Source: Here's What A Battery Researcher Told Us About The Tesla Roadster's Crazy Performance Claims Skepticism abounds when someone makes a claim as outlandish as Elon Musk’s assertion that the new Tesla Roadster will scoot to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds and manage a range of 620 miles. So I spoke with a battery researcher from Carnegie Mellon to break it down and see how feasible all this really is. When introducing the new Tesla Roadster, Musk himself said, “these numbers sound unreal but they’re not.” And while a sub-two second zero to 60 mph time and a 1,000 km range are both impressive, they really shouldn’t sound “unreal.” According to a battery researcher I spoke with, the figures actually seem reasonable. . . . So yes, the numbers may, upon initial glance, seem astronomical. But, based on my discussion with one battery researcher, the small $250,000 car with a 200 kWh battery pack coming from a company with a history of high-performance EVs might actually pull it off. The $250,000 price is about 1/10th the cost of a $2,998,000 Bugatti Chiron with similar acceleration but lacks the range, Well this'll piss off Bob Lutz! Bob Wilson
Wow, those mangled links are getting ever longer. Here is a de-mangled version: Here's What A Battery Researcher Told Us About The Tesla Roadster's Crazy Performance Claims
@bwilson4web please link/embed jalopnik webpages into written text rather than freeforming and pasting the link directly as Jalopnik and this forum appear to create ridiculously long links.
Sorry, ordinarily I turn around and check what I posted but got distracted this time. Any idea what the heck is going on with these mangled links? Bob Wilson
It only happens with jalopnik links. They probably have something in the background that spits out the long links.
I think the 0 to 60 claim might be out of line due to traction issues, not torque or HP. It might be possible calculation-wise, but let's be clear, it won't be true with a roadworthy tire that will last the full 620 miles of that charge.
Or a side effect of our forum processing of links. I know it spell checks pasted links. What else it does to them I do not know.
It's probably trying to extract title information from somewhere on the page, and failing on whatever monstrosity Kinja is generating.
Not to mention road conditions (temperature, precipitation, etc.). Still... I may need to dip into my retirement funds for this one.
1.9 seconds may include roll out, which is how the car magazines test, but it may be real. If it includes roll out the tires on the model S P100D will work fine. My guess is its real and the car will do 0-60 in 1.9 seconds like the P100D does it in 2.5 seconds (2.276 seconds with roll out according to motortrend). New Tesla Roadster Acceleration - How Tesla Roadster Does 0-60 in 1.9 Seconds The first is that the dodge demon already has tires that can work. He's the guy that was talking in 2016 that 2.05 seconds is fastest for conventional tires, but the demon came out with the tires in 2017. Tire material technology is moving forward, I'm sure they can make a tire that works, and wears properly, and even is safe in very cold weather unlike the tire on the demon. The roadster also has separate motors driving the left and the right rear wheels and a 3rd motor driving the front wheels. This should give it some awesome electronic skid control further increasing acceleration with lesser tires. My guess is the new roadster will weigh in at around 4500 lbs. The original roadster weighed 2877, but only came with a 53 kwh battery. My guess is the new battery will add another 1500 lbs. It could probably go 40 miles at 240 mph, this is plenty of range for track days, but probably not long races. I'm a little surprised the back wheels have 2 motors and the front one. I would have thought it would be the other way to handle better in turns. Perhaps the roadster will use a vision system to determine when the driver is about to turn, and how much over or under steer is proper, then adjust power between the 3 motors to drift when its appropriate. That would be a neat trick. A drift mode that the driver could engage would be even cooler. Plus there is the possibility there may be a rocket option ;-) Bugatti's next venture looks like it will have to be a phev - probably based of the Porsche Panamera system (turbo v8, 30 mile battery). Porsche itself looks like they will have a 150 kwh mission E targeted for 2022.
If you use the BB code editor(the wrench up in the right corner) you can see the link coding and cut out the junk. Stick a hyphen somewhere to it. It seems I accidentally got an eff past the censor that way
