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Comment by jjallen | Hacker News Reader

The top-speed is really a prime concern for choosing your car?

Interesting. Do you live in a no-speed-limit jurisdiction, such as Germany?

I do live in Germany, and it is a concern for me.

The VW e-up costs 22k EUR and has a top speed of 130 km/h, the BMW i3 full electric version w/o range extender costs about 35k EUR and has a top speed of 150 km/h.

This performance would be fine if I bought a car under 10k EUR but not for this price.

A car that can only drive at 130 km/h would be turn-off in many regions where the legal speed limit is lesser. There is such a thing as overtaking other cars safely (e.g. overtaking a car that drives 100 km/h on a 120 km/h road in Sweden).

Yeah I guess I assumed that basically every modern car can go at least 120km/h

I have an i3. The top speed is fine; I can do 90mph here in the US, but you probably don't want to. Driving an EV you start to realize how much energy it takes to maintain high speeds, due to wind resistance. I can drive a full 100 miles on a charge at 75mph, but if I tried to drive the same distance at 90mph, I'd probably only get 60 miles. Wind resistance makes a huge difference to EVs.

Just adding more data:

The 2017 Volt (Opel Ampera-e) has a top speed of about 160 km/h / 100 mph for 35k EUR, $33k USD

Pretty sure the Model 3 can acheive this, if not be faster, since this is just the norm and not 'fast'.

Forgot to add - I do 80-85 mph 128-136 kmh 5 days a week on my Volt

Same here, I do bursts of 120-130kmh highway driving every day and occasionally go higher.

But I usually switch into Hold mode (turns on the combustion engine) so I don't waste too much battery.

To be honest, the extra torque of an electric engine makes slow speeds seem faster. When I was in my diesel VW I found myself at 140-150km/h quite often by accident. In the Volt I'm comfortable going slower because it "feels" faster somehow.

My 2017 is speed limited to 101 mph. It gets to that speed pretty uneventfully, but I've heard the low rolling resistance tires are only rated for 100 mph so GM limited it to 100. I'm curious if a dealer could remove the limit if you changed the tires, but I don't think anyone has bothered

Yes, I live in Germany. I have the same discussion roughly every month on HN[1]. No I'm not a reckless driver, I'm a family father that tries his best to drive safely. Just going 120km/h on the Autobahn in Germany is often times not the safest way.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14423002

You conjure a scenario where you're behind an unsafe driver who's going 130 km/h on the center lane, and you want to overtake him to get some distance from the source of danger. Can't do this if your car is only capable of driving at up to 130-140 km/h, true.

The obvious -- and also the safest, in any car -- solution: just slow down. Switch to the right lane which invariably runs at around 80 to 90 km/h. Your nemesis will distance themselves at >30 km/h.

Maybe stay on the right lane at <100 km/h in general, overtaking trucks only when necessary, giving you ample room for acceleration in case you need it. It's a lot more energy efficient, anway. And presumably safer, too.

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