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Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
- jdnenej 7y agoThat's 482km/h for those using modern units.
- steve_taylor 7y agoIt’s 490.48 km/h (304.77 mph).
- kijin 7y agoWhy 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.
- dna_polymerase 7y agoBecause 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]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfu1CGpW6lU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfu1CGpW6lU
- Ballas 7y agoI'm sure it would have read "500km/h barrier" if they managed to break it.
- dwd 7y agoExactly. 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.
- parsimo2010 7y agoThe 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.
- rmu09 7y agoGoing faster than the speed of sound would be interesting and a somewhat "non-arbitrary" target.
- dagw 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThrustSSC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThrustSSC
- dwd 7y agoAt 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.
- p2t2p 7y agoAnd we get there, we will strive to achieve Warp 10
- mellosouls 7y agoBritish publication. 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.
- simias 7y agoIt makes for good marketing in countries still using miles obviously. They'd be stupid not to publicize it.
- CaptainDecisive 7y agoSo really we should be asking when a car is going to break the mythical 500 km/h barrier and not some also-ran number ;-) Although apparently that barrier was broken in 1937 by Thunderbolt, so I'm not sure what record we're actually talking about here.
- travisjungroth 7y agoProduction vehicle land speed record.
- dang 7y agoInformation is fine but please keep the flamebait away.
- trax 7y agowhy? that was useful to me. everyone aside from the US uses metric.
- dang 7y agoThe 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. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jdnenej 7y agoHow is it flamebait. Was something I said untrue?
- dang 7y agoI answered this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20861098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20861098.
- vinay427 7y agoI'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?
- tus88 7y ago> Andy and the prototype Chiron supersede previous really, really fast runs from SSC (256.18mph two-way average, 2007), Hennessey (270.49mph two-way average, 2013) and Koenigsegg (284.55 vmax, 277.87 two-way average, 2017)
- vinay427 7y agoThe modified Ford GT already reached 300 mph: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/ford-gt-just-did-300mph https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/ford-gt-just-did-300mph
- rgallagher27 7y agoThose are theoretical limits from simulations. This is the first to actually record a real 300mph run
- vinay427 7y agoThat's not true for the modified Ford, though I concede it is for the Koenigsegg. See here, coincidentally on the same source website: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/ford-gt-just-did-300mph 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.
- parsimo2010 7y agoThey 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.
- trymas 7y agoIn the video the car accelerates from 300 to 400 kmh in around 10 seconds. It says "raw footage" at the bottom. Remarkably quick.
- Tepix 7y agoThat car looks remarkably non-aerodynamic for that insane speed.
- arethuza 7y agoI guess a lot of that comes from the need to feed its 10 radiators.
- nordsieck 7y ago> That car looks remarkably non-aerodynamic for that insane speed. It needs to balance low drag, down force, cooling, and probably a bunch of other factors. And it needs to look cool.
- TylerE 7y agoMany things that look very aerodynamic really aren’t, and vice versa. Much of fluid dynamics is non-intuitive.
- noneeeed 7y agoYeah, 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.
- Phillipharryt 7y agoIt 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.
- et2o 7y agoI hate to nitpick, but a Prius isn't a great comparison since they have pretty good drag coefficients.
- 7y ago
- tialaramex 7y agoIt'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.
- ollie87 7y agoMmmmhmmm, 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.
- mrweasel 7y agoTrue, 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.
- ollie87 7y agoA lot of things humans do are pointless, but all the same we do them. Doesn't stop it being fun does it?
- w56rjrtyu6ru 7y agoBelieve it or not, for some people the pointlessness of an activity greatly ruins the fun of it.
- rusteh1 7y agoNon-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.
- axilmar 7y agoIt's too bad that the state of roads in most countries is aweful and can't support anything approaching high speeds, let alone this insane 490 km/h.
- mosselman 7y agoYes it is such a shame that the roads are such that when I am on the road with my family some crazy daredevil can't drive 490km/h near us. The roads are for getting from A to B, not racing. If you want to go 490km/h, go to a race track.
- axilmar 7y agoWouldn't you like to reach your destination in a much shorter time than usual? I certainly would.
- mosselman 7y agoYes, 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.
- tudorw 7y agoI met a guy who owned a Lambo, before he drove anywhere he'd walk the route to check there was nothing to snag on!
- mrweasel 7y agoMy 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.
- tener 7y agoOnce 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. Source: https://www.whereisroadster.com/ https://www.whereisroadster.com/ Joking aside, a really nice car I wouldn't mind owning!
- SCdF 7y agoDoes 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.
- pas 7y agoOne 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 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.)
- neor 7y agoFor 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.
- ska 7y agoIt 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.
- MrGilbert 7y agoIt's pretty impressive. 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.
- erikig 7y agoI love acceleration but there’s also jerk - the rate at which acceleration builds up. It is is also a factor of the torque curve.
- sokoloff 7y agoThe next derivatives in the sequence of position, velocity, acceleration, and jerk are amusingly named “snap, crackle, and pop”, respectively.
- neohaven 7y agoInterestingly, 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".
- jayalpha 7y agoWell, great for dick comparisons. But does this bring humankind ahead in the year 2019?
- verytrivial 7y agoFor my money, the more impressive 300 was broken 46 years ago, namely 300mpg (US), but has since increased to a staggering 12,665 mpg. We've fetishized the wrong denominator! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Eco-marathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Eco-marathon
- safgasCVS 7y agoIncredible! 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.
- QuamStiver 7y agoThat's ~483 km/h in non-freedom units.
- Tempest1981 7y agoFor 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 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. He covers a bunch of other car engineering topics. For example, the Atkinson cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z45fM2N-4C4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z45fM2N-4C4
- XJ6 7y ago300mph is a milestone, not a barrier.
- Tempest1981 7y agoI'm sad that, on HN, I had to read thru 50+ comments about how impractical 300 mph is, before I found any discussion of the engineering challenges.
- grecy 7y agoHN has become extremely negative in the last couple of years. I came over here when I got sick of Reddit's negativity in ~2013. What's the next alternative?
- remon 7y agoRight? 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.
- huffmsa 7y agoFull cage and likely doesn't pass the sleeping Bobby test would disqualify it according to a certain unnamed host of Top Gears past. Cool anyway, but will be cooler when it's a true production car.
- anonu 7y agoCan you explain what this means?
- huffmsa 7y agoA welded in / bolted in roll cage isn't something you find in a production vehicle, I'm not even sure if they're allowed. 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.
- moonbug 7y agoNot a barrier.
- sniglom 7y agoSadly not 500km/h. Really impressive though.
- mrleiter 7y agoThe 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.
- geff82 7y agoI 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.
- gavia1 7y agoThe 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: 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.
- 7y ago
- bitL 7y agoWow, congrats! They almost hit 500km/h! That would be the next "easy" goal I guess.
- body_lump 7y ago"The 300mph project will inevitably result in a production Super Sport version of the Chiron". Can't wait to see that happen.
- dakom 7y ago“Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive” ― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 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.
- hinkley 7y agoI 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. What's the range on this one, I wonder?
- alinspired 7y agogives me similar chills as to spacex boosters landing - what an achievement! dual walled exhaust is peculiar - is there an air feed into the gap?
- pascalxus 7y agoI love reading about stuff like this: I just wanna see that 300 mph speedometer in the car! But, in my little Nissan Rogue that can barely manage 90mph, I don't need a 160mph speedo, LOL.
- lucas_membrane 7y agoThe article says that the speed is a record, but besides 'supercar' (which is what?) it does not say for what kind of car on what kind of track for what distance. Can anyone here explain it to me?
- tim333 7y agoIt's kind of interesting to look at the first car to go 300mph in 1935 https://craighill.net/2012/09/03/september-3-1935-sir-malcolm-campbell-exceeds-300-mph/ https://craighill.net/2012/09/03/september-3-1935-sir-malcol... vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcM740YDgzs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcM740YDgzs Not sure if it doesn't look cooler than the 2019 version though probably it would be harder to park at Sainsbury's.