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This includes supercars with $1M price tags right? Honest question: why aren't all supercars electric if this is possible? I get that there are other parameters

This includes supercars with $1M price tags right? Honest question: why aren't all supercars electric if this is possible? I get that there are other parameters important for driving fast, like handling, but won't a million-dollar electric Bugatti always be faster than a gas one?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
verytrivial 10y ago
They're not mutually exclusive: The Koenigsegg Regera combines a powerful twin-turbo V8 combustion engine with three electric motors and cutting edge battery power via new powertrain technology called Koenigsegg Direct Drive. This revolutionary technology removes the traditional gearbox, making the car lighter and more efficient. http://koenigsegg.com/regera/ http://koenigsegg.com/regera/
dharmon 10y ago
One answer comes by looking at the 0-100 times instead of just 0-60. You can dig up lots of videos where they race Teslas against Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Up to 60 the supercar is barely hanging on, but at that point the Tesla is tapped out while the supercar still has plenty of acceleration, and it completely leaves it behind.
- falcor84 10y ago
  Doesn't 0-100 usually refer to kph, such that it's almost equivalent to 0-60mph (100kph is ~62mph)?
  - cknight 10y ago
    Not really. If you see both figures on the same page without any units named, you can generally assume from the context that 0-60 and 0-100 bare both in miles. 0-100 mph is still a pretty common performance indicator in its own right, it's just less commonly used compared to 0-60.
- SigmundA 10y ago
  Also 1/4 mile times and Nürburgring times.
photoGrant 10y ago
Yes, it does. And they're doing that. Mainly hybrids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Agera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Agera. Electric for the start, gas for the win.
- chadgeidel 10y ago
  I think you mean the Regera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Regera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Regera) which is Koenigsegg's hybrid car?
  - photoGrant 10y ago
    Bingo. I wish they weren't so similarly named :p
tannerc 10y ago
It's not faster, it's quicker, and there's an important distinction between the two—particularly for $M car owners. Going from 0-60 is a nice perk (quick), but until these cars can hold that speed longer (fast) many car enthusiasts aren't likely to bite. The most important part of your comment was the other parameters, not of speed but of the car itself. A friend of mine is a Ferrari owner who admires what Tesla can do but will die before he gives up the hard roar of a powerful engine.
- AceyMan 10y ago
  Counterpoint— There's an old expression around the speed shop that fits here: "People buy power, but they drive torque." And its electric FTW in a big way if you believe in that koan.
  - t0mas88 10y ago
    Yes, but that's only true for driving on the public road in what is "the wrong gear" for any serious racing driver. On a track it is all about power, because torque is just a figure that you change with the gearbox. High revving high power output engines (for example Formula 1 until 2004, which still holds half the lap records) have a low torque number, but more rev-range to apply to the gearbox allowing higher actual output to the wheels in the end. Essentially the torque number is just power divided by revs (Newton per meter in SI units). So an older Formula 1 car that revs to 18.000 rpm has a far lower torque number than your mom's diesel road car. Yet that F1 car does insane acceleration from 0 to 200 km/h and has 700+ bhp while the road car would have around 100 maybe 150 bhp.
enduser 10y ago
Right now a Tesla will overheat if you run it at top speed consistently. Electric is unmatched for instant torque, but the current battery technology makes electric unsuitable for sustained high speed. As far as practical power, electric is far more useful than gasoline for aggressive city and interstate driving (unless you have a long stretch of open pavement). The lack of transmission gives a distinct advantage in surprise-passing a gasoline sports car. The thrill of instant power cannot be overstated!
- silasb 10y ago
  I know they have Formula E, but I'd love to see a all-electric Tesla in Le Mans.
  - ubercore 10y ago
    Le Mans would probably be the worst place to get an all electric car performing adequately. Energy density and refill times just aren't anywhere near up to the task compared to gasoline. EDIT: or diesel
    - bisby 10y ago
      What if an all electric car was equipped with a complete battery swap out mechanism. Stock up a bunch of batteries. Pop out the dead one, pop in a fresh one, begin charging the dead one to reuse in a few hours (you may need quite a few spares) This could actually REDUCE refill times (if the swap out is efficient enough). If temperatures could be controlled to allow it to run in an all out mode, this could be a competitive edge? Or would this be somehow disallowed? I imagine this would be akin to swapping out the complete fuel tank in a car instead of refueling the tank, and I have no idea about racing rules.
      - bmh_ca 10y ago
        Then you probably want an aluminium battery.
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
It includes "production" cars, which are vehicles offered for sale to the public, legally able to drive on public roads, and typically mass-produced identical items rather than one-offs for each customer (though this may be only a few dozen vehicles). It does not include dragsters or other custom vehicles, which may be equipped with nitrous injectors, non-street-legal equipment, or other major concessions to daily driving. This was apparent in Friday's episode of <strike>Top Gear</strike> Grand Tour where Hammond raced a Porsche 918 hybrid supercar against the Bugatti Veyron, and then against "some old Nissan van." Which (as you may have guessed, sorry for the spoilers ahead) happened to be souped up with a 1900 HP engine, and easily beat the supercar. It's also apparent when looking at this electric project car: https://phys.org/news/2016-06-electric-car-world.html https://phys.org/news/2016-06-electric-car-world.html which, at 1.5 seconds, seems likely to approach the limit of wheeled vehicles.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Apart from crazy souped-up dragracers, there's also several "non-production" cars that are actually available for purchase and which can be driven on normal roads and are faster. E.g. the Ariel Atom 500, or some of the Lingenfelter- or Hennesey-modified Corvettes. Tesla defines "production cars" to exclude cars built in very small volumes, for obvious reasons (otherwise Tesla wouldn't be "fastest"). In related news, the Tautology Association of America has offered Elon a complementary lifetime membership.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    It would be a tautology if they defined it as the fastest car and excluded only the cars which were faster than it. No car produced in greater volumes is quicker, and many which are produced in smaller volumes and/or for a lot more money are slower. That's a significant fact that's not diminished by shed-built customs.
- ra1n85 10y ago
  It was a Nissan Patrol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Patrol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Patrol A lot of the mods used to increase power considerably also decrease the MTBF of many components within vehicles.
giarc 10y ago
From the article... >The Tesla does not hold the advantage forever, though, because higher speeds give the advantage to horsepower over instant torque. The Ferrari LaFerrari hits 70 mph a tenth of a second quicker; the Porsche 918 and McLaren P1 pull ahead at 80 mph, and these hypercars all continue to pull away at higher speeds.
chadgeidel 10y ago
0-60 (MPH) is a benchmark that Tesla has optimized. Many cars do 0-100 and 0-120 much quicker than the Tesla does. Additionally, the highest-end supercars (P1, 918, LaFerrari, Regera) have electric assist as "torque fill" - even the relatively humble NSX and i8 use electric motors to assist the traditional combustion engine to aid in acceleration. Warning! Personal anecdote ahead! As a (poor) car enthusiast, I look for an aggregate of numbers, but ultimately it comes down to that ineffable quality of "feel". For me, personally, 0-60 times aren't as important as handling quality. Yes, I've driven a P85D (Ludicrous mode) "in anger". In sports car terms it's a one-trick pony. It's a hell of a trick, but it's not for me.
elorant 10y ago
In the last episode of "The Grand Tour" they did a race between a Veyron and the new Porsche 918 Spyder which utilizes electric power alongside a petrol engine. The Porsche won only by a very small difference. Porsche is using a complicated system where the electric engine fills the gaps when the combustion engine is in low torque. Seems like the best of both worlds for now. In the same episode they also did a drag race between a Golf GTI and an BMW i3. While the latter was faster off the line, due to the instant torque thing, once they got past 80 the Golf got away by a lot. That's the beauty of the combustion engine, once it revs up it goes ballistic.
Shivetya 10y ago
The dirty little secret here is that the Tesla can only do this speed at full or very high state of charge. Once the battery level drops so do ALL performance numbers. Super cars also handle exceedingly well. Sorry but the this fixation on 0-60/100/etc is just pathetic. Show me five hundred mile range, show me five minute recharge, because those are the issues that will advance the position of EVs
- jblow 10y ago
  10 years ago, the rhetoric was "electric cars will never work, because they won't ever be able to go 200 miles and there's no infrastructure, and they drive like golf carts, ha ha!". Now it's "well it doesn't go 500 miles and it doesn't charge in 5 minutes, and okay, it is the quickest to 60mph of any production car in the world, but only on a full charge and that sucks!!!" EVs keep getting better. Another 10 years from now, what will anti-EV people be saying?
  - forgetsusername 10y ago
    >Another 10 years from now, what will anti-EV people be saying Pointing out facts is now "anti-EV"? Many a car can be optimized for acceleration: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/22/12004422/fastest-accelerating-electric-car-world-record-formula-student-sae http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/22/12004422/fastest-accelerat...
- freehunter 10y ago
  How many cars today can do 500 miles of range? My hatchback gets 40+mpg but only lasts 350 miles on a tank. My SUV gets around the same. You might get some diesels going that far, but 500 miles is not really common among gasoline engines. I'm not sure why that's your metric for a quality electric car.
peterjlee 10y ago
0-60 is just one index of a car. The hypercars usually focus more on the laptime on a track. As the article says, the Tesla is only quicker up to 60-70mph. On a track those cars will rarely go below 60mph. Also, weight is the most important factor to go around a corner fast and I'm guessing battery packs with a decent range is still too heavy for track purpose.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

verytrivial 10y ago

They're not mutually exclusive: The Koenigsegg Regera combines a powerful twin-turbo V8 combustion engine with three electric motors and cutting edge battery power via new powertrain technology called Koenigsegg Direct Drive. This revolutionary technology removes the traditional gearbox, making the car lighter and more efficient. http://koenigsegg.com/regera/ http://koenigsegg.com/regera/

dharmon 10y ago

One answer comes by looking at the 0-100 times instead of just 0-60. You can dig up lots of videos where they race Teslas against Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Up to 60 the supercar is barely hanging on, but at that point the Tesla is tapped out while the supercar still has plenty of acceleration, and it completely leaves it behind.

falcor84 10y ago
Doesn't 0-100 usually refer to kph, such that it's almost equivalent to 0-60mph (100kph is ~62mph)?
- cknight 10y ago
  Not really. If you see both figures on the same page without any units named, you can generally assume from the context that 0-60 and 0-100 bare both in miles. 0-100 mph is still a pretty common performance indicator in its own right, it's just less commonly used compared to 0-60.
SigmundA 10y ago
Also 1/4 mile times and Nürburgring times.

photoGrant 10y ago

Yes, it does. And they're doing that. Mainly hybrids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Agera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Agera. Electric for the start, gas for the win.

chadgeidel 10y ago
I think you mean the Regera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Regera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Regera) which is Koenigsegg's hybrid car?
- photoGrant 10y ago
  Bingo. I wish they weren't so similarly named :p

tannerc 10y ago

It's not faster, it's quicker, and there's an important distinction between the two—particularly for $M car owners. Going from 0-60 is a nice perk (quick), but until these cars can hold that speed longer (fast) many car enthusiasts aren't likely to bite. The most important part of your comment was the other parameters, not of speed but of the car itself. A friend of mine is a Ferrari owner who admires what Tesla can do but will die before he gives up the hard roar of a powerful engine.

AceyMan 10y ago
Counterpoint— There's an old expression around the speed shop that fits here: "People buy power, but they drive torque." And its electric FTW in a big way if you believe in that koan.
- t0mas88 10y ago
  Yes, but that's only true for driving on the public road in what is "the wrong gear" for any serious racing driver. On a track it is all about power, because torque is just a figure that you change with the gearbox. High revving high power output engines (for example Formula 1 until 2004, which still holds half the lap records) have a low torque number, but more rev-range to apply to the gearbox allowing higher actual output to the wheels in the end. Essentially the torque number is just power divided by revs (Newton per meter in SI units). So an older Formula 1 car that revs to 18.000 rpm has a far lower torque number than your mom's diesel road car. Yet that F1 car does insane acceleration from 0 to 200 km/h and has 700+ bhp while the road car would have around 100 maybe 150 bhp.

enduser 10y ago

Right now a Tesla will overheat if you run it at top speed consistently. Electric is unmatched for instant torque, but the current battery technology makes electric unsuitable for sustained high speed. As far as practical power, electric is far more useful than gasoline for aggressive city and interstate driving (unless you have a long stretch of open pavement). The lack of transmission gives a distinct advantage in surprise-passing a gasoline sports car. The thrill of instant power cannot be overstated!

silasb 10y ago
I know they have Formula E, but I'd love to see a all-electric Tesla in Le Mans.
- ubercore 10y ago
  Le Mans would probably be the worst place to get an all electric car performing adequately. Energy density and refill times just aren't anywhere near up to the task compared to gasoline. EDIT: or diesel
  - bisby 10y ago
    What if an all electric car was equipped with a complete battery swap out mechanism. Stock up a bunch of batteries. Pop out the dead one, pop in a fresh one, begin charging the dead one to reuse in a few hours (you may need quite a few spares) This could actually REDUCE refill times (if the swap out is efficient enough). If temperatures could be controlled to allow it to run in an all out mode, this could be a competitive edge? Or would this be somehow disallowed? I imagine this would be akin to swapping out the complete fuel tank in a car instead of refueling the tank, and I have no idea about racing rules.
    - bmh_ca 10y ago
      Then you probably want an aluminium battery.
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

It includes "production" cars, which are vehicles offered for sale to the public, legally able to drive on public roads, and typically mass-produced identical items rather than one-offs for each customer (though this may be only a few dozen vehicles). It does not include dragsters or other custom vehicles, which may be equipped with nitrous injectors, non-street-legal equipment, or other major concessions to daily driving. This was apparent in Friday's episode of <strike>Top Gear</strike> Grand Tour where Hammond raced a Porsche 918 hybrid supercar against the Bugatti Veyron, and then against "some old Nissan van." Which (as you may have guessed, sorry for the spoilers ahead) happened to be souped up with a 1900 HP engine, and easily beat the supercar. It's also apparent when looking at this electric project car: https://phys.org/news/2016-06-electric-car-world.html https://phys.org/news/2016-06-electric-car-world.html which, at 1.5 seconds, seems likely to approach the limit of wheeled vehicles.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Apart from crazy souped-up dragracers, there's also several "non-production" cars that are actually available for purchase and which can be driven on normal roads and are faster. E.g. the Ariel Atom 500, or some of the Lingenfelter- or Hennesey-modified Corvettes. Tesla defines "production cars" to exclude cars built in very small volumes, for obvious reasons (otherwise Tesla wouldn't be "fastest"). In related news, the Tautology Association of America has offered Elon a complementary lifetime membership.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  It would be a tautology if they defined it as the fastest car and excluded only the cars which were faster than it. No car produced in greater volumes is quicker, and many which are produced in smaller volumes and/or for a lot more money are slower. That's a significant fact that's not diminished by shed-built customs.
ra1n85 10y ago
It was a Nissan Patrol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Patrol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Patrol A lot of the mods used to increase power considerably also decrease the MTBF of many components within vehicles.

giarc 10y ago

From the article... >The Tesla does not hold the advantage forever, though, because higher speeds give the advantage to horsepower over instant torque. The Ferrari LaFerrari hits 70 mph a tenth of a second quicker; the Porsche 918 and McLaren P1 pull ahead at 80 mph, and these hypercars all continue to pull away at higher speeds.

chadgeidel 10y ago

0-60 (MPH) is a benchmark that Tesla has optimized. Many cars do 0-100 and 0-120 much quicker than the Tesla does. Additionally, the highest-end supercars (P1, 918, LaFerrari, Regera) have electric assist as "torque fill" - even the relatively humble NSX and i8 use electric motors to assist the traditional combustion engine to aid in acceleration. Warning! Personal anecdote ahead! As a (poor) car enthusiast, I look for an aggregate of numbers, but ultimately it comes down to that ineffable quality of "feel". For me, personally, 0-60 times aren't as important as handling quality. Yes, I've driven a P85D (Ludicrous mode) "in anger". In sports car terms it's a one-trick pony. It's a hell of a trick, but it's not for me.

elorant 10y ago

In the last episode of "The Grand Tour" they did a race between a Veyron and the new Porsche 918 Spyder which utilizes electric power alongside a petrol engine. The Porsche won only by a very small difference. Porsche is using a complicated system where the electric engine fills the gaps when the combustion engine is in low torque. Seems like the best of both worlds for now. In the same episode they also did a drag race between a Golf GTI and an BMW i3. While the latter was faster off the line, due to the instant torque thing, once they got past 80 the Golf got away by a lot. That's the beauty of the combustion engine, once it revs up it goes ballistic.

Shivetya 10y ago

The dirty little secret here is that the Tesla can only do this speed at full or very high state of charge. Once the battery level drops so do ALL performance numbers. Super cars also handle exceedingly well. Sorry but the this fixation on 0-60/100/etc is just pathetic. Show me five hundred mile range, show me five minute recharge, because those are the issues that will advance the position of EVs

jblow 10y ago
10 years ago, the rhetoric was "electric cars will never work, because they won't ever be able to go 200 miles and there's no infrastructure, and they drive like golf carts, ha ha!". Now it's "well it doesn't go 500 miles and it doesn't charge in 5 minutes, and okay, it is the quickest to 60mph of any production car in the world, but only on a full charge and that sucks!!!" EVs keep getting better. Another 10 years from now, what will anti-EV people be saying?
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  >Another 10 years from now, what will anti-EV people be saying Pointing out facts is now "anti-EV"? Many a car can be optimized for acceleration: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/22/12004422/fastest-accelerating-electric-car-world-record-formula-student-sae http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/22/12004422/fastest-accelerat...
freehunter 10y ago
How many cars today can do 500 miles of range? My hatchback gets 40+mpg but only lasts 350 miles on a tank. My SUV gets around the same. You might get some diesels going that far, but 500 miles is not really common among gasoline engines. I'm not sure why that's your metric for a quality electric car.

peterjlee 10y ago

0-60 is just one index of a car. The hypercars usually focus more on the laptime on a track. As the article says, the Tesla is only quicker up to 60-70mph. On a track those cars will rarely go below 60mph. Also, weight is the most important factor to go around a corner fast and I'm guessing battery packs with a decent range is still too heavy for track purpose.