um, we’re not really sure. The video doesn’t actually show a finish line as such, so we’re assuming the race comes to an end the moment the plane is forced to revert to type and take off from the runway.

We can only assume that a flying Model S is just around the corner...

Image credit: Qantas