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Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

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Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#71

Post by manigandham »

edejong wrote: post #39
jlg23 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's futile .... But it is fun .

This got me thinking. Once I thought it was fun , but the more I look at it, the more I feel it is utterly pointless. A racing car has a function: to get around a track faster than other cars (over a period of laps). To do this, it needs to be versatile: turning, braking, acceleration, fuel consumption, range of vision and suspension (among others) play a role. That's the true engineering challenge. It's why it has w…

I think you're underestimating just how much engineering it actually takes to get a road-legal car to go this speed. Going fast in this case is just a different set of parameters to solve for, but no less of a challenge.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#72

Post by brosinante »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #38
tialaramex wrote: post #13

It'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 linesid…

Pretty much all modern cars will go faster than is useful and/or safe. Only a small set of public roads allow cars to go their top speed. I have a 1991 Corvette that will go 153 mph, and I've only done it twice. It scares the crap out of me. Top speed is a cool thing to boast about, but most people won't ever see it, and a few stupid people will hurt themselves with it. That's okay on the balance, because millionaire…

  a few stupid people will hurt themselves with it. That's okay on the balance, because millionaires are spending their money and supporting the economy.
I fail to see how that is ok.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#73

Post by erikig »

MrGilbert wrote: post #48

It'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 does…

I love acceleration but there’s also jerk - the rate at which acceleration builds up. It is is also a factor of the torque curve.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#74

Post by zone411 »

edejong wrote: post #39
jlg23 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's futile .... But it is fun .

This got me thinking. Once I thought it was fun , but the more I look at it, the more I feel it is utterly pointless. A racing car has a function: to get around a track faster than other cars (over a period of laps). To do this, it needs to be versatile: turning, braking, acceleration, fuel consumption, range of vision and suspension (among others) play a role. That's the true engineering challenge. It's why it has w…

A car built for top speed is not the best choice on a race track but you don't need a purpose-built race car to have an occasional fun track day. Occasional because it's not cost-efficient to bring an unmodified sports car to a race track too often (brakes and tires will go quickly), as opposed to a dedicated track car, and at some point, even the fastest sports car will seem slow in turns and under braking. A car built for top speed should be exhilarating on a drag strip, though I doubt more than a few owners will go.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#75

Post by harperlee »

tialaramex wrote: post #13

It'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 linesid…

I rented a car a couple of years ago that read speed signals and kept them in the dashboard for about 30 extra seconds. It was great usability. It only dealt with speed limitations and a couple of other signals, though - if it dealt correctly with “next exit” signs I would never buy a car without that system.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#76

Post by fasicle »

MrGilbert wrote: post #48

It'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 does…

How would a Tesla's initial torque compare to the Bugatti? Would the Bugatti reach 30 mph much faster?

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#77

Post by NeedMoreTea »

ollie87 wrote: post #41
mrweasel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, 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 w…

A lot of things humans do are pointless, but all the same we do them. Doesn't stop it being fun does it?

0-180 in the same time and hitting a speed limiter is going to be just as much fun for everyone. Unless you happen to have laid out a strip at Bonneville Salt flats. That seems poor justification.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#78

Post by riffraff »

awesomepeter wrote: post #51
mrweasel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, 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 w…

Going around 160km/h on highways in Europe is pretty common, also higher speeds for eg. in Germany

> Going around 160km/h on highways in Europe is pretty common

is it? That is 20-50km/h above the limit in all european countries other than Germany. There are people going that speed, but in my experience across a few countries 99% of the traffic does not go that much above the limit.

Sources:

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle.... https://autotraveler.ru/en/spravka/max-speed-limits-in-europ...

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#79

Post by bartread »

MrGilbert wrote: post #48

It'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 does…

I ride bikes and from a practical standpoint, along with small size and manoeuvrability, the acceleration (a result of torque) is one of the most useful attributes. Much moreso than top speed, or even speeds significantly in excess of the posted limits.

Bikes don't tend to have high torque in general, but their light weight and gearing are designed to maximise what torque they do produce. This means there are quite a few that will do sub 3 seconds to 60, and sub 5 seconds is practically the norm.

What this means is that you can more easily get past, and through, traffic because you can safely take advantage of gaps that no car can. Also, that sense of having your arms ripped out of their sockets and hanging on for dear life is fun.

Still, there's something to be said for going really fast as well: the feeling of the world blurring past you, and the road or track flowing and snaking underneath you like mercury, is hard to beat (if sometimes a little terrifying).

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#80

Post by m0zg »

tialaramex wrote: post #13

It'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 linesid…

The obvious upgrade is to have no operator at all. It boggles the mind that we're seriously talking about self-driving cars on shared roads, and at the same time don't have self-driving trains, and instead allow them to fly off the rails every year due to operator error.
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