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Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

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Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#91

Post by jstanley »

Someone1234 wrote: post #87
beachstartup wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh. knee-jerk reaction to ban dangerous things. first of all, a minivan can kill you doing 10mph. second, cars with this much power (and more importantly, top speed), have been around for a long time. you can build an 8-second quarter mile car in your garage and drive it on the street. more nanny-state nonsense. "think of the children".

That "nanny state nonsense" witnessed road deaths fall from 25 per 100K in 1930 to 10 per 100K since 2010. We've halved road deaths per every 100K of population! I'll take my nanny state nonsense where people are still alive, over the libertarian wet dream where they're dead. I really think it boils down to that some people value their own personal enjoyment over other people's safety. The sad truth is that you could…

> I'll take my nanny state nonsense where people are still alive, over the libertarian wet dream where they're dead.

Don't assume that everybody will.

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#92

Post by jstanley »

wavefunction wrote: post #81

My brother was killed by a careless driver. When I read your post I want to reach through the internet and strangle you.

I'm sorry to hear that, but your brother was killed by a careless driver, not by a powerful car.

Drivers can be careless regardless of what their equipment is capable of.

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#93

Post by tcpekin »

WordyMcWordface wrote: post #45

It also depends on how you define "Worlds fastest car" While there is no doubt this is a fast car and that time is a stonking 0-60 time. I am lead to believe it can't complete a full flat out lap of the Nurburgring as constant high speed/full throttle use heats up the battery to the point where performance has to be limited. So while it will be great to "hoon about" in and should be a win at the traffic light gran pr…

Car and Driver just compared another 20 or so cars at their resident Lightning Lap track a few months ago, including a Tesla. The Tesla was not fast, approx. 30 sec slower on a track that fast cars were finishing in the 2:45 range.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/tesla-model-s-p85d-at-l...

http://www.caranddriver.com/flipbook/lightning-lap-2016-ever...

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#95

Post by Dylan16807 »

wavefunction wrote: post #81

My brother was killed by a careless driver. When I read your post I want to reach through the internet and strangle you.

You can be just as careless in a car that takes 10 seconds to accelerate to 60.

Your anger is misdirected.

There might be some merit to removing a "launch mode", but the specific amount of torque is not particularly important.

Anything fast enough to merge onto a highway is fast enough to seriously hurt people.

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#96

Post by usrusr »

jackmott wrote: post #27
PietdeVries wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge the essence of an electric engine is that is has max traction almost independent of the rpm. Where a petrol engine has an optimal rpm (4000 for instance) where it provides most power, the electric car does not. Consequence is that a petrol car needs a gearbox to keep the engine around this optimal RPM (and thus most power) while the electric engine does not need one - it accelerates and keeps on accel…

Max torque, not traction. That, and being able to do all wheel drive efficiently and with less weight penalty and with less risk to drivetrain parts helps the quick acceleration. But you still have to make tons of power and not be too heavy of course.

Yes and no. While the grandparent post was clearly confusing traction and torque quite a bit, the answer is still mostly about traction.

At the supercar level, you can basically assume infinite power when looking at acceleration in the lower speed ranges. The limit is traction, not torque. A sufficiently strong EEV can continuously max out traction. An ICE supercar does the same, but with a few tiny gaps for shifting that add to the total time. The ICE supercars do not need a stronger engine to come closer to the Tesla, they need faster transmissions to minimize shifting gaps. I think that this is also the prime reason why manual transmissions are disappearing/have disappeared from supercar territory, dual clutch automatics provide shorter gaps.

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#97

Post by dang »

wavefunction wrote: post #81

My brother was killed by a careless driver. When I read your post I want to reach through the internet and strangle you.

I'm sorry about your brother. Please don't post uncivil comments here, though.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12978582 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#98

Post by threatofrain »

Someone1234 wrote: post #72

It wouldn't surprise me if they legislate maximum acceleration in the next ten years. Zero to sixty in 2.5 seconds is fun, no doubt about it, but it is fun on a racetrack. You can go on YouTube right now and find dozens of people utilising Tesla's existing "ludicrous mode" on public streets. And here's the thing, if people want to endanger their own lives that's fine. But they aren't just endangering their own lives,…

But isn't banning top velocity on the manufacturer-level much more lower-hanging fruit than banning top acceleration? Just make it so your vehicle can't even go over legal speed limit. It should be clearer to us today how speed kills in some of the most wide-reaching ways.

Velocity is a much more obvious policy knob to tune for the goal of less vehicular deaths and injuries.

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#99

Post by nrb »

Someone1234 wrote: post #87
beachstartup wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh. knee-jerk reaction to ban dangerous things. first of all, a minivan can kill you doing 10mph. second, cars with this much power (and more importantly, top speed), have been around for a long time. you can build an 8-second quarter mile car in your garage and drive it on the street. more nanny-state nonsense. "think of the children".

That "nanny state nonsense" witnessed road deaths fall from 25 per 100K in 1930 to 10 per 100K since 2010. We've halved road deaths per every 100K of population! I'll take my nanny state nonsense where people are still alive, over the libertarian wet dream where they're dead. I really think it boils down to that some people value their own personal enjoyment over other people's safety. The sad truth is that you could…

Uhh... I'm pretty sure vehicle safety improvements have more to do with that than anything.

Re: Tesla ‘Easter Egg’ Makes the Fast-Accelerating Model S Even Faster

#100

Post by carlob »

Someone1234 wrote: post #87
beachstartup wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh. knee-jerk reaction to ban dangerous things. first of all, a minivan can kill you doing 10mph. second, cars with this much power (and more importantly, top speed), have been around for a long time. you can build an 8-second quarter mile car in your garage and drive it on the street. more nanny-state nonsense. "think of the children".

That "nanny state nonsense" witnessed road deaths fall from 25 per 100K in 1930 to 10 per 100K since 2010. We've halved road deaths per every 100K of population! I'll take my nanny state nonsense where people are still alive, over the libertarian wet dream where they're dead. I really think it boils down to that some people value their own personal enjoyment over other people's safety. The sad truth is that you could…

> That "nanny state nonsense" witnessed road deaths fall from 25 per 100K in 1930 to 10 per 100K since 2010

I think the better metric is the number of deaths per billion vehicle-km. In your metric most European countries have half the deaths than the US, but it's mostly explained by the fact that we drive less. I guess people had fewer cars and drove less in the 1930…

EDIT:

I found the stats: in 1930 you had 15.12 deaths per 100 million miles vehicle, in 2014 1.08. So the reduction is not 2.5x, but 15x!

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