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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Uh… I don’t see how cold gas thrusters will do _anything_ for a car. The amount of thrust they put out is directly related to the pressure they store the gas at. It’s much less than a combustion rocket… they are used for maneuvering… not thrust.
But more importantly… the whole thought is just stupid. I’ve got to believe that amount of acceleration would be physically painful. And extremely hard to control. The last thing we need is another way for idiot fan-boys to do something “wreckless” with their Tesla for a YouTube video.
The McMurtry Spéirling does 0-60 in 1.4 seconds with a big suction fan. I’d settle for that.
Man people just don’t understand how fast your 0-60 time is when you are on hard drugs.
I mean … George Carlin “can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!”
1s 0-60 is not even in the realm of possibility at the moment for a car that is intended for road use like this.
AMZ Racing’s car that does barely sub 1 second is a tiny carbon fiber bathtub with a suction skirt driven by a 120 lb race jockey.
“Plus, nitrogen infrastructure isn’t obvious.”
You can buy nitrogen generators and fill N2 tanks at home. They’re relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of a $250k car.
Does Elon Musk make claims that aren’t absurd?
They had one with some air-based rocket boosting so not sure if that’s what he is referencing here. There are video tests out there already.
Just in case anybody forgot, the gas turbine assist setup was sold as an add-on back in the 60s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbonique
I am pretty sure Tesla’s entire marketing budget is going to cocaine so Elon can sit back, bang out a few lines, and then tweet out some nonsense from his phone before going out and fathering another child
I think all his recent children have been in vitro fertilizations, which perhaps reflects on how he has been spending his time…
I mean, busy tech exec bros can’t waste their valuale time with fun stuff like sex, they have to outsource that tediousness
Tesla doesn’t have traditional marketing, so you probably aren’t far off
Gravity (1g) = 2.6s to 60mph. In other words, that would be your acceleration rate off a cliff.
As usual, nobody at Tesla seems to be asking “why?”
*adjusts glasses* well, the *acceleration* would be 9.8m/s^2 (and whatever that is in imperial units) to achieve 1g.
I suspect you know this and will not belabor the pedantry 🙂
That out of the way, does this mean Group B is coming back?
32ft/s^2
obviously
Supposedly they paid the Kardashian Empire 3 million bucks to pimp the CyberTruk on Instagram. I wonder how much they’ll get for this hot rod roadster?
I don’t think any of the K sisters can fit into a roadster given the amount of enhancement injected into their squishy parts.
More seats? If it has more than two it’s not a roadster.
I’m not saying it’s hydrazine, but I’m not, not saying it’s hydrazine.
I do not want my local tools to be able to do 0-60 in one second, regardless of if this is feasible or not.
Assuming this is all true, don’t we now need the requisite Jeff Goldblum/Jurrasic Park “…they didn’t stop to think it they should” meme?
The horsepower wars have already gotten out of control, and unless this thing is geolocked to only run on certain dragstrips, it shouldn’t exist. I’m guessing this thing will be priced in the similar range as a Model S Plaid (i.e. expensive but not out of reach of “well off plumbers”); and that kind of performance shouldn’t be in the hands of average joes. Sub-10 quarters in Plaids and Dodge Demons were already ridiculous, but sub-9 is just asinine.
The price at announcement was $250,000.
That’s a bit higher than I expected, but still well below most new ferraris and lambos. I think that’s about the cost of a nicely spec’d 911 Turbo (forgive me, there’s like 2 dozen 911 variants, and I really don’t know much about them). If the Roadster can do a sub 1.0 0-60, and sub 9 quarter (and that’s a big IF), those numbers are just dangerous, even at the $250k price bracket.
So what you’re saying is that the rich spoiled brats WILL be getting these for their 16th birthdays?
For the Founders Edition that’s just the deposit, deposit for the regular one is “just” $50,000 which thousands of suckers paid back in 2017.
Will this vehicle be available with an optional bottle of snake oil?
It’s not optional.
Ah yes, it’s part of the Full Self-Bullshitting Package.
What do you think the thrusters are going to run on?
*The FAA has entered the chat*
I know since the death of Harambe, we left regular reality for absurdist reality. But like what is this? Is it some sort of joke? The richest man in the world seriously suggesting that he will “seamlessly integrate” a series of rockets into a passenger car, which we can then use to haul ass. This is such blatant prosperous ramblings of a man who has left reality behind. And we’ve rewarded this dude, more then any other dude on Earth. So he can think about the complex problem that is, “Why no rocket on car?”. Glad to know the cream has really risen to the top here.
It’s not a solution to the problem but it is one of the few palliatives available.
Can I offer you some brown liquor?
I’ve just accepted that one day an Autopilot laser guided air-to-surface Tesla Roadster will come crashing thru my house and thus end by shitposting. Till then Viva la Revolution down with Tesla stock!
> since the death of Harambe
ṣallā -llāhu ʿalayhi wa-ʾālihī wa-sallama
Falcon doors, the Cybertruck’s…umm…everything, and now rockets? I’m starting to think Tesla’s real long-term goal is to achieve a higher elevation than a certain finned ocean-going predator.
Edit: And I even forgot about the yoke and stupid turn signal controls. I rest my case.
What is it they say? Musk has hopped the lamprey?
I keep thinking of the lying guy from SNL or Joe Isuzu, but not as funny
https://youtu.be/9gGvvdGWMKA?si=j2AK8nZk8yg_-m6T
Give details on the tires that’ll withstand that acceleration on a road car (and still handle the standard weather conditions to be a daily).
I don’t much care for the car details right now, but the tires sound like unicorns to have that kind of traction.
Forget Nitrogen, Hydrogen or Freon-12; The roadster will be fuelled by ego.
The living planet from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2?
My BOLD prediction. The Tesla Roadster will be featured in some video game next year, probably an updated Cyberpunk 2077
Is it a ploy to distract from the extremely low Cybertruck deliveries? Shouldn’t that be your focus instead of trying to distract the press and the world with a new shiny object?
Oh who am I kidding.
Is this still happening? I’d have thought most of the reservation holders would have dumped them for the Cybertruck by now?
True Tesla fanbois have reservations for both! … and are still waiting for both!
What does 0-60 in under 1 second translate to g-force? Will a normal human in normal health be able to handle it?
That’s a fairly unknowable question without knowing how much the car weighs. At its base, Force = Mass*Acceleration.
G-force is strictly determined by acceleration, regardless of mass. 1g is roughly 32 feet/second^2.
G force is force that is translated into how many G’s felt. Its a unit conversion, nothing more. If I felt a G force of 2 G’s, I’ve experienced a force equivalent to my mass, times 64.4ft/second^2
If it is strictly determined by acceleration, as you say, then its just acceleration. And that doesn’t make any sense as any sort of force, because Force = Mass * Acceleration.
Sidenote: I have typed and read “force” too much, and now the word looks strange. Like its mis-spelt
“g-force” is a misleading term.
As it’s typically used, it’s just a multiple of acceleration due to gravity (2g, 4g, 10g) and not really a force.
No, its always a force. Its just easier to say “2 G’s” instead of going into how much the driver/pilot/whatever weighed and what it felt like they weighed due to some acceleration acting upon them.
Because people are lazy with their use of it doesn’t change what it means, and what it means is the force acting upon an object times an acceleration of some value of earth-normal gravity.
And again, that force is determined by mass and acceleration.
Pedantically, you’re correct, but no one outside a physics lab has ever expressed the term “g-force” as any number of pounds-force or newtons. It’s an argument against the language.
https://media1.tenor.com/m/0DZpbooeCMcAAAAC/correct-technically-correct.gif
This is all I heard.
I’m pulling straight from Wikipedia as to not over simplify but it says the following:
Tangentially related, I’m a mechanical engineer and have always understood and treated G’s or G-Force as a measure of acceleration. When a pilot is said to have pulled 5 Gs on a turn, that is calculated as: Ac = V^2/r ; meaning 5 Gs of acceleration, or 5* 9.81 m/s^2 is equal to the speed (in m/s)^2 divided by the radius of the turn. Mass is not considered, nor is force. That said, force on the pilots body can be calculated as a basic F=M*A, meaning body weight multiplied by the “G-Force” felt will get an actual force value.
Also a mechanical engineer.
Its up to interpretation and what you’re used to/the system you’re working in.
I haven’t had to deal with it recently as I changed career fields recently, but I mostly had to deal with a “2G bump” for suspension systems. Using just acceleration for that is next to useless as it is (well, not a standard, but a standard) primarily used to determine what unsprung weight does to a full chassis.
The weight of the car is irrelevant.
We’re not asking how fast the car can accelerate given X horsepower, we’re asking how much g-force the driver will feel when it does.
If a car does 0-60 in 1 second, the driver will feel the same force whether the car weighs 2,000 or 20,000 pounds. The object the car hits will feel something different, but to the driver, the acceleration is the same.
You’re telling me that a car that weighs 3000lbs and a car that weighs 6000lbs will both have the same acceleration rate if they both do the same 0-60MPH time? I’d love to see the math on that.
The driver is inside the car, they have the same acceleration. Acceleration that contributes to G force.
Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. 0-60mph time is, by definition, the acceleration rate for that period of time. In X seconds it accelerates by 60mph.
We aren’t talking about something that accelerates to 60 and then stops accelerating until the same amount of time passes that it takes something heavier to accelerate. If that’s what we were saying, then a Ferrari has the same 0-60 time as a dump truck, as long as the Ferrari is nice enough to stop accelerating once it hits 60.
I get what you’re driving at, that it’s possible to accelerate harder from 0-30 and then slow down from 30-60 in one car, and the opposite happens in the other car, but especially with a vaporware car like this which does not and probably never will exist, we have to average our calculations. The average g-force for 0-60 in less than 1 second is somewhere less than 2.74 (how much less depends on how much cocaine Musk does before claiming how much faster than 1 second the car hits 60). If we could get more granular then we could calculate the g force experienced doing 0-30 in .25 seconds and 30-60 in .75 or whatever, but we can’t.
The linear acceleration formula is delta-v divided by time * gravitational constant. In this case, it’s 26.8 (meters per second)/(something less than)1*9.81. The mass of the object you’re accelerating does not factor.
Apologies. I misspoke, was in a hurry to get to a meeting.
Yes, acceleration is going to be the same, but the force absolutely will not and that is what we are discussing
I’m not sure we’re talking about the same force, then.
The acceleration force (i.e., how much the car seat pushes on the driver as it’s accelerating) will be the same regardless of the car’s weight.
If the car hits something, the driver will experience different forces based on the car’s weight (and a whole lot of other things) but that’s because those factors determine how the car decelerates in a collision.
Put another way:
From a pure acceleration standpoint, if I push on you with my hand and accelerate you by 1mph every second up to 10mph, you’ll feel force X.
If you instead stand in front of a train which pushes you and accelerates you by 1mph every second up to 10mph, you’ll feel the exact same force X because in both cases your body is accelerating at the same rate.
On the other hand, if I hit you and my hand runs into you at 10mph, you’ll just get a black eye, whereas if the train runs into you at 10mph you’ll probably die.
Because we were talking about what impact the g force is going to have on the driver then, assuming the driver doesn’t run into anything, it’ll have the same impact on the driver no matter what the car weighs.
I think you’re thinking of F=ma, but as far as the weight of the car goes for that equation, the F is being exerted by the tires on the ground to propel the car forward. As far as the driver is concerned, the F is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how much force it takes to get the car to accelerate at rate X when all the driver cares about is what rate X feels like to him.
Oh! Maybe this’ll clear it up. The car needs to exert force A on the driver to accelerate him from 0 to 60 in 1 second. A is dependent upon the mass of the driver because that’s the frame of reference for the acceleration we’re measuring. As far as this convo is concerned, the only thing we need to worry about there is whether or not the car is capable of exerting that force on the driver. Because we’re really nice people and are willing to suspend disbelief for Musk’s syphilitic claims, we’re assuming the car can do it. At that point, we shift to what the driver perceives in which case the g-forces will be the same regardless of what is exerting the proper amount of force.
One g is 9.8 m/s^2
60 mph is 27 m/s.
So linear acceleration to 60 mph in 1 second is just under 3g.
I would defer to others on the bodily effects.
Anyone who is physically capable enough to eat soup without help and hasn’t almost died from terrible internal injuries in the last week or so is going to be fine with a few seconds of 3g acceleration. Most theme parks have a rollercoaster that sustains more than 3g at the bottom of the big drops. Humans generally black out from more than a few seconds at 6-12g’s, with the higher end being fighter pilots wearing compression pants and the lower end being a relatively frail old person with low blood pressure. 1 second 0-60 times should be generally safe, especially since I doubt it would stay at 3g for more than two seconds before acceleration reduces.
As long as old people like me remember to suit up with precautionary Depends, we should be just fine.
You’ll be unstoppable.
Well, it’s supposed to have rocket thrusters and you’re talking about wearing Depends while driving . . . paging Lisa Nowak.
Too funny.
Their bodies can handle it, but can they think and control the vehicle with those loads? Maybe if they become accustomed to it, but that wouldn’t be something they’d have an easy time of doing unless they live near a drag strip.
Curiosity led me to a bit of quick google research. Supposedly, F1 drivers can experience upwards of 4G while driving. If that is accurate, then I imagine 3G is something an average human can take for a short burst? I’m not stating any of this is fact, just stuff I read.
4g is just the limit of the F1 design, you have to look at planes to see what people can really handle. An F-15 can handle up to 13.5 in an emergency but the pilot will black out at 11.5-12.5g.
Thats true, but there are many factors going in to that. Training, health, even body position has significant impact on how many Gs a person can take. So I was leaving some room for the unfit 😀
People complain of tunnel vision and dizziness from a full launch in a Tesla Plaid.
That’s from all the Kool-Aid they drank
They’re lying.
That’s not horizontal acceleration, though. The F15 can’t pull anywhere near 13g just accelerating in a straight line. Those g-forces happen when the pilot is flying fast and yanks back on the stick. The direction of the g-force in that scenario is down, not backwards and that’s important because humans are much better at taking g-forces perpendicular to the spine. Blood doesn’t rush out of your brain and into your legs when you accelerate straight forward. It does when you pull up.
I don’t think there’d be any negative effects on the driver of a car pulling 3gs for 1 or 2 seconds. I do, however, think the point is moot because there’s no way in hell Musk is coming out with a car that can do that. 😉
Good point there. You inspired me to look it up – astronauts experience 3g-4g of perpendicular acceleration for several minutes during launch. That’s probably as close as it gets! There are also a small number of electromagnetic launch roller coasters and I’d guess that the catapult on modern carriers probably hits at least that hard for a second or two. As you said, a couple seconds shouldn’t be any problem for most people.
I think F1 G forces are higher than that now maybe up to 5g on cornering at somewhere like the Becketts complex at Silverstone. There are multiple reports that Leclerc nudged 7g under braking when he made the pass on Perez in Las Vegas.
Yes but F1 drivers like Leclerc are highly conditioned athletes. Bill Yonair who just bought a Tesla Roadster is a tech bro showing off at a kegger.
He goes by William now
Crikey. Thats a lot of force. So technically we know the human body can take it. But I’m with Chronometric on just who is likely going to be taking it 😀
In Indycar they go constantly over 5 G in the banked turns. At one point ages ago they were going too fast and the drivers were starting to black out.
It is more largely likely to be a hard hit and then sustained G. A 4G initial launch for a couple of tenths tapering down to 2g would get you there. Those are face stretching numbers but not dangerous to humans. There is likely to be enough power to accelerate the mass but tires are the limiting factor. Maybe the car will come with some drag rubber like a Hellcat.
Of course, there will be a ton of caveats about a prepped surface and stickier tires, and downhill.
And no ball bearings will be employed.
Tom Scott has already done it in a video. AMZ racing has accomplished it with the Mythen.
Tolerating high Gs is dependent on immediate physical preparation (think breath-holding, bearing down, stuff like that), and body position (think avoiding blood draining from head and heart). I was once surprised (i.e. totally unprepared) for what was probably about a 2G dive and pull-up in a bush plane, once, and briefly G-LOKed. I’m a pretty ordinary person who is in reasonable but not athletic shape. This car, as described, can’t be for anything other than trained drivers on closed courses.
Also, where is that STAB guy when you need him?
LOL, First thing I did was calculate it. G = V/t/9.81 2.73G’s (average).
A super quick and dirty way to estimate it recognizes:
1. One mph is about 1.5ft per sec
2. Gravity is 32.2 ft per sec squared, which is close enough to 30
So 60mph is 90 ft per sec. Divide that by 30 gets you 3g.
Actual value is 2.73g, so it ain’t bad for something that took 3 seconds to work out inside someone’s head.