Video: watch a Tesla Model S drifting in spooky silence

If you leave anything in Japan for long enough, someone will make it drift.  Case in point, the Tesla Model S P85+ above.

With rear-wheel-drive, 416bhp and 443lb ft of torque on tap, you’d think it’d be a doddle to get the all-electric luxobarge to cut some shapes.

Well, you’d be wrong. Because Elon Musk engineered some electronic fun police into the Tesla’s brain to stop potential drifters attempting sideways shenanigans at every single roundabout. Boo-hoo.

But that doesn’t mean e-drifting is impossible. As the clip above proves, some clever gents have figured out a way to liberate the Model S’s inner hooligan.

Apparently all you have to do is find the fuse box, locate the fuse that manages the traction control, power steering and lots of other important electrical bits, and simply pluck it out and toss it over your shoulder. Then, the Model S can finally let rip. Please don’t try this at home.

Unless, that is, you're former drift champion Nobuteru Taniguchi, in which case you’ll be able to demonstrate some honorably silent, sideways dorifto action. 

Skip through to the 30-second mark to see the Model S, and that slug of instant torque, light up its rear tyres within feet, bonfiring rubber like a proper petrol-powered punk.

And just listen to it. Or, rather, don’t. Normally when watching a car drift, your ears ring to the sound of a red-lining engine, often of the V8 extraction. But as you can hear – or not in this case – with the Tesla, it’s like someone’s hit the mute button, the only sound coming from the tyres screaming for mercy.

Is this the future of drifting? Or does proper sideways need a proper soundtrack?