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Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

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Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#91

Post by Brakenshire »

brosinante wrote: post #72
parsimo2010 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> a few stupid people will hurt themselves and some randomly selected passers-by with it

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#92

Post by verytrivial »

jayalpha wrote: post #70

Well, great for dick comparisons. But does this bring humankind ahead in the year 2019?

For my money, the more impressive 300 was broken 46 years ago, namely 300mpg (US), but has since increased to a staggering 12,665 mpg.

We've fetishized the wrong denominator!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Eco-marathon

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#93

Post by neor »

SCdF wrote: post #47

Does anyone have any insights to if this brings any interesting science to the table that is applicable outside of this context? I personally have zero interest in a fast car going fast, but it's always interesting to see how these sorts of difficult feats help humanity in more general ways.

For the Veyron I know they developed special tires with Michelin to be able to handle the extreme high speeds.

Such development might help "normal" tires improve in durability.

I can imagine this is something that happens in a lot of area's. Pushing every part to the extremes might help make them more reliable under normal usage.

Ultra high speeds also require efficient aerodynamics, which in turn helps reduce drag/fuel usage.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#94

Post by safgasCVS »

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…

No one decides to marry their spouse based on how punctual they are. Cars like these (and just sports cars in general) are things you buy with your heart

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#95

Post by p2t2p »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #27
kijin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the "300mph barrier" even a thing when we're talking about a French-turned-Italian-turned-German automaker doing test runs in Germany? They only barrier they need to care about is the metric one at 500km/h.

The only thing they need to be concerned with is being faster than everything else. Units are arbitrary, even kilometers (1000x the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second). Once they go past 500 km/h people will start wondering about some other round number until we get to relativistic speeds.

And we get there, we will strive to achieve Warp 10

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#96

Post by killjoywashere »

fasicle wrote: post #76
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?

Top Gear actually did a road test of a Tesla S vs an Aston Martin starting at 30 MPH and the Tesla dusted the Aston Martin. Considering electric motors start with max torque, and the stats that are easily googlable, the Tesla would have no problem with the Bugatti.

Never mind the Tesla is smaller, has a lower center of gravity, and costs 15x less and has more range.

And it's probably worth noting that the Tesla is almost certainly software limited.

Also, I haven't test-driven a Bugatti, but I've tested a Tesla. My wife compared the acceleration to a launched roller coaster. I entered the turn onto an onramp at 20 mph, exited the 90-ish degree turn at 60 in the same lane, and hit 80 by the time I realized I needed to take my foot off the pedal. We weren't halfway down the ramp. What was really impressive about that was the turn: plastered into the back and the side of seat at the same time, traction like it was on rails to whole time. It is quite possible the car was outperforming my nervous system's ability to orient.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#97

Post by Piskvorrr »

Svip wrote: post #33
beambot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "obvious" upgrade ... What's stopping the trains from operating autonomously?

Drivers are still a lot better at spotting pedestrians on tracks than autonomous systems. Autonomous train systems already exists, but those are completely enclosed systems, like a city metro system. Not a system where speeds reach 200 km/h, or even 100 km/h.

Modern rail can (and does) run autonomously, at 160 km/h. How-e-ver, it can run autonomously about 90% of the time...and it's far, far more cost-efficient to keep a driver in the cab than to add reliability nines here: detecting and reacting to humans is far harder for machines than for humans (think Elaine Herzberg, but at 160 km/h).

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#98

Post by gambiting »

riffraff wrote: post #78
awesomepeter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-euro…

Have you ever been to Poland? The legal speed limit on the motorway is 140km/h, but 160km/h is more common, especially since there is effectively no fine for going that quickly, police are mostly interested in people going 200km/h+, because the fine for doing 160km/h would be like 100PLN(~$30/£20). I've driven my Mercedes-AMG some time ago through Germany and then through Poland, and yes, on the Autobahn I was able to hit 250-260km/h for maybe 4-5 minutes at the time(legally, which is amazing and I would 10/10 recommend to anyone who likes driving, scary as all hell though), but overal I can guarantee that my average speed was higher in Poland, the traffic is just moving a lot quicker and there's less roadworks compared to the autobahn.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#99

Post by gambiting »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #86
zone411 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you don't know about track days or drag strips. That's the way to enjoy a car that goes faster than 150km/h fully. A 300mph Bugatti is still way above any speed you'd reach, though.

Even in that case a much lighter (and cheaper!) car like an Atom or Caterham will be a lot more fun than one of these hulking great monstrosities. Often faster as well, depending on the track.

That's a matter of taste though - for some people, a smaller, lighter, weaker can is more "fun" than a car that is stupidly fast but only in a straight line. But then there are people who only care about that and that 0-60mph run is what does it for them, not tossing an MX-5 around on a twisty road.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#100

Post by vonseel »

bartread wrote: post #79
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…

Hmm, I'm not a biker but I always assumed your legs determine statistics like acceleration on a bike. Learn something new everyday...
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