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Why are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit?
- starbugs 3y ago> Why are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit? German here. I don't understand the question.
- xxs 3y ago"Don’t tell me they’re made with the Autobahn in mind." A quote from the inquiry. Other than that the speed limit is not universal, and it's not 'the speed limit' as the limit is context based. There are many a situation where speeding up would help prevent an accident.
- starbugs 3y agoThank you. Just wanted to find out if a little bit of joking is still allowed on HN.
- RagnarD 3y agoAs the percentage of humorless PC drones rises, that's going steadily down.
- bayindirh 3y agoThat's a hit and miss there. Sometimes a humorous bunch makes a mundane thing giggle worthy, sometimes a joke is taken too serious and you get accused of being manipulative. So, YMMV.
- jaystraw 3y agoi see what you did there. and smiled :-)
- orwin 3y ago'joking' is always a bit manipulative anyway (I bet asperger people understand that better than me, I've heard that it's how therapists teach them white lies). I guess the issue is when the joke isn't that funny and perceived as too manipulative, and anybody's threshold is different on both those.
- bayindirh 3y agoI mean, I hate jokes belittling people or throwing them curveballs and hitting their self esteem. As a result, I never make these kinds of jokes. The jokes I labeled manipulative are about something else and built upon double meanings of words, in the context of the subject being discussed.
- mynameisnoone 3y agoAbsolutely verboten. You have the choice of the manner of your excommunication today.
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- happymellon 3y agoThe question was: > Why are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit? (Don’t tell me they’re made with the Autobahn in mind.) Since you didnt read the question, it was questioning whether the autobahn is a valid reason for the majority of cars and if there was a better reason.
- xxs 3y agoOutside Germany, there are places with 140km/h in Europe. Outside Europe there are cases with 160km/h. Even with 140km/h in mind, you'd not want to be the absolute upper limit as that would make it inefficient in different ways. If it's about having an artificial limit (say electronics) it could also be needed to temporary speed up over the max. Such a limit would stimulate over inflating the tyres to 'cheat' it.
- happymellon 3y agoI was merely pointing out that the question was whether there were any benefits of having such a high speed on a lot of road vehicles. The dismissive nature of the gpp of the question because they didn't read it, was irritating. I would also show the relationship between top speed and engine power. I don't need to drive at 200mph, but I like that I can drive up a hill with 4 adults in the vehicle. My wife's car has a smaller engine, lower top speed and struggles with more than 2 adults, and 2 children when dealing with hilly countryside.
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- Zetobal 3y agoYou know that most german manufactures limit the max speed of their cars right?
- diggan 3y agoWhat is that limit set to supposedly? Last summer I topped out at 210 km/h in my Audi A3 which was bought in Spain, and it seemed to be limited by the engine rather than a hardcoded limit (slowly approached 210 km/h instead of reaching it and then getting stuck there)
- starbugs 3y ago250 km/h for most models that are limited. But not all are.
- bloatlord69 3y agoAfaik those limits are there because the tires aren't rated for higher speeds
- vetinari 3y agoSupposedly, the Bugatti Veyron tires last for 12-15 minutes at 400 km/h. Then you need a new set, for $42k.
- HPsquared 3y agoThat's safe though, as the fuel tank also only lasts 12 minutes.
- gambiting 3y agoNot really - my Mercedes AMG came with tyres rated for 300km/h(ZR rated Contis), and it was still limited to 255km/h electronically. For me it's just a way to make more money - Mercedes will happily take that limiter off for an extra £1200 when buying the car.
- taylodl 3y agoWell played sir! Well played!
- diggan 3y agoMy first thought has always been that they are able to go faster because the world is not perfectly flat (or, perfectly round to be precise) so we have hills that cars need to be able to climb, and that extra power ends up making us able to travel faster than necessary when on flat ground. Since I'm no car expert (or expert in anything really), I'm eager to hear how wrong my intuition is.
- AdamN 3y agoAn electronic governor wouldn't care about that. The important engineering issue for an ICE car would be the gear ratios of the upper gears but that's already pretty well handled. Fundamentally there is limited consumer demand for a governor (but some from parents and also Volvo does it to support their zero deaths goal). In the end, governments should mandate this but the value is not incredibly high compared to many other safety features. Sometimes deadly accidents happen because a driver is going 100mph but for the most part it's people running red lights at 50mph in a 30mph zone (which should be 25mph) that cause the most carnage.
- lmpdev 3y agoReminds me of Japanese cars having rather high maximums listed on their speed dial, despite most never getting close My ‘89 Mazda 626 had 240km/h, but similar era cars had 320km/h Despite these usually being a ~2L inline-fours
- itsoktocry 3y agoThe speedometer is a design choice, not an indication of potential performance. And given F1 cars have a 1.6L displacement, the relationship between engine size and capability is weak.
- lmpdev 3y agoThat’s a bit disingenuous The thread is about road cars Road cars don’t run their engines at 20,000RPM Displacement is one of the main predictor variables of road cars’ top speeds You are completely right technically but it’s not an apt comparison given the thread’s topic
- yread 3y agoLooking at the top speedometer speed (and going ooo 320 or heh only 160) was our favorite hobby in the 90s as a preteenage boy
- thowawatp302 3y agoAt 120mph, my car can only go about 35mph over the posted speed limit in some places around here so I wouldn’t call it ‘much’ faster.
- jballer 3y agoWhy are knives designed to be capable of being used as a murder weapon?
- jballer 3y agoThe driver’s ability to command a car’s speed gives effect to our rights to self defense, to unrestrained movement, to due process, to choose to break the letter of the law where there are extenuating circumstances, etc.
- matsemann 3y agoAnd yet, you can probably count on one hand how often that has saved anyone's life. But need phone books of paper to count all the deaths it has caused..
- janalsncm 3y agoI don’t find these arguments compelling. You don’t have a right to the means to commit a crime. It’s illegal to shoot a gun on a plane but it’s also illegal to bring one in your carry on. Even if there could be a hypothetical self defense scenario where a gun is advantageous, that doesn’t outweigh the baseline risk.
- Lio 3y agoNot sure where you're going with that analogy. Where I live knives designed primarily for killing humans are illegal to sell, sometimes illegal to own and definitely illegal to carry in public. That's stuff like commando, flick or spiral bladed knives. Kitchen, pen or even bush-craft knives generally aren't designed for that but you still can't wave them about in public. If your analogy holds then are suggesting that if you got caught speeding in a Ferrari or 911 then you'd receive an instant custodial sentence because it was obviously premeditated? That would be the case here if you got into a fight with a spiral knife in your pocket.
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- HPsquared 3y agoIt's economical to have low engine RPM at cruising speed, which necessitates high gearing. This has the side effect of a higher top speed. The engine might be at 1500 RPM at 60 MPH for maximum economy (and low noise), but it might have a maximum of say 6000 RPM... so gearing would limit the speed to 240 MPH. (side note: engine power is almost always the limiting factor in top speed instead of RPM, as power requirement scales with the cube of speed... though most cars nowadays have electronic limiters below the 'physical' top speed) Acceleration ability is needed and valued. Good acceleration is needed to safely execute a lot of manoeuvres: especially overtaking on a two-lane road with oncoming traffic (more acceleration means less time and distance facing oncoming traffic), and entering a highway (less risk of high speed differential when merging). Again, higher engine power is needed for good acceleration. Indeed at cruising speed, only a small fraction of "power capability" is utilized; short bursts of acceleration are the only time the engine is used to its full extent. Lots of engineering goes into making car engines capable of these short high-intensity sprints, but with low fuel consumption the other 99% of the time.
- bayindirh 3y agoWhy not electronically or mechanically govern them (except speeds > 250KM/h), then? With today's electronics, you can use very smart feathering off acceleration curves, soft speed limit overrides for overtaking, etc. Gearing doesn't make sense. I can keep higher RPM but turn cylinders off to reduce power and cap the consumption and speed if I'd like to, but it's not implemented.
- theGeatZhopa 3y agoThe question should be "has there been a speed limit before the cars are designed the way to be capable of going much faster then the speed limit by itself"? You asking the question the wrong way:) Just, we have a lot of different cars today. Some are for comfortable driving, some address the aggressive part of one's personality with capabilities to go very fast. And that: very fast. Fact is, you can go on any street very fast. If your car allows, you also can conquer that one curve over there with sounding tires.. even the weakest car can be pushed to its limits. The law makers look at the street and decide what's the fastest speed you can go without being to dangerous for yourself and for others. For not having a jungle of different possible speeds for each road, law makers decided to have like three classes of speed 30/40 km/h for inner city - 50/60 km/h for the big streets and 80+130 km/h for the countryside and Autobahn highspeed roads. So.. should the cars be designed to be slower than speed limit, when speed limit have been chosen deliberately? What's the problem of cars being faster than speed limit, of one's adhere to the limit? Of course, the measurements of oneself with others in a competitive manner play a role, too. Because the men are like they are, we need rules of which speed limit is one of...
- matsemann 3y agoSmall electric scooters got people hysterical for "safety". They now have speed limiters, with different zones based on GPS. But for cars, killing and maiming millions a year, no one wants the same. So weird.
- mandmandam 3y agoIt's like vape pens vs cigarettes, or Bitcoin vs block lattice. There's people who will lose money to a markedly better alternative, so they smear the opposition. There's a whole playbook of strategies for this, developed by tobacco and oil companies.
- HPsquared 3y agoThought experiment: if bicycles were a new invention that came out this year, would they be allowed on the road? I'd say almost certainly not.
- coffeedan 3y agoCounterpoint: if ̶b̶i̶c̶y̶c̶l̶e̶s̶ cars were a new invention that came out this year, would they be allowed on the road? I'd say almost certainly not
- Eisenstein 3y agoWhy not? We allow haven't even banned those electric one-wheel balancing things that if they lose power will face plant the person riding it.
- xxs 3y agoabsolutely they would - not just on the road, but also on the pedestrian pavement, everywhere. Case in point - electric scooters.
- jballer 3y agoWhy is water designed to be capable of drowning people?
- kentiko 3y agoUnlike water, we can decide how fast a car ca go.
- vdaea 3y agoAnd thank the Lord for that - the speed limit where I live is 120 km/h, which in some highways is a snoozefest.
- Ekaros 3y agoWind speed is an other argument. Air resistance is big component at higher speed. And adding wind to that. So you need to some reserve power to overcome those sort of conditions.
- janalsncm 3y agoPerhaps there should be a way to limit their speed from the user side at least. Maybe I don’t want my teen driving over 65 mph anywhere. And then there’s courts. If courts can force drunk drivers to add ignition interlocks to their cars, they can throttle the engines of chronic speeders too.
- jstsch 3y ago> Perhaps there should be a way to limit their speed from the user side at least. Maybe I don’t want my teen driving over 65 mph anywhere. Standard Tesla feature.
- jakub_g 3y agoJust TIL from side comment [1] > Apart from the speed cap, every Volvo car will now also come with a Care Key, which allows Volvo drivers to set additional limitations on the car’s top speed, for example before lending their car to other family members or to younger and inexperienced drivers. [1] https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/268578/every-volvo-model-now-comes-with-a-180kph-speed-limit-and-care-key https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressrele...
- jpsouth 3y agoDevils advocate here, if you limit the speed for your teen and then need to accelerate to get out of a dangerous situation, what will happen? I’m not saying it happens often, but I’ve had times when driving on the motorway when I simply need to accelerate past the normal legal limit to get some distance or swap lanes safely to get away from some one behind me or next to me.
- eesmith 3y agoDevils advocate here. If you don't let your send your kid out in the fastest car you can afford, with the highest acceleration possible, then it's your fault if the kid gets rear-ended or sideswiped by another car. You should start funeral planning if you buy the kid a Chevrolet Spark, with its 0-60 of 11 seconds and top speed of 90mph.
- echelon_musk 3y agoThe simplest reason? My guess is capitalism. If every car model available for a consumer to purchase has the same advertised speeds, the competition between manufacturers will slowly dry up. I'd guess this would result in less cars being sold. Would manufacturers compensate by competing in other areas to attract buyers? Why buy a Kawasaki Ninja H2SX when you could buy a Yamaha N Max...
- HPsquared 3y agoPeople don't really buy cars based on top speed. Most higher-end cars are limited to the same 250 km/h (155 mph).
- matthewfelgate 3y agoWe should legislate so car manufactures have to stop cars going past a certain speed. Like we do with limiting van speeds. Excess speed causes a very large proportion of car crashes and traffic jams and injuries.
- pinkopalla 3y ago[dead]
- pinkopalla80 3y ago[dead]