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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

I have been daydreaming lately about how the Tesla Roadster 2 should be easily able to take the record around the ring for a production car. I'm hoping it will smash the record.

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Unless Tesla can get the weight down of the Roadster 2 it doesn't have a chance beating the GT2-RS or the Huracan Perfomante.

Rimac’s Concept Two is a also a contender, I’ll be interested to see which ends up on top - the concept two beats the roadster 2 by a hair on 0-60 and 0-100 but lags behind in quarter mile.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimac_C_Two

sheer speed isn't what sets records here, unless they engineer the car to have ridiculous levels of down force it won't break the top 10. the cars that run sub seven minute have the combination of acceleration, deceleration, and cornering ability, to pull it off. Not saying they cannot but considering the efforts the big names have been at this a long time and take a lot of their racing expertise to create cars which can do it.

I don't see in what area it should have an advantage over a car with a gas engine.

I would think an 8.9 sec 1/4 mile is everything you need to know, especially when Elon has said that's the base model and there will be "performance upgrades" that make it faster.

If you're not familiar, just google the 1/4 mile time of any fast car you can think of, and then look into how hard it is to go from say 10.5 to 10.0, then 9.9

Obviously I know a lap time needs a lot more than straight line acceleration, but if the 1/4 mile time is anything to go by, this car is going to be the kind of fast we have never seen before. Anyway, time will tell and it's fun to think about.

Straight line acceleration is pretty useless on a real track if you don't have the handling in corners. I assume the roadster will be pretty heavy. The Model S is also a beast going straight but cornering is much less fun with it because it's so heavy.

At 10.86 1/4 mile, the P100D is a snail compared to the Roadster 2 at 8.9.

We're talking about the difference between a Cesna and a fighter plane, and then some.

This car that just beat the record is a hybrid and it was capable of improving accelerations out of curves due to direct torque. I'm doubtful a roadster could do anywhere close to this car's speed around the track but I'm convinced an all electric car could break this record. We might even see it happen with a self-driving electric car in the next few years.

VW just beat the Pikes Peak record with an all electric car but that was mainly because gas engines lose power at altitude. Personally I think for the time being gas engines will still be superior because they weigh less compared to batteries. I think there is a good chance that an electric car will beat the record but that will be more for PR reasons than technical merit.

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