Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Roadster

tesla.com

441–450 of 729 posts

Re: Tesla Roadster

#441

While this cars specs are no doubt impressive I wouldnt say no one will be able to challenge them. Porsche has been working on a high end electric car for a while and they specifically said they would challenge Tesla. Porsche can build some nice high end cars, and with their racing/electric technology i wouldnt be surprised if in 2020 they take some wind out of teslas sail

I guess that kind of language is always going to represent some hyperbole. People like porsches.

That said, the stats posted here are faster than any car you can currently buy. Porsche have a very fast supercar at the top of that list now, but it's not as fast as this roadster (again based on the table in this link) and costs 3-4 times as much.

The kind of cars that approach the performance suggested here are generally very expensive, very low volume "Sheikh" cars. Tesla is claiming that they beat all of them, for a lot cheaper. If so... I wouldn't want to be a Porsche dealer in 2021

Re: Tesla Roadster

#443

So basically Musk unveils future products of lesser demand but probably higher profit so he can raise Tesla stock value a bit and also grab some preorder cash flow and help Model 3 while it's stuttering ?

The hucksterism is brazen. I kind of want Musk to succeed, but yeah, it's sad what's taking place right now. Is it a real car company or a stock swindle?

Re: Tesla Roadster

#444
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds really good on paper but the production is scheduled for 2020, so it’s unfair to compare it to the cars currently on the market. No other manufacturers announce cars so far ahead so it seems at least partly like a hype for Tesla investors. Acceleration is just one part of what makes a great sports car. And how is the acceleration past 100 mph? That’s the traditional weakness of electric cars and it matters mor…

> And how is the acceleration after 100 mph? This. If you're buying a supercar to actually drive on a track, this is key. Any specs relating to what happens below 100 mph are worthless. If you spend any significant percentage of time going so slow, you need to spend ~$8k on a BMW E36 M3 instead, and learn how to drive. But if you buy a supercar mainly to park in front of Harrods, 0-60 time is... still worthless.

Not to be a Tesla apologist, but how many people track their supercars? Or at least proportionally to road use? An Aventador is pretty crummy as a track car, and its performance is all but unusable on the roads (unless, ahem, liberties are taken).

A lot of the appeal is in the perception of performance and that initial acceleration. It's putting your foot down with a passenger, or breezing someone at the lights whilst putting a smile on your face. 0-60 is probably one of the more relevant performance statistics for road use (even if 1.9s renders it all but pointless!)

Re: Tesla Roadster

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Porsche CEO has been sorta claiming that but it doesn't make sense to me. The kinetic energy of your car at a given speed is the same, regardless of how fast you accelerated to get to that speed. Do batteries waste more energy when you drain them faster? They can't waste a large portion of battery capacity, because the heat from that much energy getting wasted would blow up the car.

At a given speed, the energy is the same. But to get the car going it takes significant energy.

It takes more power to accelerate faster but the total change in kinetic energy is the same either way. Any energy consumption that doesn't go into the final kinetic energy is going into waste heat, and there can't be too much of that without melting things.

Re: Tesla Roadster

#447
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also insane to announce this car with what boils down to a bunch of CGI! They had multiple real Roadsters at the announcements. You can see a red one in the main event video, and there are pictures of a silver one on Twitter.

Yeah, it's just so odd that their website has the ultra fake video to demonstrate the 1.9 second 0-60 time!

That's because the actual ones can't make that time.

Re: Tesla Roadster

#448

Am I the only one who's worried that Tesla is really starting to bite off more than they can chew? Right now their finances are a mess, they are publicly struggling to produce their most important car ever, their CEO is spending time figuring out how to dig holes underneath LA...and now they're announcing a semi truck and a roaster in the same day? Don't get me wrong, Teslas are incredible cars. But this seems like a…

You have been reading too many finance blogs. Their finances are far from a mess, they are just not what finance people like to see. They have cash on hand and a roadmap to execute on. If they don't execute they will go out of business, and they will take my money as an investor with them. I'm OK with that and as long as they continue to have a path to profitability I am all on board. I want to see them burning money to get market share, especially as they do something new. The idea that companies must always operate within a specific set of financial metrics is why GE is going out of business

Re: Tesla Roadster

#449
post #23

Does this mean that Tesla is pivoting from their attempt to produce a medium-priced car in quantity and going back to hand-building high-end cars? Tesla is good at high-end, low volume products. But the Model 3 production fiasco shows they don't know how to do what Detroit and Wolfsburg and Toyota City do. This is in a way a step backwards. Tesla is going back to targeting the 1%. There are lots of little supercar co…

Toyota owns Lexus, Ford had Jaguar and Land Rover, Hyundai owns Genesis, Volkswagon has Bentley, Fiat owns Ferrari. Just like other car manufacturers, Tesla does it all. edit: Ford didn't start Jaguar.

I don't think (although it's complicated), Fiat still owns Ferrari?

Re: Tesla Roadster

#450
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds really good on paper but the production is scheduled for 2020, so it’s unfair to compare it to the cars currently on the market. No other manufacturers announce cars so far ahead so it seems at least partly like a hype for Tesla investors. Acceleration is just one part of what makes a great sports car. And how is the acceleration past 100 mph? That’s the traditional weakness of electric cars and it matters mor…

> And how is the acceleration after 100 mph? This. If you're buying a supercar to actually drive on a track, this is key. Any specs relating to what happens below 100 mph are worthless. If you spend any significant percentage of time going so slow, you need to spend ~$8k on a BMW E36 M3 instead, and learn how to drive. But if you buy a supercar mainly to park in front of Harrods, 0-60 time is... still worthless.

Some truth to that. But some wrong too.

I drive a 2004 330i; I track it. I get better times than most drivers who have much better 100-140 high speeds in the straights - despite me only getting to ~100.

Of course, somehome a pro driver in a lowered 140hp toyota pickup truck can get better times than all of us.

Post reply on HN