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Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

#11

Post by hhmmmsms »

nikisweeting wrote: post #6

Tracks, private roads, autobahns, dynos, plenty of places to go fast legally. Not to mention the extra power goes towards faster acceleration, not just top speed. The same force that gets you an extra 10mph top speed also works to get you from from 0-60mph that much faster.

Of course, street-legal automobiles could simply be governed with a top speed of the fastest legal speed limit in a given region.

Re: Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

#12

Post by lsiunsuex »

degrews wrote: post #9

The speed of cars mostly comes down to how much power they have. The main reason for having more power is not to increase top speed, which is limited by law, but to increase acceleration, which is not.

And now a days, bragging rights. People like speed - period. If 1 model out performs another model at a similar price tag and features / design - people will go with the faster one (usually). Same as any other personal preference - people shop with their eyes first, wallets second. If they like speed, that sells more cars.

Re: Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

#15

Post by omnicognate »

Because it's not illegal to own or sell a car that can go over the speed limit.

A speed limiter is a feature that prevents a vehicle from doing something that many potential buyers want it to be able to do. There's absolutely no incentive to build in one that can't be disabled. In contrast, ones that can be optionally enabled are common - my car has such a feature, and I often enable it for sections of road with average speed checks.

Re: Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

#16

Post by DiabloD3 »

Disclaimer: IANAL, but also asked that question once in my youth, and went digging for the answer.

They technically don't in a meaningful sense.

What they do is make a car that has high torque and can accelerate 0-60 mph as quickly as possible. This has the unwanted side effect of also being able to still continue accelerating quickly past the target zone (The acceleration in cars are designed around pretty much one extra horrible edge case: accelerating up to freeway speeds, up an onramp that is entirely too steep (yet legally designed), from a standstill (ie, gridlock conditions), while also carrying max cargo capacity. Cars must be able to do this to be considered safe by any meaningful definition.

Also, there are no laws against going fast. The laws are purely against the law on public roads, as per the posted limit; there are many private racetracks that are completely legal. Not all countries even have limits comparable to America's, so being able to safely go 100+ mph is worth it if you were to, say, drive on the German Autobahn.

Re: Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

#18

Post by bierjunge »

nikisweeting wrote: post #6

Tracks, private roads, autobahns, dynos, plenty of places to go fast legally. Not to mention the extra power goes towards faster acceleration, not just top speed. The same force that gets you an extra 10mph top speed also works to get you from from 0-60mph that much faster.

Especially Autobahn in Germany is interesting. Generally there is no speed limit, but something called "Richtgeschwindigkeit" (the advised speed you should go, which is 130km/h). But there ARE speed limits on most parts of the Autobahn (construction sites are generally limited to 60 or 80km/h, dangerous sections, etc. so it's often limited to 100-140 km/h). Sections without speed limit are a lot of fun and created a whole industry around them. There are car rentals with sports cars you can get for a few hundred/thousand Euro a day, depending on the car (and they have almost everything, from Porsche and Mercedes AMG to Ferraris and Lamborghinis).

Re: Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

#19

Post by pulse7 »

Fast cars are expensive. Germany wants to sell A LOT of expensive cars. But there is a problem: in most countries fast cars are illegal. So how to solve this problem? German carmakers tells about this problem to the German government. German government finds a solution: allow unlimited speed on German highways so we can make fast cars legal - at least in Germany. Now "they make cars go so fast" and they are legal - in Germany. Now rich people order fast, expensive cars - from Germany. Officially they will not drive them too fast in their countries. Buy everybody can imagine, what happens inofficially... they have enough money to pay for the penalties (with the exception of Finland and maybe some other countries, where penalties are percentage of your income).

Re: Ask HN: Why do they make cars go so fast if it’s illegal?

#20

Post by donatj »

Niccizero wrote: post #7

Why do they make keyboards that can type hate crime? Why do they make cameras that can shoot child porn? This is possibly the worst question I've seen in this site.

There was an interesting Radiolab recently where they talked about how the Chinese IMEs are shaping what people say and can say. It’s a genuine fear that such control could happen.
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