‘0-60 MPH < 1 Sec' And Other Absurd Claims Elon Musk Has Made About The Tesla Roadster

Elon Musk, Tesla boss and modern-day Joe Isuzu, has made some grand claims about the forthcoming second-generation Tesla Roadster that are difficult to take at face value, and he just made another one. With this latest claim involving a zero-to-60 mph time of less than one second in top-spec, let’s round up various claims Musk has made about the next-generation Tesla Roadster and see what’s plausible and what’s reasonable to doubt.

While the original Tesla Roadster consisted of a Lotus-built aluminum chassis with Tesla’s own powertrain, the second-generation car is expected to be Tesla’s own creation. It’s also slated to offer a few extra seats, a few extra motors, and many more batteries than the original. It’s also been delayed, and comes with promises of fantastical acceleration and spaceship-like thrust. Hmm.

Anyway, today we’re writing about all this because last night Musk wrote this on X, formerly known as Twitter:

“Radically increased the design goals,” writes Musk, going on to say the vehicle debut “has a shot at being the most mind-blowing product demo of all time.”

Woh. Talk about getting hopes up!

Zero-to-60 MPH In Less Than A Second

Another claim that Musk made last night was a response to someone asking about the vehicle’s zero to 60 mph acceleration time — Musk says the new Roadster will get to the acceleration benchmark speed in under a second.

Let’s get generous here and assume that the Roadster will be running on a prepped surface and have one foot of rollout deducted. Since virtually all North American car magazines including Motor Trend delete that foot of drag-strip rollout from their published zero-to-60 mph times, we can use the magazine’s Model S Plaid testing to see the delta between a sticky prepared track surface and an unprepared surface on street tires. In the case of the Model S, it’s a delta of 0.09 seconds. That’s not much time at all. So to nab a 0.99-second zero-to-60 mph time on even a prepped surface, the Roadster will have to run from zero-to-60 mph in just a hair over one second on the street — that’s substantially less time than the 1.74 seconds required for a Rimac Nevera electric hypercar to get from zero-to-60 mph. That’s really testing the limits of tire technology. Of course, none of this applies of the vehicle isn’t relying on tractive force for acceleration…

Available Rockets

Of course, Musk isn’t expecting to rely solely on tires for wild acceleration. The tweet last night mentioning “Tesla/SpaceX collab” likely refers to rockets; back in 2018, the self-proclaimed Technoking tweeted this:

SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car. These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering. Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly …

Musk has specifically been talking about cold gas thrusters on the Roadster, and while those rocket engines don’t rely on combustion, they still use fuel, and that fuel can come with downsides. Nitrogen is inert, but nitrogen gas can displace oxygen in confined spaces. Helium is inert but increasingly more rare on earth, even if you remember it filling your party balloons when you were younger. Hydrogen gas is highly combustible. Freon-12 can be used as cold gas thruster propellant just like how asbestos can be used to season an overdone steak (i.e it’s a bad idea). Clearly there are risks. Given that SpaceX uses a cold nitrogen gas altitude control system in the Falcon Payload, it’s likely that cold gas thrusters on the Tesla Roadster may also use nitrogen as a fuel. While one of the safer choices and one you might think you’re familiar with if you’ve had your tires filled with it (that’s a much smaller amount at a lower pressure than we’re talking about here), Nitrogen can be hazardous if a leak develops in a confined space. Plus, nitrogen infrastructure isn’t obvious. For that level of pressurization and temperature, Roadster owners may have to visit air supply companies for refills, and that comes with its own learning curve of safety parameters.

It Will Be Available In 2020

We’re sitting here in February, 2024, and the second-generation Tesla Roadster isn’t on sale yet, despite Tesla’s initial claim the car would come out in 2020. It’s faced repeated delays, but that isn’t unusual in the world of Tesla. In 2020, Electrek reported that Musk claimed the Roadster would enter production in “12 to 18 months” after Q2 of 2020. Well, on Jan. 28, 2021, Musk tweeted “Finishing engineering this year, production starts next year. Aiming to have release candidate design drivable late summer.” Another delay. On Sept. 1, 2021, Musk said in a tweet, “Assuming 2022 is not mega drama, new Roadster should ship in 2023.” Finally, in May 2023, Teslarati reported that Musk said “Hopefully, start production—and this is not a commitment—but hopefully start production next year.” As of today, the purported timeline hasn’t changed from this year. With the Cybertruck in production, it should give Tesla a chance to get a move on with this new flagship.

So What’s Actually Plausible?

While some of Elon Musk’s claims around the second-generation Roadster seem questionable, that doesn’t mean the Tesla Roadster is a complete pipe-dream. I like the idea of a targa-topped 2+2, the tri-motor setup is feasible based on existing Tesla technology, and I don’t see why an 8.88-second quarter-mile time isn’t possible, given how YouTubers BoostedBoiz managed an actual 8.71-second quarter-mile time in a cut-down, stripped-out Model S Plaid on sticky tires. I’d also argue that any attempt at an electric sportscar is worth pursuing, as it’s the segment of car that will likely change the most in the shift to electrification.

Even with some questionable claims, the upcoming Tesla Roadster is still worth getting excited about once deliveries start. Whether powered by gasoline, electricity, diesel, or hydrogen, a world with more sports cars is better than a world with fewer. The premise is intriguing, even if some of the plot twists don’t immediately pass the sniff test.

(Photo credits: Tesla, X)

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