Hello everyone and welcome! In this video
we're going to be talking about Tesla's claim that they're going to be hitting 60 miles per hour in 1.9
seconds in the new Tesla Roadster. Now many of you pointed out in the comments on my channel that I claimed that no production car
Will exceed 60 miles per hour in less than
2.05 seconds for a production car there were disclaimers that went along with that which many of you chose to ignore no big deal
We'll get into that later,
point is Tesla says they can do this in 1.9
Seconds 60 miles per hour now Elon has a tweet saying
62 miles per hour basically he says 100 kilometers per hour we're gonna ignore that and just go with their official documents which all say
60 miles per hour in 1.9 seconds 100 miles per hour in 4.2 and a quarter mile in 8.8 seconds.
Now the first thing we have to talk about is that these are all claims. There is no production Tesla Roadster out there
That's actually doing this that's been verified by a third-party
Just like the you know devil 16 is gonna hit 300 miles per hour the Hennessey Venom
F5 is going to hit 300 miles per hour none of these things have actually happened in production cars so until they actually happen
Truthfully, it's all meaningless like it doesn't really matter
You don't know what's going on behind the scenes with prototypes as far as how they function, but they claim
It's going to happen
I think there's reason to believe why it will happen and so we're gonna get into that so let's go along and just
Assume the fact that in the year 2020 according to Elon's production schedule which as we know doesn't always work out but,
according to him by the year 2020 we're gonna have these Tesla roadsters. They're going to be hitting zero to 60 in 1.9
Seconds now the first thing we need to address and something that I've been disappointed that not a single outlet as far as I can
tell at this point has actually spoken about rollout when it comes to the 0 to 60 time for this car
I actually sent Tesla I tweeted at them
I sent them emails I've been asking to find out if they include or exclude
Rollout in their 0 to 60 times as of recording this video
They have not gotten back to me, but I will of course share that information if they do in the comments below
But basically whether or not they're including rollout is whether or not this is super impressive or not if for example
This is a true 0 to 60 times starting from exactly 0 and they're hitting 60 and 1.9 seconds
They're beating that claim that I made earlier
Super exciting it is actually really cool. What they're doing if they're including a foot of rollout in that time so they're
Basically what they're doing is that first foot of movement of that car is not recorded and then after that foot they start recording
So you're actually you know it
You know maybe five six miles an hour so already before you get started into that zero to 60 time
Because you've got a foot that isn't measured
This is how all the major outlets do it Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Road and Track they exclude that first foot of time.
And that makes the zero to sixty times look better by about point two two point three seconds
That's just the convention that everyone uses that has its heritage back in drag racing
So basically if they are not if if this one foot is excluded in the time that
Actual 0-60 is two point one to point two seconds and what I said previously
Holds true and no one has that will be beating that 2.05 you know assuming tire technology
Doesn't improve now on Tesla's website
They claim the zero to sixty for the P 100 D is two point five seconds which leads me to believe that
They're actually doing the true zero to sixty here of one point nine seconds rather than you know excluding that first foot of rollout
However Elon has tweeted in the past
Talking about the P 100 D and saying zero to sixty in two point three seconds Motor Trend ignoring that first
foot of rollout
And so you know we truly don't know which to believe until they
Release a statement and say what they mean as far as this zero to 60 time for the remainder of this video
We'll just kind of assume that they're gonna do that zero to sixty truly starting from zero to 60 miles per hour in 1.9
seconds okay now
Let's take a moment and appreciate just how brutal the acceleration in this car would be if it could accelerate from 0-60 in 1.9 seconds?
Average acceleration is equal to the change in velocity over the change in time blah blah blah
We do some math we find out that it's capable of accelerating at 1.44 average G's across that 0 to 60 time
Extremely impressive and basically the next best thing we have to compare to is the dodge demon now the dodge demon hits 60 in
2.3 seconds that's not none of this
Rollout nonsense basically just straight up from 0 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour in 2.3
Seconds it hits 30 miles per hour in just a second
So we know that based on that it would have the grip to do it 0 to 60 in two seconds flat
Which is already faster than that?
2.05 claim that I made as I mentioned in this video if tire technology improves that time can go down well tire technology
Improved and shortly after with the Nitto drag radials that go on the dodge demon yes, it's on a prepared drag surface
It's using 100 octane fuel, but they are street-legal drag radials
And as a result you know people seem to accept the fact that this can hit 60 in 2.3 seconds again
I don't think it's been third-party verified with an instrumented test
But we all seem to agree that it can happen ok so based on tire grip alone
Knowing that the demon could hit 60 in two seconds flat if it didn't have to worry about things like changing gears
Power or that kind of thing we know that it has the grip to do it is there anything we can learn from that that
Could make us say okay. It is logical that a Tesla Roadster could hit 60 in 1.9
Seconds and I think there are some things to point out first of all the dodge demon lifts the front end and then it comes
back down
now when it comes back down what that tells us is that there's weight on that front axle you can actually steer the car a
a bit you know correct and that means there's a load on the front axle
But that load on the front axle isn't doing anything to accelerate the car so if the car were all-wheel drive like the Tesla Roadster
It could actually use those front tires to help accelerate more quickly and so that would be the case
You know 1.9. Not a whole lot quicker than 2.0
And as if that front end were to come down, and you would still have weight on it
especially in the case with this Tesla Roadster, which is going to have a big heavy battery pack
That's very low keeping the center of gravity low you're not going to have all that weight transfer to the rear like you do with
The Dodge demon so you know a 1.9 second is very reasonable
Additionally dodge claims that the dodge demon hits 1.8
G's peak g-force right at the start now if you're to assume that the tires are able to maintain 1.8. G's of acceleration
Then you can hit a 0 to 60 time in just 1.52 seconds
You know top fuel cars are doing in 0.8 seconds
So ultimately all this comes down to is tire technology as tire technology improves, we will see 0 to 60 times
go down as it remains the same we won't see much improvement in 0-60 times no matter how much power you throw at these vehicles.
Ok now
let's go back to my claim that I think that there won't be a production car hitting the 0 to 60 in less than
2.05 seconds now was based on a braking of actually a Corvette
which had the shortest stopping distance and
Using the deceleration of that and assuming that was the maximum amount of grip that those tires had. Now the flaw with this
is that you assume ABS is reacting as you know as perfectly as possible when in reality,
electric traction control when you have an electric motor
that's you know finding grip if it starts to see slip and adjust the power sent to that wheel
can happen much more quickly than an ABS motor,
which is you mean see using a pump and a fluid to pump those brakes back and forth very quickly,
to produce that you know braking force when it sees the tire lock up it releases
When it sees that it's gripping again it holds back down.
So an electric motor can adjust much more quickly as far as traction control is concerned
Then you know your anti-lock braking system can adjust how quickly it is stopping and then releasing your wheel as it locks it up.
So improving on that 2.05 seconds would be possible assuming that you're using electric motors, and you have a very clever
traction control system and also again you know it's all dependent on
the tire technology
and we're assuming in this case the tires are the only thing accelerating the vehicle. Now on the Tesla Roadster the tires
it's using are Michelin Cup 2's, and they are basically the grippy tires
You're gonna find out there on the market for street-legal tires
You know perhaps the Nitto drag radials are equally capable in a straight line
but these Cup 2's are basically just fantastic in the dry they're going to have tons of grip and
one of the things to keep in mind is that companies work side by side
when developing tires for cars so Tesla may have you know reached up to Michelin and said hey?
Let's make you know the grippiest Cup 2 you have for this car for this specific scenario,
and they kind of collaborate on it the the Nitto tires were a combination of you know Dodge's working with Nitto to develop this tire,
that was specific to that car so Tesla could be doing the very exact same thing to help improve the Cup 2's with Michelin come up with
a very specific compound which for this specific car works perfectly and gives it the best
acceleration possible beating that 2.05 second claim.
Now there is also a tweet out there where Elon Musk hints at putting rockets on cars and whether or not he's joking
Is besides the point if you put a rocket on a car and you're not accelerating it with the tires
You're no longer limited by grip
you're just limited by how much thrust that rocket produces.
So whether it's a compressed air tank or a physical rocket or whatever you can hit a 0 to 60 time of you know 0.1 second
0.001 second whatever you want if you put a powerful enough rocket on something that's capable of accelerating that quickly.
Alright my final segment smoke and mirrors,
and there's a little
shadiness going on with this product launch
and I kind of just want to talk about that some of the numbers that they say people get super excited about
but they're without context and ultimately they're meaningless so that's what I wanted to talk about here 10,000 Newton meters of wheel torque
That's their claim of how much wheel torque this makes great that tells us absolutely nothing.
It's a huge number, and it probably will have a ton of torque
But this tells us absolutely nothing because we don't know how much power the car makes so you know
Ten thousand Newton meters of wheel torque is possible in any car out there
Assuming you change the gearing so in first year you have more wheel torque than in second gear so you can manipulate
gearing to have whatever wheel torque you want it doesn't mean the car is powerful
It doesn't mean the car is fast.
So this number until we know how much horsepower the car makes ultimately doesn't matter and you shouldn't really care about it too much
It's gonna have a lot of torque, it's gonna be quick,
we know that! But this number is nothing to get super excited about until we actually have context
There's second claim that this will be the fastest car in every you know way measurable so 0 to 60,
Quarter-mile, and top speed. I would assume because that's actually what fast means right like highest top speed
So they claim now 250 miles per hour plus you know perhaps
they're targeting 300 miles per hour
and they don't want to say it yet because there's kind of a competitive world going on for that right now
but if they truly are going to make the fastest car out there, then it's going to have to beat, Koenigsegg's current world record, which is like 277 or something along those lines
I would I would guess they're probably aiming for a very high number, and they don't want to talk about it now hence
They're just saying 250 miles per hour plus
to not have this kind of battle going on about hitting the highest top speed and then finally it has a
200 kilowatt hour battery and this part I believe I'm sure they are going to stick that 200 kilowatt hour battery in it.
But what they're not telling you is how heavy this 200 kilowatt hour battery is the tesla P100 D weighs
5000 lbs and it has a 100 kilowatt hour battery. Tesla sells a power pack too which has a
210 kilowatt hour battery pack essentially that battery pack weighs
3600 pounds so I would guess and this is a worthless guess so don't take it too seriously
but their battery pack is probably going to be weighing around 2,000 to 2,500,
2,800 pounds.
Just the battery alone so this car is going to be extremely heavy so while it may accelerate very quickly in a straight line
It's going to have a problem managing heat because it's so heavy. So braking, accelerating,
that's a ton of energy required to accelerate that much mass
it's a ton of energy required to decelerate, to brake that much mass and
so as a result there's going to be a lot of heat rejection required from the cooling system and Tesla currently is struggling
to you know provide consistent lap times where the car doesn't overheat go into this limp mode
and I think it's going to be the same case with this car because it's gonna be so heavy, so much energy, so much power
that it's not going to be able to reject all of that heat. Now that's just me making that up
maybe they'll be able to solve the heat rejection problem,
it'd be super cool if they did if you could actually track one of these cars rather than just go to drag strips and go
in a straight line
For you know eight point eight seconds and then stop, but either way super cool car
It's exciting
And I hope they actually do meet these claims and hopefully in the year
2020 if you guys have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below, thanks for watching!