Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally updated the progress of the company’s highly anticipated but long-delayed new Roadster supercar, which was launched as early as 2017. It was released in 2016, but it is not yet close to the mass production stage.
Elon Musk announced via his personal social media platform That’s close to the level of a race car designed for drag racing, and many saw it as Elon Musk’s usual overstatement.
However, the CEO of Rimac, another company known for producing high-performance electric vehicles, said that in theory, achieving this goal is not impossible, but there are huge challenges.
It is noted that Elon Musk previously claimed in 2018 that the Roadster would offer an optional “SpaceX kit” that would add 10 small thrusters from his rocket company to the car to improve speed and handling. He didn’t elaborate further on the road legality of the kit, but let’s leave that aside.
After Elon Musk announced the Roadster’s amazing acceleration performance, Bugatti and Rimac joint venture CEO Mate Rimac was asked in a comment on a Facebook post about Bugatti’s new V16 engine if he thought “sub-second” would break 100 mph. Realistic and feasible. “It’s possible using thrusters, we’ve done simulations,” he replied.
He went on to point out: “The problem is that the thruster will run out of air in two to three seconds, and then you are left with a lot of useless weight on the vehicle (tank, compressor, valves, nozzles, etc.).” Rimac said that to To achieve this, “approximately 30,000 Nm of torque is required at the wheels.”
He also pointed out that to achieve this goal, the car needs to be very light, and electric vehicles are usually heavy, especially the electric motors that need to produce such high power will add weight. Rimac’s own Nevera uses a carbon fiber monocoque and body, but still weighs 2.3 tonnes. Still, the car can sprint from 0-62 mph in 1.8 seconds and is already on sale.
For now we’ll have to wait until next year to find out whether Tesla will be able to deliver the thruster-equipped Roadster on time, and whether it can actually achieve such amazing acceleration performance. Until then, we’re tentatively cautious about Elon Musk’s comments.
