Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier • Hacker News Board

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#81

Post by dalbasal » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

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…

Even if it could be operated safely by a person, it still would have no practical value. This is not a transport feat, it's an engineering/brand feat.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#82

Post by ayodio » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

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

No it is not 130 is the general limit.

http://www.unecartedumonde.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/car...

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#83

Post by jnty » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

beambot wrote: post #31

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 ... What's stopping the trains from operating autonomously?

They do in a lot of metros, although it's often very hard to retro-fit. The DLR got it at build-time. [1]

One of the big issues is 'degraded working' where there's been some sort of failure (or perhaps adverse weather conditions) which means trains have to operate on vocal authority to proceed on sight. The problem then becomes as hard as driverless cars - you have to know when you've reached milepost 70 or the next set of points by sight and it's really bad if you miss them. Arrival to and dispatch from stations without platform-edge doors is also tricky and human staff are often required to manage the process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#84

Post by southerndrift » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

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…

It is not futile. You can drive to a race track and have fun without having to rely on a trailer and another car.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#85

Post by 2sk21 » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #54

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…

Also Bugatti is part of the VW Group - so it's possible that some day the engineering may trickle down to all of the other brands in the group (such as the humble Skodas I've been driving for the last few years).

perhaps chassis and suspension may benefit but with rapid electrification impending in the future, even that is of dubious value.

A Bugatti is like a piece of jewelry in my opinion - beautiful but of no practical value.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#86

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:34 AM UTC

zone411 wrote: post #69

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…

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.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#87

Post by rmu09 » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

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.

Going faster than the speed of sound would be interesting and a somewhat "non-arbitrary" target.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#88

Post by gavia1 » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

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…

You could get close just with turbocharging which will lower the torque curve such that max torque is somewhere around 1500 to 2000RPM.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#89

Post by safgasCVS » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

Incredible! A celebration of silliness in all its absurd glory. I was not expecting Bugatti would do a top speed run at least for a few more years for the tyres to become available so I think we all expected Koenigsegg to be the first to 300mph. Massive achievement for Michelin as much as VW.

Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier

#90

Post by Piskvorrr » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 9:40 AM UTC

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…

Correction: transmitting the track signal to the cab is how high-speed trains worked half a century ago. That's SOP on most modern trains by now, with high-speed rail using moving blocks now (no more physical signals at predefined distances, control system negotiates the safe distance for each train, based on realtime data).