Why is the "300mph barrier" even a thing when we're talking about a French-turned-Italian-turned-German automaker doing test runs in Germany? They only barrier they need to care about is the metric one at 500km/h.
Because it sounds impressive and it gives them a record title they can use to market the car. Last thing they did was their 0-400-0 records time, something nobody before them even thought about, hyped up in their marketing video [0].
The only thing they need to be concerned with is being faster than everything else. Units are arbitrary, even kilometers (1000x the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second). Once they go past 500 km/h people will start wondering about some other round number until we get to relativistic speeds.
At these speeds there's more to be said about how good the tyres are. You can add more power and better aero up until the point where the rubber shreds. It would be interesting to see what the car could do with solid wheels on a salt flat.
So relatively muscular imperial miles are correctly used. Readers' eyes might pass over in disinterest should weird & weedy "kilometres" be used instead.
On a more serious note, I'm sure the various manufacturer marketing departments take every opportunity, imperial, metric, Klingon, whatever, to mark a passing of a numeric "barrier" - i.e. a number ending in zeros.
The issue is not the information (482 km/h) but the swipe ('modern units'). The breaks the site guidelines by being flamebait. In fact it's a classic flamewar topic, one of the pettiest and most repetitive.
I'm not sure what record they have here. There have already been multiple road-legal 300 mph cars as well as a stock road-legal 300 mph car for sale (Koenigsegg Jesko).
The article says that this is the first from a series manufacturer. Why does Koenigsegg not count, or was this the first?
This obviously isn't a series manufacturer, so the quote in the article may still be accurate but the title seems incomplete though it (correctly) doesn't claim Bugatti is the first.
They don't have a record yet, but the record they are aiming for is for the fastest "production" car. The car they used was modified from stock so it doesn't count for the record yet. But this will almost certainly lead to a small batch of cars with the same configuration from the factory, which they will use to (re)claim the fastest production car crown.
Do you have a source or link to any verified speed runs by those cars? AFAIK those are theoretical numbers, and Koenigsegg has never had a verified run at 300mph+)
I stand corrected, though that is far from a factory car it is still (according to them) road legal. I kinda struggle to see how they are keeping emissions in check wit a 2500bhp engine though.
Yeah, one of the lightbulb moments for me when learning more about aerodynamics and talking to my dad (former aircraft designer, workedon concorde) is how often what's happening at the back can be more important than what happens at the front, or how air leaves a surface can really bump up your drag in unexpected ways.
It has a horrendous drag coefficient, worse than a prius (not that they are a the worst car, but they're not sporty). It needs this to cool and feed the engine.
Yeah I did clarify it's not the worst, it's a smooth vehicle but it's got pretty bad turbulence at the rear due to that flat back, so it's no aerodynamic masterpiece. I only use that comparison because it's a bog-standard car and can't get anywhere near 300mph, so it might surprise people to know it has better aerodynamics.
Not sure what you mean... A Prius is actually one of the single best production cars around in terms of aerodynamics (Cd around 0.24).
That stubby tail is actually done on purpose because it reduces drag, not increases it as you claim. A lot of aerodynamics are pretty counterintuitive. Look at the big table of drag coefficients here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient
For the Bugatti, they probably weren't going for an ultimate low drag coefficients. They need to make sure their giant engine is getting enough air, which leads to lower performing shapes. Related, they also will want a lot of downforce to make sure the car stays on the road at high speeds; to do this they build a relatively non-aerodynamic car.
Ok I hate to do this, but you're wrong about the tail reducing drag instead of increasing it. The rear of the prius has a design feature to reduce the effect of the turbulent wake created by having a flat rear, but it still has a large vertical surface at the rear creating a lot of wake. You can clearly see this in a wind tunnel.
Nope, do not believe so. The short tail with a vertical back is called the Kamm effect. It's a mix between having a practical design and minimizing drag. The numbers do not lie; there is a reason the Prius has an extremely low drag coefficient.
Just think this through on a systems level. Obviously Toyota's engineers are not idiots and would use whatever aerodynamic effects they would since the entire point of the car is maximizing efficiency. If it was more efficient to have a different shape while still remaining a practical automobiu, it would. The entire design of the Prius revolves around this.
I'm not sure you're actually reading my message. A bluff at the rear of the car is terrible for aerodynamics, but having a rounded shape is inconvenient for the interior and storage. A compromise is made where you have a slope and then a bluff. The prius has this slope and then bluff. The flat surface is still bad for aerodynamics, it is not there to benefit them.
Also stop just googling for wikipedia links then coming back with information you've only just learned. It's ok not to know everything.
It's futile to actually have road-legal cars that go this fast because you can't do very much useful with the speed.
This is much too fast for the human operator (driver) to safely react to things outside the cockpit, which is why for example Britain owns trains capable of 140mph in service but deliberately limits them to 125mph. Tests suggested drivers couldn't be relied on to reliably observe and react to a lineside signal (showing e.g. double amber, "Prepare to find the next signal at: Prepare to find the next signal at: Danger") passed at 140mph. The "obvious" upgrade is to put the signals inside the cab with the driver, and that's how high speed trains work. But a car doesn't have in-cab signals either, and it has a LOT more external signals to respond to, including several signs we see in that video.
Mmmmhmmm, don't really see it as an issue here given that not many folks are going to be buying a £2.5m hypercar to drive at three times the speedlimit to work on a Monday morning.
True, but that just makes the whole exercise even more pointless.
There's really no point in building a car that can go above 150km/h, but perhaps some of the aerodynamics can translate into more fuel efficient car.
I'm also slightly annoyed by the usage of the word "barrier". There's physical or perceived 300mph barrier. People have built cars that will go a super sonic speeds, so there was never any doubt that it would be possible. Admittedly it is a little funny that the Bugatti is faster than a Formula 1 car.
0-180 in the same time and hitting a speed limiter is going to be just as much fun for everyone. Unless you happen to have laid out a strip at Bonneville Salt flats. That seems poor justification.
I know you are probably just speaking in jest but "faster" is all relative. If you put this Bugatti in an F1 race, it probably wouldn't win. They are both engineered to do their very specific things.
Just to put some numbers to that... at the Nordschliefe in 1974 Lauda dipped under 7 minutes. The original Veyron managed 7:40 in 2005. BMW engineers estimated their 2006 car could lap it in 5:15.
Basically, put a few corners in and I don't think it would even be close. There's quite a few cars that can claim a faster top speed than an F1 car though.
> Going around 160km/h on highways in Europe is pretty common
is it? That is 20-50km/h above the limit in all european countries other than Germany.
There are people going that speed, but in my experience across a few countries 99% of the traffic does not go that much above the limit.
Have you ever been to Poland? The legal speed limit on the motorway is 140km/h, but 160km/h is more common, especially since there is effectively no fine for going that quickly, police are mostly interested in people going 200km/h+, because the fine for doing 160km/h would be like 100PLN(~$30/£20). I've driven my Mercedes-AMG some time ago through Germany and then through Poland, and yes, on the Autobahn I was able to hit 250-260km/h for maybe 4-5 minutes at the time(legally, which is amazing and I would 10/10 recommend to anyone who likes driving, scary as all hell though), but overal I can guarantee that my average speed was higher in Poland, the traffic is just moving a lot quicker and there's less roadworks compared to the autobahn.
From experience, in France there are stretches of motorway where you would simply fit in the fast lane traffic by going at 160km/h (and yes the speed limit is 130km/h and cars going that speed stay well on the right).
Last statistics I saw showed ~50% of all traffic (which includes vehicles with speed limiters) travel in excess of the 70mph motorway limit in the UK.
Personally, I tend to cruise at an indicated 100mph because above that enforcement ratchets up. Which is about 160kph. I certainly think it's fair to describe that as not uncommon. I do similar speeds in France and Germany and am rarely the fastest vehicle around.
When half of all traffic exceeds a limit I think it's in the wrong place.
As far as getting nailed goes, it would be a fixed penalty ticket, if anything. I don't agree that it's contempt for other road users, any more than it is to do that speed (or significantly more) on an autobahn.
In the US, I often drive in roads with a posted limit of 80mph going ~100mph, and even then I get passed sometimes. It's not inconsiderate to other road users if I make sure to pass and yield appropriately, though it's certainly a violation of the law.
And yeah, I think the law is stupid. I believe that we should eliminate speeding tickets and have police only enforce "reckless driving". Going the speed limit could be much more dangerous than exceeding it given traffic and road conditions. Going 2x the speed limit with no other cars in sight should be penalized much less than failing to signal when changing lanes while in traffic; the former only puts the driver and passengers at risk, while the latter risks all cars within a half mile or so if they cause a pileup.
Police seem to enforce the former far more than the latter because it's easier, not because it has the biggest impact.
I remember in my parents car a few years back, I was doing around an indicated 220km/h on a motorway in the UK. There was still things going faster than me.
This was on a relatively quiet, well sighted motorway in good conditions. But there were other people clearly in a hurry!
It sounds like you don't know about track days or drag strips. That's the way to enjoy a car that goes faster than 150km/h fully. A 300mph Bugatti is still way above any speed you'd reach, though.
Even in that case a much lighter (and cheaper!) car like an Atom or Caterham will be a lot more fun than one of these hulking great monstrosities. Often faster as well, depending on the track.
That's a matter of taste though - for some people, a smaller, lighter, weaker can is more "fun" than a car that is stupidly fast but only in a straight line. But then there are people who only care about that and that 0-60mph run is what does it for them, not tossing an MX-5 around on a twisty road.
Bugattis aren't meant for motorsport enthusiasts anyway. They are too expensive and complicated to be track day cars and an enthusiast would buy something more driver oriented rather than stats oriented.
You could definitely enjoy one on a track if you had one. But you would probably spend more time just enjoying the thought that you own it, keeping it safe, then you would take your actual track car to the track.
Launching an Atom or Caterham with big power is incredibly hard for most people, even for those who own them. Not really a drag strip car, more a club circuit vehicle.
> There's really no point in building a car that can go above 150km/h.
Even if you're "only" going to be driving at 160-180 km/h (as is common e.g. on the German autobahn) you want to be in a car that can do 220-240 km/h. You don't want to be 100% maxing the car out at your cruising speed.
I remember reading about a German chap who used a McLaren F1 for a commute on an unlimited section of the autobahn - his average speed was so high McLaren contacted him to check that everything was OK.
The F1, in pre-internet days, literally phoned home to McLaren with telemetry.
Edit: I think you had to physically plug it into a phone socket... in case anyone was being put off buying an F1 for security/privacy reasons. ;-)
This is why the TGV has no signals. Instead it uses a radio communication system. If no radio signal is received within a time frame, the train will warn the driver, and eventually stop. If a train has to perform an emergency stop, all other trains behind it are informed via the same system. If the driver does not react, the train will stop itself.
There is a reason why the TGV has seen no accidents since its launch in 1981.
As for a car, yeah, it's mostly a gimmick. Still incredible engineering, though.
The most important reason why the TGV has not had any accidents is actually a really simple one: it only runs on very high quality rails with large turn radii and excellent maintenance of the railbed.
And even that is not entirely true. The TGV can only run this fast because it runs on tracks where only the TGV is allowed.
The rail bed is even not that great, that's why only some ICEs are allowed on TGV routes, because they need a special deflector which is more robust to tolerate the stones which are thrown up in the air when the train drives over it.
I think they took this in consideration when they designed the latest iteration of the ICE.
"LGVs are reserved primarily for TGVs. One reason for this is that line capacity is sharply reduced when trains of differing speeds are mixed, ..."
"Some stretches of less-used LGV are routinely mixed-traffic, such as the Tours branch ..."
"Outside France, LGV-type lines often carry non-TGV intercity traffic, often as a requirement of the initial funding commitments."
I'm also not so sure about the quality of the rail bed:
"Track alignment is more precise than on normal railway lines, and ballast is in a deeper-than-normal profile, resulting in increased load-bearing capacity and track stability. "
OK, you're right. I should have clarified my statement; there have been no serious incidents on LGV tracks while in service. Level crossing accidents and collisions take place outside the LGV tracks, when the TGV run on standard railway tracks. Only one high speed derailment caused fatalities, and that was during a test run.
Thanks I'd never seen this. So there have been quite a few incidents, but the takeway at the top seems to be there has been no fatality “at high-speed”. I guess that's something to be proud of, but that's still far from a perfect track record.
This got me thinking. Once I thought it was fun, but the more I look at it, the more I feel it is utterly pointless.
A racing car has a function: to get around a track faster than other cars (over a period of laps). To do this, it needs to be versatile: turning, braking, acceleration, fuel consumption, range of vision and suspension (among others) play a role. That's the true engineering challenge. It's why it has wheels, not wings. But to simply go fast, seems a bit pointless to me.
The pointlessness is kind of the point, along with a bit of juvenile thrill. These cars are a display of wealth and excess. You're telling the world you can afford this much power and don't need to worry about things like utility or efficiency, and maybe you'll just keep it in a garage or drive it around a track, but still you can have a car so powerful it's almost illegal and most people can't.
idk... I've always assumed that the pointlessness is in the playfulness: extending our boundaries, setting new rules. We value the daring, the boundless, the discoverers and the challengers. And I understand we connect a certain status to that and I also understand that certain people just want to be able to buy the status without putting in the time, knowledge and risk. But for me at least, this is so remote from and unconnected to the original challenge and thrill, that it becomes idiotic: pointless without even the playfulness.
Some people buy million dollar watches because they appreciate the craftsmanship and quality, some people buy them so you'll know just how much more valuable their time is than yours.
It's a status display in either case, given that one could adequately tell the time on a cheap digital Casio.
Yes, but there is an interesting difference between the two w.r.t. status.
Status is generally derived from the signaling of certain values. Wealth is one such value, but in general we assign status to a combination of values. Aesthetic + Wealth = Art. Strength + endurance = Athletics. Leadership + Vision + Knowledge + Intelligence = Innovation.
For me, at least, these super expensive cars have lost all signaling value, except 'wealth'. Because of that, I would almost call it tasteless, senseless and idiotic.
I think you're underestimating just how much engineering it actually takes to get a road-legal car to go this speed. Going fast in this case is just a different set of parameters to solve for, but no less of a challenge.
A car built for top speed is not the best choice on a race track but you don't need a purpose-built race car to have an occasional fun track day. Occasional because it's not cost-efficient to bring an unmodified sports car to a race track too often (brakes and tires will go quickly), as opposed to a dedicated track car, and at some point, even the fastest sports car will seem slow in turns and under braking. A car built for top speed should be exhilarating on a drag strip, though I doubt more than a few owners will go.
Fun is important because directing and motivating teams of humans is a difficult skill -- especially when you want to do things where the path forward is at all nebulous, like materials and design research.
Yes. Fun emerges due to sharing of similar goals. People have fun because they play the same game, enjoy the same movie or simply have the same freedoms. I agree that it helps direct and motivate us. (Thanks for that insight!)
I guess I just cannot share in the purpose of the team making this car go +300 mph. We already have the Thrust SSC (1228 km/h / 763 mph). So what does this prove? That if you want to take corners and need to see what happens behind you, you won't get to go that fast? Why not productionize the Thrust SSC then?
Max speed (to me) is just a senseless metric. It's a bit like clock speed of a CPU. Interesting metric, but only in relationship to other factors.
By that logic a top fuel dragster is pointless? For some racing is something that happens in a straight line, for others it involve turns - neither serves a purpose in the grand scheme of things and can be considered "pointless".
No, because a dragster has a specific function. It is a perfect counter-example to the senseless: 'look how fast our super-car can go.' There are many more values involved in dragster racing: knowledge, innovation, joy, creativity, competition, determinism, meaning, enthusiasm and playfulness. And it is all related to a singular goal: getting over the finish line faster than the competition.
But with such a super car, idk, I'm just left with an empty feeling: why? What is the point?
But all of them have various constraints, a formula so to speak, that they must adhere to. A specific function within that world of constraints.
The Bugatti is a street legal car designed to shatter speed records in a straight line. If that isn't specific function with a formula I don't know what qualifies. The street legal part of a super car is not inherently different than the 1.6L FI hybrid engine regulations of Formula 1, it's just a different set of constraints.
You do not create a winning street legal super car without knowledge, innovation, creativity, determinism, enthusiasm - and by proxy of those joy, competition, and playfulness.
I simply do not understand the gate keeping here. If it's not your thing, fair enough. But please do not invalidate the joy of others because it is real to them.
It's comparable to an mechanical watch. You can make a digital watch significantly better at time keeping and all the other functions, that is substantially cheaper both to produce and maintain. But if mechanical precision devices make your world go around, then I can appreciate that - I'm just not going to pay $10k yearly to maintain an elaborate mechanical wristwatch.
The speed is basically an excuse for an expensive car. Due to reasons (which I don't want to delve into) there are people who can and want to spend an absurd amount of money on a car, but if you just give them a perfectly fine people mover with more "gold and eagles" (sorry for the futurama reference), they'd feel ripped off. The car has to offer something that a less expensive car can't and that's where paper speed comes in. Even perfectly irrational purchases require some element of rationality.
PS: if you just want the joy of speed, the fix is not a faster car but a vehicle that allows you to experience the speed better, one that isolates you less from the road. A light roadster, a motorcycle, a roadbike (quite a few people actually "graduate" from a motorcycle to a roadbike because perceived speed is higher in lycra and with legs doubling as shock absorbers)
A train going faster than 25mph or so is already too fast for the operator to react (braking distances are huge!), so I doubt that the top speed is limited for that reason.
The driver can't usefully brake in response to a person on the track, but they do need to be able to brake in response to a trackside signal. At 140mph, braking distances are greater than sighting distances - by the time you've seen a signal, it's too late to stop. That's catastrophic in a fixed-block signalling system, which can only detect the presence or absence of a train in a particular signalling block; if you end up with two trains in the same block, you've got to run the whole line at a crawl to restore safe separation distances between trains.
High speed trains universally use moving-block signalling with in-cab signal indication; rather than relying on fixed trackside signal lights, the signalling system constantly tracks the exact location of each train, creates a virtual signal block around that train and indicates signal aspects and line speeds to the driver on a display in the driving cab.
Just a small nit: almost all high-speed systems still use fixed block signalling, but with in-cab signal indications as you say to give more warning time (and a constant reminder rather than having to spot a signal as it goes by in a flash). Moving block turns out to be much harder to implement than expected; it's included in the European Train Control System's level 3, but even most new installations are of level 2 (fixed block with in-cab signalling).
Do not underestimate E=mv^2 ; hitting something at half the speed means quarter of the energy. Case in point: at a speed of 135 km/h, driver sees a bridge falling across the tracks half a km ahead, engages brakes, hits bridge at 90 km/h. By reducing the speed by 1/3, the total energy of the impact was reduced over 50%. There were 6 dead in that crash; without braking, the entire train plus 400 pax would have been blown to bits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Stud%C3%A9nka_train_wreck
Drivers are still a lot better at spotting pedestrians on tracks than autonomous systems. Autonomous train systems already exists, but those are completely enclosed systems, like a city metro system. Not a system where speeds reach 200 km/h, or even 100 km/h.
Modern rail can (and does) run autonomously, at 160 km/h. How-e-ver, it can run autonomously about 90% of the time...and it's far, far more cost-efficient to keep a driver in the cab than to add reliability nines here: detecting and reacting to humans is far harder for machines than for humans (think Elaine Herzberg, but at 160 km/h).
Unions, mostly. The tech is there, especially on a 100% grade separated line like the TGV - no road crossings, and the full length is either fenced, in tunnels, or on bridges.
That's true of attempts to remove the guard, but I don't think it's true of automating the driver.
Automatic train operation systems are expensive to design and maintain, and their advantage is mainly in precision: if you're trying to put 30 trains an hour down a segment of tube tunnel, it's very helpful if the system reacts immediately to red signals and brakes at a constant predictable rate.
For longer distance services, not only is the cost of fitting ATO equipment to the track much higher (as the routes are much longer), but the schedules don't need such precise operation. It is probably cheaper to retain drivers.
In practice, even most metro systems with automatic train control still have someone on the train: it's important in an emergency and if there are degraded conditions or unusual operating needs it's helpful to have someone trained to take over.
Japan and Australia both have some GoA 4 systems. There may be no employees of the operator on the train at all when it's operating. I'm sure there are or will be more of these systems (as you say, for metro services which can be grade separated and run with high service frequency) over time.
In a GoA (Grade of Automation) 4 system the intent is that if things go wrong the remote team operates the train. This obviously means it can't cope with power failure, but these are invariably electric trains so they aren't going anywhere without power anyway. A mechanical fault that renders the train unable to continue safely under its own local supervision would result in a remote operator controlling it though.
They do in a lot of metros, although it's often very hard to retro-fit. The DLR got it at build-time. [1]
One of the big issues is 'degraded working' where there's been some sort of failure (or perhaps adverse weather conditions) which means trains have to operate on vocal authority to proceed on sight. The problem then becomes as hard as driverless cars - you have to know when you've reached milepost 70 or the next set of points by sight and it's really bad if you miss them. Arrival to and dispatch from stations without platform-edge doors is also tricky and human staff are often required to manage the process.
Very good point with the degraded working. In a train serving hundreds of passengers (or many dozens of truckloads), running on something that is literally as expensive to maintain as a whole rail network, the cost saved by cutting the driver is just not worth the extra hassle and delay in edge cases. Perhaps it is much more meaningful to think of that person as the engineer on duty than as a driver.
Autonomous rail has probably racked up billions of passenger-kilometres by now. The edge cases are pretty thin and it's unlikely that a human driver will have equivalent levels of accumulated experience.
The most reliable line in the MTA, for example, is the L train. It is also the closest to fully autonomous (due to union rules, there is a driver who turns it on and then "supervises" the train).
I use a driverless subway almost daily. And it's rare, but not not terribly rare to see the fallback driver panel in use. It works because a fallback driver can be deployed in minutes, which is very much not true with the distances spanned by heavy rail.
Regarding the L train, how much would service suffer if the "supervisor" wasn't there to clean up whatever is left by reliability nines? We may never know. And it is hardly surprising that a recently modernized line is beating the living history museum that is the rest of the MTA. It's quite a leap to go from modernization causing reliability to automation causing reliability.
Pretty much all modern cars will go faster than is useful and/or safe. Only a small set of public roads allow cars to go their top speed. I have a 1991 Corvette that will go 153 mph, and I've only done it twice. It scares the crap out of me. Top speed is a cool thing to boast about, but most people won't ever see it, and a few stupid people will hurt themselves with it. That's okay on the balance, because millionaires are spending their money and supporting the economy. Buying one of these cars probably funds an engineer's salary and likely a few others supplying materials to Bugatti.
Also Bugatti is part of the VW Group - so it's possible that some day the engineering may trickle down to all of the other brands in the group (such as the humble Skodas I've been driving for the last few years).
If you haven't pushed it on a race track with long straights, you have to try. I don't know how 1991 Corvette feels at high speeds but in newer sports cars, the long straight will seem like the time to relax a little, even in the 150s.
a few stupid people will hurt themselves with it. That's okay on the balance, because millionaires are spending their money and supporting the economy.
A little bit of chlorine in the gene pool is often beneficial for mankind.
Adults should be free to engage in dangerous activities. The unfortunate problems are 1) they can and do hurt other people and 2) they hurt themselves and subsequently become vegetables and wards of the state.
That's why we have laws against (some) dangerous behavior. It's all a balancing act between individual freedom and society.
bugatti tends to only make <50 of each of its models, and many of them are driven rarely if ever. it's not "ok", but there are much more pressing concerns in the world of road safety. I've never even seen a bugatti in person.
I rented a car a couple of years ago that read speed signals and kept them in the dashboard for about 30 extra seconds. It was great usability. It only dealt with speed limitations and a couple of other signals, though - if it dealt correctly with “next exit” signs I would never buy a car without that system.
The obvious upgrade is to have no operator at all. It boggles the mind that we're seriously talking about self-driving cars on shared roads, and at the same time don't have self-driving trains, and instead allow them to fly off the rails every year due to operator error.
How is it not practical? We have race tracks in my area, so if I owned one of these, I'd get a ton of use out of it destroying other people on the track. That's pretty practical from my perspective.
It's not going to make my commute any faster, but that's not the only use for cars.
Correction: transmitting the track signal to the cab is how high-speed trains worked half a century ago. That's SOP on most modern trains by now, with high-speed rail using moving blocks now (no more physical signals at predefined distances, control system negotiates the safe distance for each train, based on realtime data).
No one decides to marry their spouse based on how punctual they are. Cars like these (and just sports cars in general) are things you buy with your heart
Not like you'd get anywhere any faster when there's traffic around. Punctuality is a sign of planning, and that's a desirable trait, so I don't know about no one.
> No one decides to marry their spouse based on how punctual they are
Anecdote to the contrary: I've broken off a relationship with someone who was habitually very late, for that reason (and the denial that it was a problem).
One of the things that I really like about my current partner is that they are habitually very punctual, or early.
I wonder how well their next model would sell if it was limited (with no option or upgrade to unlock it) to a maximum of 100mph. I imagine most buyers aren't buying to race it around a track.
I mean they obviously aren't doing this with the intention of having people actually take advantage of this speed on the road. The whole point is to build a vehicle which can go these kinds of speeds with the added constraint that you must be able to drive it on the road. Not everything people do or create has to be for purely practical purposes, that would be boring.
You don't have to drive road legal cars 300mph on a street. That's why they have streetcar races at racetracks. Also, I'm very much doubting that any Bugatti owner bought because it's in any way a practical purchase.
I drive a nice looking car and get asked almost daily how fast it goes or how expensive it is or how much power it has. Bugatti is on point bringing out all the big numbers because that's what all the non-car-guys want to know! Who cares about practicality when you can be the guy that owns the car that makes all the dudes brag to their friends that they spotted a car that can go x miles per hour etc.
On the other hand, if I get asked those questions, I have to judge the person asking and do some calculus in my head to determine if I can get away with lying that it goes 200mph or costs 200k despite not even coming close to reaching those numbers. Or respond with another impressive factoid they can go home and brag about when I don't want to reveal my wealth or my lack of it. Bugatti owners don't have that problem!
Non-production car, not replicated in both directions. Impressive, but not any sort of record. Looking forward to them doing it in the forthcoming production car.
Yes, because people who want to go 490km/h want to do so because it gets them to B quicker, not because they want to have fun.
Also, no, I'd rather be safe from my own and other's mistakes, which are far more likely to happen at that pace and I'd rather have lower emissions from all cars. I am happy to sacrifice speed for that.
My old boss had his Ferrari fitted with winter tires to drive it year round in Denmark. His logic: Why should I only be able to drive the car I love driving 5 month a year. (That answer is related to the heater, or lack there of, in a Ferrari. It is apparently really cold driving it in January)
I like that approach a lot more. What the point of having an awesome car, if you're afraid to drive it.
I found a youtube video where someone was testing a Ferrari to see how well the heater worked, compared to a Mini, but once I saw that he was just idling them and not driving them, I decided it was lame and not to link it.
Once again the IC cars manufacturers underperform. This is non-production car and very late to the party. Meanwhile Tesla Roadster, an EV car, is doing cool 4513 mph - or 15 times faster, with insane fuel economy of ~0.03 l/100km.
Does anyone have any insights to if this brings any interesting science to the table that is applicable outside of this context? I personally have zero interest in a fast car going fast, but it's always interesting to see how these sorts of difficult feats help humanity in more general ways.
One important side effect of going fast is that you need to slow down fast. So better braking power. (Though the problem with supercars is that simply using something that needs replacement every few hundred miles is "acceptable".)
Similarly anything that rotates has to withstand torque and centrifugal force. Eg wheels. (See also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_ImAm1WhcY for what it takes for going 3x faster.)
These advances result in capital investment for R&D, percolate through the supply chain, and this can lead to better techniques here and there. (But I think after a certain point the disparity between the technology - the trade offs - needed for 100 mph and 300 mph become so large, that the resulting new/better capabilities doesn't mean anything for the normal automobile ecosystem.)
For the Veyron I know they developed special tires with Michelin to be able to handle the extreme high speeds.
Such development might help "normal" tires improve in durability.
I can imagine this is something that happens in a lot of area's. Pushing every part to the extremes might help make them more reliable under normal usage.
Ultra high speeds also require efficient aerodynamics, which in turn helps reduce drag/fuel usage.
It wasn’t just tires, but rims as well. If I recall correctly for the original at top speed the useful life of rims was about 30min, tires about 15. You on my had 12 min of fuel at that rate though. Rim + tire replacement was something like 100k USD. Not that anyone was going to be able to put many top speed minutes together in practice.
For the Veyron they had to work a lot on aerodynamics. The aerodynamic lift at 400km/h would usually make any car go airborne, so they had to find ways to prevent this without increasing drag too much.
There is a bunch of R&D, typically not revolutionary but still best in class. It’s what engineers love to work on anyway; supercars would likely exist even if nobody wanted to buy them. I think we have plenty of similar “products” in the hardware and software markets - stuff that doesn’t necessarily move the needle, but somehow exists at the very top of the market anyway, simply because it satisfies a lust.
Interestingly, they keep getting into "smaller" sounds. Snaps are kind of long-ish, potentially. Something can slowly snap (jerk primed) in two, it's not "as instantaneous a sound" as the two others. Compare to the pops (third) that are part of any crackle (second) you might hear. I always find it a little extra clever that they're ordered "like derivatives".
Snap, Crackle, and Pop were three cartoon mascots of Rice Krispies cereal. (Mentioning only because non-US or "other generation" people might not get the reference.)
Big-engined high performance sportsbikes really demonstrate this well. Rolling on the throttle in a high gear at a lowish speed results in a ride up the torque curve; the effect is the faster you get the harder the acceleration becomes. It's an exciting demonstration of positive-feedback.
I did some calculations once to relate sportbike performance to cars. People usually think about performance in terms of peak power on paper, which is not where you are most of the time on the street.
I estimated that if you are riding a 600cc bike at roughly car-like rpms, then the power to weight ratio is comparable to a car with a 3.5L V-6. But if you are using the upper range, then it's more comparable to a Ferrari.
With a literbike, if you are at car-like rpms, the power to weight is like a street car with a fairly large V-8, but if you are using it at high speeds, then it's comparable to a F1 car.
Top Gear actually did a road test of a Tesla S vs an Aston Martin starting at 30 MPH and the Tesla dusted the Aston Martin. Considering electric motors start with max torque, and the stats that are easily googlable, the Tesla would have no problem with the Bugatti.
Never mind the Tesla is smaller, has a lower center of gravity, and costs 15x less and has more range.
And it's probably worth noting that the Tesla is almost certainly software limited.
Also, I haven't test-driven a Bugatti, but I've tested a Tesla. My wife compared the acceleration to a launched roller coaster. I entered the turn onto an onramp at 20 mph, exited the 90-ish degree turn at 60 in the same lane, and hit 80 by the time I realized I needed to take my foot off the pedal. We weren't halfway down the ramp. What was really impressive about that was the turn: plastered into the back and the side of seat at the same time, traction like it was on rails to whole time. It is quite possible the car was outperforming my nervous system's ability to orient.
Apples and oranges. Stats alone are pretty meaningless when comparing what's basically a mass produced commuter car that had to meet a price point with a limited production luxury super car built without budget constraints.
The Bugattis and Aston Martins alike are engineered to lap tracks or do speed runs over and over again in comfort and luxury without any reduction in acceleration or braking performance while Tesla's drive-train reaches its thermal limits really fast if you push it and reduces its performance accordingly.
Tesla, due to how economics factor in engineering, was not designed to deliver it's peak performance in a sustained fashion but in short bursts when you need it. The Bugattis and Porsches can deliver their peak performance all day long, that's why they cost x-times more. And let's not talk about luxury or comfort.
> The Bugattis and Aston Martins alike are engineered to lap tracks or do speed runs over and over again in comfort and luxury without any reduction in acceleration or braking performance while Tesla's drive-train reaches its thermal limits really fast if you push it and reduces its performance accordingly.
a problem the Porsche Taycan solves (to some extent).
"The Bugattis and Aston Martins alike are engineered to lap tracks or do speed runs over and over again in comfort and luxury without any reduction in acceleration or braking performance"
Well, I don't doubt they are more capable than a Tesla, but I don't think any ultra-high performance car can sustain high speeds indefinitely. The Bugatti Veyron has tires that last for about 15 minutes at top speed, but then again, the fuel will run out in 12.
It also seems like you see supercars on fire a lot, also hinting that they are not that durable when you push them.
The tesla is really fast to 70mph or so, after that it constantly lose power as it revs.
>And it's probably worth noting that the Tesla is almost certainly software limited.
Most things are software limited in modern cars. The question is, if you improved the battery pack so it could deliver more power, would the motors handle it?
The limitations are there to protect the battery pack and motors - Teslas are production cars with multi-year warranty, so the conservative limits are accordingly.
The fastest Tesla seems to beat the stock version of the Bugatti in question by about a quarter second from 0-60 (2.25s vs 2.5s) but the Bugatti handily beats the Tesla in the 1/4 mile by half a second and 25 mph, so the Tesla wins at acceleration for the first second or so.
The torque curve on the Bugatti starts out lower for the first 1-2k RPM and then sticks at a significantly higher torque that seems artificially flat, likely limited by the rest of the drivetrain to save on weight (or ripping itself apart as opposed to the Tesla which would light on fire if the limiters were removed).
These fancy supercars come with "launch control". A mechanism that will rev in a high range (charging the turbos) and then release the clutch with full torque. I wonder if that helps...
Yeah the results on a dyno won't match the actual torque on the wheels when launching. It would be interesting to see a graph of how that happens. Torque vs. Time and RPM vs. Time on a two y-axis graph for an actual launch (maybe you could put sensors on the axles)
I ride bikes and from a practical standpoint, along with small size and manoeuvrability, the acceleration (a result of torque) is one of the most useful attributes. Much moreso than top speed, or even speeds significantly in excess of the posted limits.
Bikes don't tend to have high torque in general, but their light weight and gearing are designed to maximise what torque they do produce. This means there are quite a few that will do sub 3 seconds to 60, and sub 5 seconds is practically the norm.
What this means is that you can more easily get past, and through, traffic because you can safely take advantage of gaps that no car can. Also, that sense of having your arms ripped out of their sockets and hanging on for dear life is fun.
Still, there's something to be said for going really fast as well: the feeling of the world blurring past you, and the road or track flowing and snaking underneath you like mercury, is hard to beat (if sometimes a little terrifying).
I assume you're talking about electric bikes or motorcycles? This confused me a lot for a while because I don't usually see those referred to as "bikes".
> This means there are quite a few that will do sub 3 seconds to 60, and sub 5 seconds is practically the norm.
This was the give-away - pretty sure very few humans can do 60 mph on a bicycle, unless they're drafting.
Bikes like Harleys and BMW twins have plenty of torque, where bikes like Kawasaki Ninja's major on power (peak torque at high revs). Hence Harleys and BMW's are first off the line at the lights (no need to build revs) but the Ninja's will come steaming past seconds later.
There are some fun youtube videos demoing bike performance, e.g. Ninja H2's doing 0-250MPH in 26s [0], outdragging a Bugatti [1] and outpacing an F1 car and an F16 fighter at the same time.
I believe I did point out that on Ninja's (I have one) you need to build the revs; you can't just dump the clutch and go like you can on a BMW Boxer or a Harley (which I also have). Hence the Ninja is generally slowest away when the lights change (but is by far the quickest bike overall).
In fact bicycles are fastest off the line, since they produce max. torque at 0rpm (just keep weight on a pedal, release the brakes to go). But acceleration is modest, so motorbikes and cars will soon go past.
And of course electrically-driven vehicles are also capable of producing torque at 0rpm, hence their acceleration advantage.
> In fact bicycles are fastest off the line, since they produce max. torque at 0rpm (just keep weight on a pedal, release the brakes to go).
I doubt a bicycle would actually cross the starting line before a high end bike or car would surpass it. A 180lb rider would produce about 90lb of torque at most (assuming 6” crank) and that’s only for the instant that the crank is parallel with the ground.
A high end car would deliver significantly more than 90lb of torque instantaneously by dumping the clutch (or using launch control).
You can produce torque in excess of your weight by using pedals that clip in and pedaling "circles" instead of "squares". When I was in good shape I figured I could produce torque much closer to my weight than half of it.
The average rider probably cannot produce more torque than their weight that way. A quick search indicates that professional cycling sprinters can generate slightly over 100 ft-lb of torque. The average rider won’t be producing anything close to that. (Hard to find anything definitive, though.)
If you aren’t standing up sprinting, you’re definitely not going to be getting anything close to your “body weight torque”.
Yes, but the car has to accelerate around 20 times the mass. Bugatti Veyron is listed as having the highest torque [0] at 1,106lb/ft but then it weighs over 4,000 lbs. Plus there'd a delay for the engine to rev up to peak torque before the launch (i.e. it wont produce 1,100ft-lbs at idle). Be interesting to test, but I'm not too practiced at racing Veyron's off the line on my bicycle.
Having said that, I am very used to riding bicycles and (large) motorbikes around town, and from waiting for lights to change if I'm on a bicycle I'm generally first away even when motorbike riders are getting competitive (never mind cars).
The advantage of the bicycle is generally only a few feet, of course.
Race cars don’t launch at idle. If you’re racing cars that are idling when the light turns green, then you aren’t racing their engines. You’re racing the driver’s disinterested reaction time.
The Veyron might weight 20x as much as you and your bike, but has over 300x the power output of the best sprinters in the world.
Given equal reaction time and equal interest in racing, I am doubtful your cycling advantage would last for more than inches against a high end sports car.
I quite agree, as I've pointed out elsewhere although the bicycle is fastest away it's a short-lived advantage (I'm not discussion racing starts, so it's assumed all vehicles are starting from idle and reacting to e.g. lights changing).
In a racing start, a well-driven torquey car (like the Veyron) will also launch faster than a motorbike - at least to start with. Once the speed increases, the acceleration drops and the motorbike can then use its superior power-to-weight ratio (which it can't fully use off the line). Eventually - once speeds are well into triple digits - a fast-enough car starts to catch up with the motorbike again (due to better aerodynamics).
/me commutes by bicycle, 32km each way, in traffic light hell that is Tokyo.
I can get off the line faster then automobiles, they aren't racing / clutch dumping at the lights. Traffic is so heavy and with so many intersections, it's typically pointless for automobiles to race off the line anyways.
As I filter past daily the same Pagani and Bugatti and LFA and Tesla S and NSX. :D
I race an r6. There's no difference at all between a 600cc and a 1000cc bike off the line assuming a capable rider. When I launch, I can't keep the front wheel on the ground at full throttle, until about 70mph. Yes, if we are talking rolling on the throttle, not using any technique etc the big torquey twin will win Everytime.
Once you are in third though displacement takes the lead, and my smaller engine bike is at a disadvantage!
None we're talking about general around-time riding, waiting for the lights to change here. The point is big torque means less delay between seeing the signals change and starting to move.
No disagreement that if the ZX9 is sitting on the line with the revs already in hand that it's going to be away first.
Rev engine, slip clutch to launch, versus slip clutch and immediately begin putting on the power.. no matter what, you need to engage the clutch and add throttle. The motor has so little mass it's not like it takes a long time to get it spinning before dumping the clutch on a low-torque motorcycle, and you can rev before the green.
And regardless of what you're riding, you'll be across the intersection before most cars have even begun moving.
Case in point: a homologated (i.e. stock road car) Ford RS200 Evo set a record of 0-60 in 3.07 seconds back in 1986. When tuned for racing (non-road-legal) they would hit 60 in 2.1 sec.
That's with a 2.0 litre straight-four engine, in the 1980s.
Optimizing for ludicrous acceleration has always been possible. But it is at odds with race track performance, which is what Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are focused on. At the track, if you are going below 80 mph at any point after the first 4 seconds, you're doing it wrong.
> But it is at odds with race track performance, which is what Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are focused on.
I've been wondering about that for some time. What type(s) of competitions do cars like that enter? I'm not exactly knowledgeable in the racing world, so my view is very limited; the few times a see something about racing (excluding F1 and rally which are obviously different beasts), I mainly see BMWs, Porches, Corvettes (I think) and so on. Maybe my limited exposure just covered the wrong competition?
a standard Porsche 911 is not really a racecar. it can be really fun to drive on a track and it will get good lap times, but no one would race this car in a serious competition. this type of car will mainly be driven on the street and in amateur races.
now there are certain racing series like FIA GT3 where manufacturers are required to make a certain number of street-legal vehicles to qualify that car for the competition. a Porsche 911 GT3 RS is an example of this type of car. make a couple small modifications and your street-legal car is a GT3 racecar. homologated cars like this tend to push the limits of what's tolerable to drive on the street; they're not really setup to be comfortable.
I get that the Porches in races are not exactly like the Porches on the street.
But how does that work for Bugati, Ferrari, Lamborghini (and McLaren, Pagani, Koenigsegg)? Are the street cars (more or less) the same as the ones in races? Do they even race?
And in conclusion, how accurate is the statement that (production models of) Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are focused on race track performance?
there's an inherent tradeoff between comfort/luxury on the street and track performance. every luxury feature adds weight, which compromises track performance. for the track, you want a stiff suspension and you want the car to be as low as possible to the ground. when you drive on the street, you probably don't want to feel the crashing impact of every pothole and you really don't want to worry about scraping the car (or even getting stuck) on speedbumps.
> But how does that work for Bugati, Ferrari, Lamborghini (and McLaren, Pagani, Koenigsegg)? Are the street cars (more or less) the same as the ones in races? Do they even race?
it's hard to give a simple answer to this question because the manufacturers you listed make a pretty wide range of cars. they try to hit a lot of different points on the luxury vs track performance, but they're all oriented much more towards repeatable track performance than a model s.
if by "race" you mean the local track, sure, all of these cars are going to perform very well. even the most luxury focused models are going to totally outclass my hot hatch and keep going for a lot longer. if you're talking about a serious race, no you cannot just show up with your street-legal ferrari and start racing. for one thing, safety regs for these races will usually be incompatible with local laws for street cars (eg, roll cages are illegal in many jurisdictions, but required for races), and you would want to strip out a lot more weight anyway (passenger seat, floormats, etc) to be competitive. you can get really close with certain homologated models though. I believe most of the manufacturers you listed participate in GT2/GT3, but I'm not familiar with the specific cars from every brand.
> And in conclusion, how accurate is the statement that (production models of) Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are focused on race track performance?
it's true that any car from any of those manufacturers is going to be much more focused on repeatable track performance than mass market hondas, VWs, etc. the extent to which comfort and practicality is compromised varies a lot between specific models.
I hope this answers your question. I'm certainly not an authoritative source, just an enthusiast.
There is a key difference between being used in actual races and being built for the racetrack. Lots of rich people want cars built for the racetrack, without actually racing them.
The word for "road car exactly like a race car" is "homologated". It's done in some racing series, basically forcing manufacturers to build 200 copies of the car, making it road legal, and putting at least some of those on the market.
Ferrari, McLaren, and Lamborghini are focused on race track performance. Bugatti is optimized for top speed and prestige, which makes them hogs on the corners due to the heavyass train engine that powers it.
It also has a worse drag coefficient than your prius, it needs to suck in an enormous amount of air to cool and feed that quad-turbocharged w16 engine.
For general "racing" you can apply a number of tricks, including "pumping" the gas during cornering, clutch in more gradually, brake boosting - all keeping the turbo spooled. But I was specifically thinking about running at a fixed speed between 1500-2000 rpm and then mash the gas because you want acceleration - think of overtaking. An EV is vastly superior in this regard because you just press the throttle and off you go.
> Roads don't like torque. If high-torque becomes a trend, expect to pay more vehicle-tax.
This is a bit off-topic, but this isn't really accurate. (Not the fact that high torque causes more surface damage thing, that's probably defensible - though gross loading does much more damage to roads in most conditions). But the source of funding for road construction and maintenance.
Depending where you live, your vehicle tax doesn't do much of anything for the roads anyway. They're maintained and repaved using general funds, usually taken from property taxes and income taxes.
So called "hypothecated" taxes (supposedly dedicated to a specific purpose) are rarely actually restricted to that usage.
In Australia, even if the tax is supposedly restricted in what it can be applied to, I believe that the parliament can legislate otherwise at any time.
I’m the complete opposite. I hate cars that have loads of torque on the low end then go down from there, it gives me the feeling that they get out of breath on the top half of the rev range.
My daily driver FN2 Civic Type-R (stock, except for brake lines and pads) and whatever preconceptions are had about Honda, this is an engineering marvel. Torque is mostly linear, slightly going up on the top half, with a slight drop just before the 8300rpm limiter, giving the feeling that the car keeps on giving - wanting to give, even -you more and more. As for the numbers, it does 0-100kph in 6.2-6.4s but that’s because there’s a 2-3 gearshift at 95 (it’s well under 6 to that): it’s just such a “screw the numbers game” mentality, “let’s get the most out of this in every possible way, whatever the benchmarks. Only fun matters.”, which I fully subscribe to.
Anyway, even acceleration is overrated, nice turns is what matters and gives Gs much more quickly than any acceleration, and this one delivers, with fantastic fast cornering and good tight cornering (if you set the car up correctly on entry to avoid understeer). As a tire manufacturer as said (I think it was Bridgestone), “fun is not a straight line”.
And although imperfect in many ways, this car is so much fun (and practical, to boot) I have than big stupid grin in minutes, on every ride. I’ve driven so many powerful cars on occasion yet after the initial oomph effect, none ever came close to that. On the lower power end I did enjoy that ‘06 Suzuki Swift, and the latest MX-5 is solid gold :)
Mr. Tom put a V8 into a Miata while keeping it as close to the original in terms of handling as possible (I think the end result only weighs a couple hundred lb more)
Mr. Tom is a maniac of precision, so the videos are a joy to see how clean everything is (he’a a bit of a nerd though)
"I hate cars that have loads of torque on the low end then go down from there, it gives me the feeling that they get out of breath on the top half of the rev range."
I might argue that there is no such thing as an engine (assuming reasonably modern and N/A) that has "a lot of low end torque"; rather that kind of engine should be described as "lacking high end torque".
This is why I've always loved big turbos. A little bit of lag, followed by being thrown in your seat like a rocket taking off. You can get the same with a big naturally aspirated engine, but a turbo is often cheaper and more feasible than an engine swap.
The biggest problem with this is having too much torque. If the car isn't designed for it, you'll just spin the tires at full throttle, and you'll have to settle for mid-2nd and 3rd gear pulls. I knew someone with a boosted awd Toyota Camry that could spin all the tires in 3rd.
Yep. From 1986-1992 there was a model SV25 that used the All-Trac drivetrain with a 3S-FE engine. Almost the same powertrain as the Celica GT-Four, the first Japanese car to win WRC titles. You find the Camry, swap in an MR2 Turbo engine (a modern version of the Celica GT-Four's) and you have an old beaten up grandma car with the powertrain of a rally car.
Incredible! A celebration of silliness in all its absurd glory. I was not expecting Bugatti would do a top speed run at least for a few more years for the tyres to become available so I think we all expected Koenigsegg to be the first to 300mph. Massive achievement for Michelin as much as VW.
For those interested in the science and physical limits of acceleration (not just top speed), this video talks about the physics behind the fastest 0-60 runs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAvIVGGhEis
He works at it starting with tire limits during ABS braking, and throws in real-world examples like Tesla and the Dodge Demon.
Right? I mostly lurk here but for some reason almost everyone is like "well you can't drive that speed on any normal road anyway". Yes, thank you. You won't typically launch yourself to the Moon either but it's nice that someone is trying to do it instead and it is okay to marvel at the engineering that is needed to do so.
The milestone of reaching faster speeds with combustion engines seems to be a wrong goal in this day and age. Climate change is a fact, and the burning of material based on oil/coal is a major driver of this. The effects have been known for decades, but only now major impacts can be seen and felt.
In German, there is this phrase, which describes the time period after a certain success/enjoyment/well-being. Literally translated it meanss the fat years are over ("Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei."). It's usually used in the context of forced savings vs voluntariy expenditure, but it fits with the current state of our environment as well. The times of making faster cars and enjoying high speeds are over, if we don't want to demise as a species. Environmentally safer beahviour should become more fun.
I think the "fat years" are still in the future. Intelligent electric cars (however they may look like, think about the Renault Twizzy) and other means of transportation will make the combustion cars we have now look like dinosaurs and we will be proud of what we have then.
I recently bought a new car in Germany (combustion engine as I needed a 7-seater). People ask me why I took the base engine (140HP) while adding all other optional equipment possible. I tell them: in and around a city, even those 140HP will never get used. And the times I am on the Autobahn AND (!!) being able to actually drive more than 130km/h are so rare that I would never put my money into higher speeds/acceleration. The question of "enough power" has been solved some years ago. Now let's make this power intelligent and sustainable.
The big issue with the small displacement turbo-charged engines is that, at normal autobahn speed, the engine is almost always on boost and therefore burning a lot of fuel to:
2. Produce enough power to sustain a constant speed of 120KPH or whatever
This means that they are far less efficient than they should be, and in some cases get more or less the same efficiency as larger displacement high capacity engines.
When they are really small: yes. But most cars come with gear boxes and horse powers dimensioned so that you are almost always driving at low rpms at normal autobahn speeds (like 120/130). At least my new car with the 140HP engine rolls along at about 2500rpm at Autobahn speed.
I don't know where you live, but 140bhp is a lot for a small-ish car here in UK - it would almost certainly be prohibitively expensive to insure for a young driver for instance. My sister's first car is a VW Polo with a 1.0L 65bhp engine, and that "monster" runs at nearly 4000rpm when doing the legal 70mph(~120km/h) on the motorway. At least it's not a turbo engine so I suppose it's not that bad. It was still a small fortune to insure purely because she's under 25 and had her licence for a year.
Interesting; things are a bit different in the US. I bought my first car at 18. It was small, a Honda Civic Si, but had 198bhp. That wasn’t a slow car by any means, but wasn’t considered especially fast either.
FWIW, I suspect it’s higher than average for North America too, for smaller cars. Higher proportion of trucks and SUVs though, and “small cars” are mostly a bit larger.
For more perspective, that’s about what a really fast motorcycle puts out these days, e.g. H2 SX. That’s a whole different ballgame of power-to-weight. Not many are pushing 200, but there are lots in the 150 to 180 range, stock. Heck, even some of the midsize (read, small and under 450lb) are knocking on the bottom end of that range with displacements well under 1l.
I agree and say this all the time. As someone who grew up driving in an ancient 60's Volkswagen with well less than 100 HP, I can tell you that we can make small cars with much lower horsepower that also get far better fuel economy.
People then tell me that they think that is stupid and like having the acceleration when getting on the interstate. In all those years, I never found acceleration to be a problem. We've been pitched cars that have way more power than we need and that use way more fuel than we need. Magazines like Car and Driver will write negative editorials if a car isn't "zippy". What should matter is safety, cost, and fuel economy.
In the US' South region, nearly everyone feels the need for a giant truck. It has been engrained as a lifestyle choice. You get your truck to help you haul your four-wheeler for deer hunting and your boat for fishing. However, 90% of these trucks are used by single individuals as daily drivers to office jobs which is extremely wasteful. They even live in suburbs which have to get bigger garages to compensate. Each man's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather drove one too, so it is deeply tied to one's masculinity. The south also has some of the nation's poorest citizens and Mississippi/Alabama/Louisiana/Arkansas have some of the worst elementary and highschools in the nation. It isn't uncommon for folks to get extremely in debt on a $50k lifted 4x4 deisel pickup truck.
I think you are missing the forest from the trees. If we want to truly reduce climate change we should start by reducing international shipping, consumerism, and non-essential air travel for both pleasure and business.
A 300MPH speed run in an ultra low production Bugatti car is more or less insignificant in the fight against climate change.
You write we should reduce:
international shipping, consumerism, and non-essential air travel
Sure you can but it will be heavily inconvenient (at least for many in the west).
But do you know what reduces the carbon footprint by about 75% in a country like Germany?
1.) Electric cars/trains
2.) Electricity from renewables
3.) Heating using electrical power from renewables (heat pumps)
Of the last 25%, there are 20% from industrial production and in the last 5% you could include air travel (2%) among other things.
Heating and driving and getting power from renewables makes your lifestyle about 0% different from what it is now. Buying goods that last longer even means giving life a touch of luxury. A better, more luxurious lifestyle that produces about 75% less carbon dioxide.
Impossible? In a growing number of countries, this will be possible soon.
Of course, not flying, not consuming gives you that "holy" feeling of "having done something". But done right, a sustainable lifestyle makes the life we have now even better. It takes a bit of political willpower, of course.
I am not disagreeing with electric cars at all, I think it is important.
But the carbon footprint created within the West is just a small amount of the carbon footprint that the West contributes to. We can't just reduce our own carbon footprint if it simply pushes that carbon footprint onto other, less developed countries.
I think it will be very unlikely that we will continue to live with the same luxuries that we enjoy today while still aggressively reducing climate change. It won't be a case of "we have electric transport, but I can still buy a new iPhone once a year". It will be a case of aggressively cutting back everywhere and and ultimately growth and our economy will suffer in the short-term for long-term sustainability.
If you freeze the economy to today‘s state and technology, there will be no growth any more, sure. But at least in our lifetime, the move to a sustainable economy will create more growth and opportunities than will be cut in unsustainable industries. I do not what happens in 150 years, but for the next 50 years I do not worry. As we need more intelligent technologies than we used to have, the value ofhe output will rise, thus economies that are able to adapt will profit.
Using solar, wind and water to create power will, by the way, not push the carbon footprint somewhere else. It will, to a great part, vanish. And those economies who, in future, produce their own energy instead of importing them, will have a higher GDP and less dependence of foreign markets.
Why international shipping specifically? It’s extremely efficient and currently accounts for only around 3% of global CO2 emissions. (Compare to roughly 50% for electricity production, 20% for manufacturing, and 20% for transportation as a whole.)
For starters, because shipping CO2 emissions are rising fast [0], and CO2 is by far not the only concern. Ships burn unrefined "bunker oil," emitting proportionally huge amounts of particulate pollution, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides, which harm people and other organisms [1, 2]. For example, back in 2009, the 15 biggest ships emitted as much SO2 and NOx as all the cars on earth: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping...
Emissions from everything else are rising fast too. Surely curbing emissions growth from electricity generation will have a much bigger impact.
The articles about SO2 and NOx emissions are clickbait. They compare to cars, which are extremely clean in this respect. In any case, the subject here is climate change and these pollutants are irrelevant. (Strictly speaking, they slightly mitigate warning.)
I’m not saying we should ignore shipping, but I don’t see why it should be anywhere close to first on the list of things to focus on when fighting climate change.
The problem isnt the handful of hypercars but the hundreds of millions of 1.5-2 ton cars being used to ferry a single occupant from stop light to stop light. Its easy to point to these hypercars as being excessive but remember the reason we can drive a car that has the performance of a mid-80s sportscar that does 50mpg for not much money comes directly from tech trickling down from these machines.
Glad to see this perspective as the top comment that this community upvoted.
Our values determine where we devote our engineering resources -- time, money, attention, brilliance. If we degrade the environment to where it can't sustain our population, people will suffer. What are the relative values of millions maybe billions of climate refugees versus a fast car powered by unsustainable fossil fuels?
Imagine we devoted those resources to solving political and environmental problems.
This reads like a challenge to produce an electric car powered by renewable energy to go past 300+ MPH. Watch FIA Formula E racing, and you'll gain confidence that 300+ MPH electric cars will happen. There will be no end to the fat times, my friend. We'll just switch it to a different power source.
Is this a "combustion engine" achievement or a "road legal wheel-powered" achievement (i.e. not "reactive engine powered car")? In other words, are there any electric cars that are faster? Wikipedia suggests "no" [1].
If that's correct, your comment makes no sense. Many of the developments needed for combustion-powered records would apply to electricity-powered records as well, such as suspension, wheels/tires, gears, ...
This is an extremely narrow point of view, and one that actually hinders the support of properly dealing with climate change.
Halo car engineering results in trickle down effects to all of the vehicles you and I drive on a daily basis. Tire materials and engineering, aerodynamics r&d, suspension improvements, and so forth can apply to all types of vehicles, regardless of whether or not the power comes from an ICE engine or electric motor.
So while you may see this as a needless exercise in achieving 300 mph on a combustion engine, I see this as perhaps something that could give a 1% increase in fuel economy to VAG's entire fleet. Of course it's not a given, but let's applaud and support the potential.
I remember when Top Gear took out their first Bugatti, they pointed out that the tires were... I can't remember if they £10k apiece or per set, and at top speed their range diminished drastically. At top speed the life of the tires was measured in hours, and not many of them, not unlike a race car. So wear and tear to 'open her up' was astoundingly high.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 294 ms ] thread[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfu1CGpW6lU
However, 300mph is a valid goal as that was the milestone Sir Malcolm Campbell also barely passed in his final world-record run in the Bluebird.
So relatively muscular imperial miles are correctly used. Readers' eyes might pass over in disinterest should weird & weedy "kilometres" be used instead.
On a more serious note, I'm sure the various manufacturer marketing departments take every opportunity, imperial, metric, Klingon, whatever, to mark a passing of a numeric "barrier" - i.e. a number ending in zeros.
Although apparently that barrier was broken in 1937 by Thunderbolt, so I'm not sure what record we're actually talking about here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The article says that this is the first from a series manufacturer. Why does Koenigsegg not count, or was this the first?
See here, coincidentally on the same source website: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/ford-gt-just-did-300mph
This obviously isn't a series manufacturer, so the quote in the article may still be accurate but the title seems incomplete though it (correctly) doesn't claim Bugatti is the first.
Remarkably quick.
It needs to balance low drag, down force, cooling, and probably a bunch of other factors. And it needs to look cool.
That stubby tail is actually done on purpose because it reduces drag, not increases it as you claim. A lot of aerodynamics are pretty counterintuitive. Look at the big table of drag coefficients here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient
For the Bugatti, they probably weren't going for an ultimate low drag coefficients. They need to make sure their giant engine is getting enough air, which leads to lower performing shapes. Related, they also will want a lot of downforce to make sure the car stays on the road at high speeds; to do this they build a relatively non-aerodynamic car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov0iNPfs-WM
Just think this through on a systems level. Obviously Toyota's engineers are not idiots and would use whatever aerodynamic effects they would since the entire point of the car is maximizing efficiency. If it was more efficient to have a different shape while still remaining a practical automobiu, it would. The entire design of the Prius revolves around this.
Also stop just googling for wikipedia links then coming back with information you've only just learned. It's ok not to know everything.
This is much too fast for the human operator (driver) to safely react to things outside the cockpit, which is why for example Britain owns trains capable of 140mph in service but deliberately limits them to 125mph. Tests suggested drivers couldn't be relied on to reliably observe and react to a lineside signal (showing e.g. double amber, "Prepare to find the next signal at: Prepare to find the next signal at: Danger") passed at 140mph. The "obvious" upgrade is to put the signals inside the cab with the driver, and that's how high speed trains work. But a car doesn't have in-cab signals either, and it has a LOT more external signals to respond to, including several signs we see in that video.
There's really no point in building a car that can go above 150km/h, but perhaps some of the aerodynamics can translate into more fuel efficient car.
I'm also slightly annoyed by the usage of the word "barrier". There's physical or perceived 300mph barrier. People have built cars that will go a super sonic speeds, so there was never any doubt that it would be possible. Admittedly it is a little funny that the Bugatti is faster than a Formula 1 car.
Basically, put a few corners in and I don't think it would even be close. There's quite a few cars that can claim a faster top speed than an F1 car though.
is it? That is 20-50km/h above the limit in all european countries other than Germany. There are people going that speed, but in my experience across a few countries 99% of the traffic does not go that much above the limit.
Sources:
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle.... https://autotraveler.ru/en/spravka/max-speed-limits-in-europ...
Personally, I tend to cruise at an indicated 100mph because above that enforcement ratchets up. Which is about 160kph. I certainly think it's fair to describe that as not uncommon. I do similar speeds in France and Germany and am rarely the fastest vehicle around.
In the UK? OK, at least it's clear what you think of the law.
Personally, I hope you get nailed for it. That sort of contempt for both the law and other road users ought to be penalised.
(Maybe you only cruise on empty motorways at 3 AM, and so that makes it acceptable...?)
As far as getting nailed goes, it would be a fixed penalty ticket, if anything. I don't agree that it's contempt for other road users, any more than it is to do that speed (or significantly more) on an autobahn.
And yeah, I think the law is stupid. I believe that we should eliminate speeding tickets and have police only enforce "reckless driving". Going the speed limit could be much more dangerous than exceeding it given traffic and road conditions. Going 2x the speed limit with no other cars in sight should be penalized much less than failing to signal when changing lanes while in traffic; the former only puts the driver and passengers at risk, while the latter risks all cars within a half mile or so if they cause a pileup.
Police seem to enforce the former far more than the latter because it's easier, not because it has the biggest impact.
This was on a relatively quiet, well sighted motorway in good conditions. But there were other people clearly in a hurry!
http://www.unecartedumonde.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/car...
You could definitely enjoy one on a track if you had one. But you would probably spend more time just enjoying the thought that you own it, keeping it safe, then you would take your actual track car to the track.
Even if you're "only" going to be driving at 160-180 km/h (as is common e.g. on the German autobahn) you want to be in a car that can do 220-240 km/h. You don't want to be 100% maxing the car out at your cruising speed.
The F1, in pre-internet days, literally phoned home to McLaren with telemetry.
Edit: I think you had to physically plug it into a phone socket... in case anyone was being put off buying an F1 for security/privacy reasons. ;-)
There is a reason why the TGV has seen no accidents since its launch in 1981.
As for a car, yeah, it's mostly a gimmick. Still incredible engineering, though.
The rail bed is even not that great, that's why only some ICEs are allowed on TGV routes, because they need a special deflector which is more robust to tolerate the stones which are thrown up in the air when the train drives over it.
I think they took this in consideration when they designed the latest iteration of the ICE.
If https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_France is to be believed, the high speed lines for TGV are primarily but not exclusively used for TGV:
"LGVs are reserved primarily for TGVs. One reason for this is that line capacity is sharply reduced when trains of differing speeds are mixed, ..." "Some stretches of less-used LGV are routinely mixed-traffic, such as the Tours branch ..." "Outside France, LGV-type lines often carry non-TGV intercity traffic, often as a requirement of the initial funding commitments."
I'm also not so sure about the quality of the rail bed:
"Track alignment is more precise than on normal railway lines, and ballast is in a deeper-than-normal profile, resulting in increased load-bearing capacity and track stability. "
But it is fun.
A racing car has a function: to get around a track faster than other cars (over a period of laps). To do this, it needs to be versatile: turning, braking, acceleration, fuel consumption, range of vision and suspension (among others) play a role. That's the true engineering challenge. It's why it has wheels, not wings. But to simply go fast, seems a bit pointless to me.
It's a status display in either case, given that one could adequately tell the time on a cheap digital Casio.
Status is generally derived from the signaling of certain values. Wealth is one such value, but in general we assign status to a combination of values. Aesthetic + Wealth = Art. Strength + endurance = Athletics. Leadership + Vision + Knowledge + Intelligence = Innovation.
For me, at least, these super expensive cars have lost all signaling value, except 'wealth'. Because of that, I would almost call it tasteless, senseless and idiotic.
I guess I just cannot share in the purpose of the team making this car go +300 mph. We already have the Thrust SSC (1228 km/h / 763 mph). So what does this prove? That if you want to take corners and need to see what happens behind you, you won't get to go that fast? Why not productionize the Thrust SSC then?
Max speed (to me) is just a senseless metric. It's a bit like clock speed of a CPU. Interesting metric, but only in relationship to other factors.
But with such a super car, idk, I'm just left with an empty feeling: why? What is the point?
The Bugatti is a street legal car designed to shatter speed records in a straight line. If that isn't specific function with a formula I don't know what qualifies. The street legal part of a super car is not inherently different than the 1.6L FI hybrid engine regulations of Formula 1, it's just a different set of constraints.
You do not create a winning street legal super car without knowledge, innovation, creativity, determinism, enthusiasm - and by proxy of those joy, competition, and playfulness.
I simply do not understand the gate keeping here. If it's not your thing, fair enough. But please do not invalidate the joy of others because it is real to them.
It's comparable to an mechanical watch. You can make a digital watch significantly better at time keeping and all the other functions, that is substantially cheaper both to produce and maintain. But if mechanical precision devices make your world go around, then I can appreciate that - I'm just not going to pay $10k yearly to maintain an elaborate mechanical wristwatch.
PS: if you just want the joy of speed, the fix is not a faster car but a vehicle that allows you to experience the speed better, one that isolates you less from the road. A light roadster, a motorcycle, a roadbike (quite a few people actually "graduate" from a motorcycle to a roadbike because perceived speed is higher in lycra and with legs doubling as shock absorbers)
High speed trains universally use moving-block signalling with in-cab signal indication; rather than relying on fixed trackside signal lights, the signalling system constantly tracks the exact location of each train, creates a virtual signal block around that train and indicates signal aspects and line speeds to the driver on a display in the driving cab.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_signalling#Fixed_block
What's stopping the trains from operating autonomously?
First you cannot break it anyway that fast. Second, rolling over suicidal pedestrians has a high psychotherapy cost. Driver-less trains not.
Automatic train operation systems are expensive to design and maintain, and their advantage is mainly in precision: if you're trying to put 30 trains an hour down a segment of tube tunnel, it's very helpful if the system reacts immediately to red signals and brakes at a constant predictable rate.
For longer distance services, not only is the cost of fitting ATO equipment to the track much higher (as the routes are much longer), but the schedules don't need such precise operation. It is probably cheaper to retain drivers.
In practice, even most metro systems with automatic train control still have someone on the train: it's important in an emergency and if there are degraded conditions or unusual operating needs it's helpful to have someone trained to take over.
In a GoA (Grade of Automation) 4 system the intent is that if things go wrong the remote team operates the train. This obviously means it can't cope with power failure, but these are invariably electric trains so they aren't going anywhere without power anyway. A mechanical fault that renders the train unable to continue safely under its own local supervision would result in a remote operator controlling it though.
One of the big issues is 'degraded working' where there's been some sort of failure (or perhaps adverse weather conditions) which means trains have to operate on vocal authority to proceed on sight. The problem then becomes as hard as driverless cars - you have to know when you've reached milepost 70 or the next set of points by sight and it's really bad if you miss them. Arrival to and dispatch from stations without platform-edge doors is also tricky and human staff are often required to manage the process.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway
The most reliable line in the MTA, for example, is the L train. It is also the closest to fully autonomous (due to union rules, there is a driver who turns it on and then "supervises" the train).
Regarding the L train, how much would service suffer if the "supervisor" wasn't there to clean up whatever is left by reliability nines? We may never know. And it is hardly surprising that a recently modernized line is beating the living history museum that is the rest of the MTA. It's quite a leap to go from modernization causing reliability to automation causing reliability.
Bugattis are high-end collector's cars. The average Bugatti owner owns 84 cars, 3 jets, and a yacht:
https://jalopnik.com/the-average-bugatti-owner-has-three-jet...
You buy a Bugatti simply so you can say you have one.
A Bugatti is like a piece of jewelry in my opinion - beautiful but of no practical value.
Do we also have trickle-down engineering now? Is economics not enough for that?
A little bit of chlorine in the gene pool is often beneficial for mankind.
Adults should be free to engage in dangerous activities. The unfortunate problems are 1) they can and do hurt other people and 2) they hurt themselves and subsequently become vegetables and wards of the state.
That's why we have laws against (some) dangerous behavior. It's all a balancing act between individual freedom and society.
Today's cars do feel very different and much safer.
Living in a country where going 124mph+ is nothing special helps too.
It's not going to make my commute any faster, but that's not the only use for cars.
also, tracks have turns and this thing weights like 2 tons so good luck with that.
Not their first spouse at least.
Anecdote to the contrary: I've broken off a relationship with someone who was habitually very late, for that reason (and the denial that it was a problem).
One of the things that I really like about my current partner is that they are habitually very punctual, or early.
Having a laptop with say a 16/32 Ryzen 3 (which believe is due fairly soon) would be pointless
It may be entry level, but it's also overkill for what the vast majority of people need their laptop for.
But it does help drive demand for advanced in computing power, which helps drive prices down for the computing power engineers need.
There is no such thing as too much IPC, Primary memory, and Backing store - this has been true since WW2 when Colossus was state of the art.
There Is such a thing as to little budget :-(
On the other hand, if I get asked those questions, I have to judge the person asking and do some calculus in my head to determine if I can get away with lying that it goes 200mph or costs 200k despite not even coming close to reaching those numbers. Or respond with another impressive factoid they can go home and brag about when I don't want to reveal my wealth or my lack of it. Bugatti owners don't have that problem!
The ABS is one of those examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system#Moder...
Will their owner often if ever use them at their full potential? Probably not but if they can afford it, who cares?
As long as the research can be funded through it.
The roads are for getting from A to B, not racing. If you want to go 490km/h, go to a race track.
Also, no, I'd rather be safe from my own and other's mistakes, which are far more likely to happen at that pace and I'd rather have lower emissions from all cars. I am happy to sacrifice speed for that.
I like that approach a lot more. What the point of having an awesome car, if you're afraid to drive it.
Source: https://www.whereisroadster.com/
Joking aside, a really nice car I wouldn't mind owning!
Similarly anything that rotates has to withstand torque and centrifugal force. Eg wheels. (See also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_ImAm1WhcY for what it takes for going 3x faster.)
These advances result in capital investment for R&D, percolate through the supply chain, and this can lead to better techniques here and there. (But I think after a certain point the disparity between the technology - the trade offs - needed for 100 mph and 300 mph become so large, that the resulting new/better capabilities doesn't mean anything for the normal automobile ecosystem.)
Such development might help "normal" tires improve in durability.
I can imagine this is something that happens in a lot of area's. Pushing every part to the extremes might help make them more reliable under normal usage.
Ultra high speeds also require efficient aerodynamics, which in turn helps reduce drag/fuel usage.
In terms of a daily driver, I think the fun comes from the acceleration, and thus the torque a car can produce.
My daily driver is a Mazda 3 / Mazda Axela, which comes with 200 Newtonmeter torque at 6400 rpm. It's ok, it's fun, but yeah.
So the other day I drove a 2013 Nissan Leaf (BEV), which gives you ~250 Nm torque right at the beginning. This was so much fun to drive.
So for me, a car doesn't need to have a ridiculosly max speed - I need max torque from the start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap,_Crackle_and_Pop
I wonder if anyone has studied that.
I did some calculations once to relate sportbike performance to cars. People usually think about performance in terms of peak power on paper, which is not where you are most of the time on the street.
I estimated that if you are riding a 600cc bike at roughly car-like rpms, then the power to weight ratio is comparable to a car with a 3.5L V-6. But if you are using the upper range, then it's more comparable to a Ferrari.
With a literbike, if you are at car-like rpms, the power to weight is like a street car with a fairly large V-8, but if you are using it at high speeds, then it's comparable to a F1 car.
Never mind the Tesla is smaller, has a lower center of gravity, and costs 15x less and has more range.
And it's probably worth noting that the Tesla is almost certainly software limited.
Also, I haven't test-driven a Bugatti, but I've tested a Tesla. My wife compared the acceleration to a launched roller coaster. I entered the turn onto an onramp at 20 mph, exited the 90-ish degree turn at 60 in the same lane, and hit 80 by the time I realized I needed to take my foot off the pedal. We weren't halfway down the ramp. What was really impressive about that was the turn: plastered into the back and the side of seat at the same time, traction like it was on rails to whole time. It is quite possible the car was outperforming my nervous system's ability to orient.
The Bugattis and Aston Martins alike are engineered to lap tracks or do speed runs over and over again in comfort and luxury without any reduction in acceleration or braking performance while Tesla's drive-train reaches its thermal limits really fast if you push it and reduces its performance accordingly.
Tesla, due to how economics factor in engineering, was not designed to deliver it's peak performance in a sustained fashion but in short bursts when you need it. The Bugattis and Porsches can deliver their peak performance all day long, that's why they cost x-times more. And let's not talk about luxury or comfort.
a problem the Porsche Taycan solves (to some extent).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TP9kokeyxGU
Well, I don't doubt they are more capable than a Tesla, but I don't think any ultra-high performance car can sustain high speeds indefinitely. The Bugatti Veyron has tires that last for about 15 minutes at top speed, but then again, the fuel will run out in 12.
It also seems like you see supercars on fire a lot, also hinting that they are not that durable when you push them.
>And it's probably worth noting that the Tesla is almost certainly software limited. Most things are software limited in modern cars. The question is, if you improved the battery pack so it could deliver more power, would the motors handle it?
The torque curve on the Bugatti starts out lower for the first 1-2k RPM and then sticks at a significantly higher torque that seems artificially flat, likely limited by the rest of the drivetrain to save on weight (or ripping itself apart as opposed to the Tesla which would light on fire if the limiters were removed).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_control_(automotive)
Bikes don't tend to have high torque in general, but their light weight and gearing are designed to maximise what torque they do produce. This means there are quite a few that will do sub 3 seconds to 60, and sub 5 seconds is practically the norm.
What this means is that you can more easily get past, and through, traffic because you can safely take advantage of gaps that no car can. Also, that sense of having your arms ripped out of their sockets and hanging on for dear life is fun.
Still, there's something to be said for going really fast as well: the feeling of the world blurring past you, and the road or track flowing and snaking underneath you like mercury, is hard to beat (if sometimes a little terrifying).
> This means there are quite a few that will do sub 3 seconds to 60, and sub 5 seconds is practically the norm.
This was the give-away - pretty sure very few humans can do 60 mph on a bicycle, unless they're drafting.
Frankly my favorite is the European “moto”
‘Bike’ is short for bicycle. Motorcycles are also bicycles so they’re also bikes.
There are some fun youtube videos demoing bike performance, e.g. Ninja H2's doing 0-250MPH in 26s [0], outdragging a Bugatti [1] and outpacing an F1 car and an F16 fighter at the same time.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_n7ru1e-rg [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi5_GQ78wM8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ESq00zi7bU
As another commenter said, you rev a Ninja (just like a sports car) and launch it using the clutch.
In fact bicycles are fastest off the line, since they produce max. torque at 0rpm (just keep weight on a pedal, release the brakes to go). But acceleration is modest, so motorbikes and cars will soon go past.
And of course electrically-driven vehicles are also capable of producing torque at 0rpm, hence their acceleration advantage.
Of course, for touring there's now the H2 SX Ninja(!)
I doubt a bicycle would actually cross the starting line before a high end bike or car would surpass it. A 180lb rider would produce about 90lb of torque at most (assuming 6” crank) and that’s only for the instant that the crank is parallel with the ground.
A high end car would deliver significantly more than 90lb of torque instantaneously by dumping the clutch (or using launch control).
If you aren’t standing up sprinting, you’re definitely not going to be getting anything close to your “body weight torque”.
Having said that, I am very used to riding bicycles and (large) motorbikes around town, and from waiting for lights to change if I'm on a bicycle I'm generally first away even when motorbike riders are getting competitive (never mind cars).
The advantage of the bicycle is generally only a few feet, of course.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Veyron
The Veyron might weight 20x as much as you and your bike, but has over 300x the power output of the best sprinters in the world.
Given equal reaction time and equal interest in racing, I am doubtful your cycling advantage would last for more than inches against a high end sports car.
In a racing start, a well-driven torquey car (like the Veyron) will also launch faster than a motorbike - at least to start with. Once the speed increases, the acceleration drops and the motorbike can then use its superior power-to-weight ratio (which it can't fully use off the line). Eventually - once speeds are well into triple digits - a fast-enough car starts to catch up with the motorbike again (due to better aerodynamics).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7528120_Torque_and_...
I can get off the line faster then automobiles, they aren't racing / clutch dumping at the lights. Traffic is so heavy and with so many intersections, it's typically pointless for automobiles to race off the line anyways.
As I filter past daily the same Pagani and Bugatti and LFA and Tesla S and NSX. :D
Once you are in third though displacement takes the lead, and my smaller engine bike is at a disadvantage!
ZX9: lights change, rev engine, dump clutch.
None we're talking about general around-time riding, waiting for the lights to change here. The point is big torque means less delay between seeing the signals change and starting to move.
No disagreement that if the ZX9 is sitting on the line with the revs already in hand that it's going to be away first.
Rev engine, slip clutch to launch, versus slip clutch and immediately begin putting on the power.. no matter what, you need to engage the clutch and add throttle. The motor has so little mass it's not like it takes a long time to get it spinning before dumping the clutch on a low-torque motorcycle, and you can rev before the green.
And regardless of what you're riding, you'll be across the intersection before most cars have even begun moving.
That's with a 2.0 litre straight-four engine, in the 1980s.
Optimizing for ludicrous acceleration has always been possible. But it is at odds with race track performance, which is what Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are focused on. At the track, if you are going below 80 mph at any point after the first 4 seconds, you're doing it wrong.
I've been wondering about that for some time. What type(s) of competitions do cars like that enter? I'm not exactly knowledgeable in the racing world, so my view is very limited; the few times a see something about racing (excluding F1 and rally which are obviously different beasts), I mainly see BMWs, Porches, Corvettes (I think) and so on. Maybe my limited exposure just covered the wrong competition?
now there are certain racing series like FIA GT3 where manufacturers are required to make a certain number of street-legal vehicles to qualify that car for the competition. a Porsche 911 GT3 RS is an example of this type of car. make a couple small modifications and your street-legal car is a GT3 racecar. homologated cars like this tend to push the limits of what's tolerable to drive on the street; they're not really setup to be comfortable.
But how does that work for Bugati, Ferrari, Lamborghini (and McLaren, Pagani, Koenigsegg)? Are the street cars (more or less) the same as the ones in races? Do they even race?
And in conclusion, how accurate is the statement that (production models of) Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are focused on race track performance?
> But how does that work for Bugati, Ferrari, Lamborghini (and McLaren, Pagani, Koenigsegg)? Are the street cars (more or less) the same as the ones in races? Do they even race?
it's hard to give a simple answer to this question because the manufacturers you listed make a pretty wide range of cars. they try to hit a lot of different points on the luxury vs track performance, but they're all oriented much more towards repeatable track performance than a model s.
if by "race" you mean the local track, sure, all of these cars are going to perform very well. even the most luxury focused models are going to totally outclass my hot hatch and keep going for a lot longer. if you're talking about a serious race, no you cannot just show up with your street-legal ferrari and start racing. for one thing, safety regs for these races will usually be incompatible with local laws for street cars (eg, roll cages are illegal in many jurisdictions, but required for races), and you would want to strip out a lot more weight anyway (passenger seat, floormats, etc) to be competitive. you can get really close with certain homologated models though. I believe most of the manufacturers you listed participate in GT2/GT3, but I'm not familiar with the specific cars from every brand.
> And in conclusion, how accurate is the statement that (production models of) Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are focused on race track performance?
it's true that any car from any of those manufacturers is going to be much more focused on repeatable track performance than mass market hondas, VWs, etc. the extent to which comfort and practicality is compromised varies a lot between specific models.
I hope this answers your question. I'm certainly not an authoritative source, just an enthusiast.
The word for "road car exactly like a race car" is "homologated". It's done in some racing series, basically forcing manufacturers to build 200 copies of the car, making it road legal, and putting at least some of those on the market.
The interesting torque is the one at the wheels, after the transmission and adjusted for wheel size.
Comparing to CPUs it would be similar to obsessing over IPC, but not caring about that performance = IPC * Frequency.
Regardless, I understand your point. Having all the power from the start makes more sense for daily driving.
Roads don't like torque. If high-torque becomes a trend, expect to pay more vehicle-tax. Tires also don't like torque.
This is a bit off-topic, but this isn't really accurate. (Not the fact that high torque causes more surface damage thing, that's probably defensible - though gross loading does much more damage to roads in most conditions). But the source of funding for road construction and maintenance.
Depending where you live, your vehicle tax doesn't do much of anything for the roads anyway. They're maintained and repaved using general funds, usually taken from property taxes and income taxes.
So called "hypothecated" taxes (supposedly dedicated to a specific purpose) are rarely actually restricted to that usage.
In Australia, even if the tax is supposedly restricted in what it can be applied to, I believe that the parliament can legislate otherwise at any time.
Yes, and remember that batteries are quite heavy so torque + electric vehicle = bad news for roads.
See also: https://www.inverse.com/article/53612-electric-cars-cause-cr...
My daily driver FN2 Civic Type-R (stock, except for brake lines and pads) and whatever preconceptions are had about Honda, this is an engineering marvel. Torque is mostly linear, slightly going up on the top half, with a slight drop just before the 8300rpm limiter, giving the feeling that the car keeps on giving - wanting to give, even -you more and more. As for the numbers, it does 0-100kph in 6.2-6.4s but that’s because there’s a 2-3 gearshift at 95 (it’s well under 6 to that): it’s just such a “screw the numbers game” mentality, “let’s get the most out of this in every possible way, whatever the benchmarks. Only fun matters.”, which I fully subscribe to.
Anyway, even acceleration is overrated, nice turns is what matters and gives Gs much more quickly than any acceleration, and this one delivers, with fantastic fast cornering and good tight cornering (if you set the car up correctly on entry to avoid understeer). As a tire manufacturer as said (I think it was Bridgestone), “fun is not a straight line”.
And although imperfect in many ways, this car is so much fun (and practical, to boot) I have than big stupid grin in minutes, on every ride. I’ve driven so many powerful cars on occasion yet after the initial oomph effect, none ever came close to that. On the lower power end I did enjoy that ‘06 Suzuki Swift, and the latest MX-5 is solid gold :)
Mr. Tom put a V8 into a Miata while keeping it as close to the original in terms of handling as possible (I think the end result only weighs a couple hundred lb more)
Mr. Tom is a maniac of precision, so the videos are a joy to see how clean everything is (he’a a bit of a nerd though)
I might argue that there is no such thing as an engine (assuming reasonably modern and N/A) that has "a lot of low end torque"; rather that kind of engine should be described as "lacking high end torque".
The biggest problem with this is having too much torque. If the car isn't designed for it, you'll just spin the tires at full throttle, and you'll have to settle for mid-2nd and 3rd gear pulls. I knew someone with a boosted awd Toyota Camry that could spin all the tires in 3rd.
We've fetishized the wrong denominator!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Eco-marathon
He works at it starting with tire limits during ABS braking, and throws in real-world examples like Tesla and the Dodge Demon.
He covers a bunch of other car engineering topics. For example, the Atkinson cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z45fM2N-4C4
I came over here when I got sick of Reddit's negativity in ~2013. What's the next alternative?
Cool anyway, but will be cooler when it's a true production car.
The sleeping Bobby test is the ability to go over a speed bump (so names because it's like a policeman laying down).
These two metrics were often used by Clarkson to disqualify certain cars from the lap time leaderboard.
Cool car, but it'll be cooler when anyone can theoretically buy a road legal 300mph from the showroom.
In German, there is this phrase, which describes the time period after a certain success/enjoyment/well-being. Literally translated it meanss the fat years are over ("Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei."). It's usually used in the context of forced savings vs voluntariy expenditure, but it fits with the current state of our environment as well. The times of making faster cars and enjoying high speeds are over, if we don't want to demise as a species. Environmentally safer beahviour should become more fun.
I recently bought a new car in Germany (combustion engine as I needed a 7-seater). People ask me why I took the base engine (140HP) while adding all other optional equipment possible. I tell them: in and around a city, even those 140HP will never get used. And the times I am on the Autobahn AND (!!) being able to actually drive more than 130km/h are so rare that I would never put my money into higher speeds/acceleration. The question of "enough power" has been solved some years ago. Now let's make this power intelligent and sustainable.
1. Reduce intake temperatures/prevent pre-ignition
2. Produce enough power to sustain a constant speed of 120KPH or whatever
This means that they are far less efficient than they should be, and in some cases get more or less the same efficiency as larger displacement high capacity engines.
Most small hatchbacks will be producing somewhere between 90HP and 170HP. Estates and wagons from 190HP to 250HP and SUVs somewhere similar.
People then tell me that they think that is stupid and like having the acceleration when getting on the interstate. In all those years, I never found acceleration to be a problem. We've been pitched cars that have way more power than we need and that use way more fuel than we need. Magazines like Car and Driver will write negative editorials if a car isn't "zippy". What should matter is safety, cost, and fuel economy.
In the US' South region, nearly everyone feels the need for a giant truck. It has been engrained as a lifestyle choice. You get your truck to help you haul your four-wheeler for deer hunting and your boat for fishing. However, 90% of these trucks are used by single individuals as daily drivers to office jobs which is extremely wasteful. They even live in suburbs which have to get bigger garages to compensate. Each man's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather drove one too, so it is deeply tied to one's masculinity. The south also has some of the nation's poorest citizens and Mississippi/Alabama/Louisiana/Arkansas have some of the worst elementary and highschools in the nation. It isn't uncommon for folks to get extremely in debt on a $50k lifted 4x4 deisel pickup truck.
A 300MPH speed run in an ultra low production Bugatti car is more or less insignificant in the fight against climate change.
Sure you can but it will be heavily inconvenient (at least for many in the west). But do you know what reduces the carbon footprint by about 75% in a country like Germany? 1.) Electric cars/trains 2.) Electricity from renewables 3.) Heating using electrical power from renewables (heat pumps)
Of the last 25%, there are 20% from industrial production and in the last 5% you could include air travel (2%) among other things.
Heating and driving and getting power from renewables makes your lifestyle about 0% different from what it is now. Buying goods that last longer even means giving life a touch of luxury. A better, more luxurious lifestyle that produces about 75% less carbon dioxide. Impossible? In a growing number of countries, this will be possible soon. Of course, not flying, not consuming gives you that "holy" feeling of "having done something". But done right, a sustainable lifestyle makes the life we have now even better. It takes a bit of political willpower, of course.
But the carbon footprint created within the West is just a small amount of the carbon footprint that the West contributes to. We can't just reduce our own carbon footprint if it simply pushes that carbon footprint onto other, less developed countries.
I think it will be very unlikely that we will continue to live with the same luxuries that we enjoy today while still aggressively reducing climate change. It won't be a case of "we have electric transport, but I can still buy a new iPhone once a year". It will be a case of aggressively cutting back everywhere and and ultimately growth and our economy will suffer in the short-term for long-term sustainability.
Using solar, wind and water to create power will, by the way, not push the carbon footprint somewhere else. It will, to a great part, vanish. And those economies who, in future, produce their own energy instead of importing them, will have a higher GDP and less dependence of foreign markets.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi...
[1] http://www.npi.gov.au/resource/oxides-nitrogen-0
[2] http://www.npi.gov.au/resource/sulfur-dioxide
The articles about SO2 and NOx emissions are clickbait. They compare to cars, which are extremely clean in this respect. In any case, the subject here is climate change and these pollutants are irrelevant. (Strictly speaking, they slightly mitigate warning.)
I’m not saying we should ignore shipping, but I don’t see why it should be anywhere close to first on the list of things to focus on when fighting climate change.
Our values determine where we devote our engineering resources -- time, money, attention, brilliance. If we degrade the environment to where it can't sustain our population, people will suffer. What are the relative values of millions maybe billions of climate refugees versus a fast car powered by unsustainable fossil fuels?
Imagine we devoted those resources to solving political and environmental problems.
If that's correct, your comment makes no sense. Many of the developments needed for combustion-powered records would apply to electricity-powered records as well, such as suspension, wheels/tires, gears, ...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_car_speed_record
Halo car engineering results in trickle down effects to all of the vehicles you and I drive on a daily basis. Tire materials and engineering, aerodynamics r&d, suspension improvements, and so forth can apply to all types of vehicles, regardless of whether or not the power comes from an ICE engine or electric motor.
So while you may see this as a needless exercise in achieving 300 mph on a combustion engine, I see this as perhaps something that could give a 1% increase in fuel economy to VAG's entire fleet. Of course it's not a given, but let's applaud and support the potential.
I'm a bit surprised this book doesn't come up more often in tech circles. Has quite a bit of overlap with the philosophical questions we face daily.
What's the range on this one, I wonder?
dual walled exhaust is peculiar - is there an air feed into the gap?