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Comment by shartacct | Hacker News Reader

I'm not seeing it.

A lot of factors against EVs for super/hypercars:

* All tesla models weight 5000lbs+, so cornering performance is atrocious

* The batteries overheat and turn into literal bombs. If the coolant boils away you could run into thermal runaway territory (and a plaid prototype did grenade itself on the track in 2019).

* The overheating results in quickly degraded batteries and the inability to do more than a lap or two at a time on anything except extremely small tracks. On top of that, charging is much slower when the battery is hot.

* Plaid performance is egregiously overstated, 0-60 tests were done with arbitrarily long rollout and on glued surfaces/tires. Independent testing has shown that plaid still has worse 0-60 times than ICE supercars.

IMO the future for super/hypercars are fuel cell hybrid and hydrogen ICE powertrains, BEV makes sense for commuter cars but are pretty atrocious for performance cars unless you want to emulate FCA and Tesla's business model of selling extremely heavy bricks that only go fast in a straight line as 'performance' cars.

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> BEV makes sense for commuter cars but are pretty atrocious for performance cars

Why? The Volkswagen ID.R did the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6:05. Only the Porsche 919 EVO has done better than that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCiGABQupA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRHIiJjWhWo

All you're really saying is that there need to be better, lighter batteries, which is true.

Luckily, many organizations are conducting exactly this kind of research and development. Lithium sulfur batteries, for example, weigh less for about the same volumetric energy density:

https://lyten.com/lyten-launches-lithium-sulfur-battery-plat...

https://newatlas.com/energy/sugar-doped-lithium-sulfur-batte...

> All you're really saying is that there need to be better, lighter batteries, which is true.

We need batteries that store energy in less weight and volume than the most efficient ICE compatible fuels, which is unlikely to ever happen. BEV is therefore a non-starter for cutting edge super and hypercars.

Battery electric supercars outperform hybrid and ICE supercars right now. Watch it happen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4orCB71BgY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jgFIobN4Gg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcepG9Twa_8

You're comparing a car built, as far as I can tell, for a single lap with no formula (i.e. anything goes) to a LeMans 24 hr car.

Also, the full 22.8km Nordschleife record is Niki Lauda's in a 45 year old Formula (i.e. w/ rules) F1 car - 6:55. The VW's record is for the 20.8 km circuit. No F1 car has raced either the 20 or the 22 km Nordschleife since Lauda's crash. An any F1 car since the mid 90s would demolish any track record for any configuration of the track.

what would be demolished is the carbon fiber aero at the first carousel.

> You're comparing a car built, as far as I can tell

No, I'm comparing battery electric propulsion to supercars and hypercars, which is what the thread is about. Remember the claim is "a lot of factors against EVs for super/hypercars". Here are some definitions for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercar

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/anything-goes/matt-priors...

The point is battery electric propulsion is clearly in the realm of supercars today. Here's an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE_w1-5eHgI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4orCB71BgY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUB1z5wr5p8

> Also, the full 22.8km Nordschleife record is Niki Lauda's in a 45 year old Formula (i.e. w/ rules) F1 car - 6:55. The VW's record is for the 20.8 km circuit.

The VW ID.R completed its lap in 365 seconds. That's an average of 1 km every 17.55 seconds. Add on the extra 35 seconds for the extra 2 km, or even add on an extra 45 seconds, and the ID.R still beats Niki. Sorry.

You compared an ID.4 to a LeMans car. Neither of them are hypercar or supercars. Theyre purpose built racecars.

“ The point is battery electric propulsion is clearly in the realm of supercars today. Here's an example:”

No, they dont. They can only compete on a very restricted space: straight line speed, or a single lap. The competition is always tailored to deal with the same problem: they’re heavy.

“ The VW ID.R completed its lap in 365 seconds. That's an average of 1 km every 17.55 seconds. Add on the extra 35 seconds for the extra 2 km, or even add on an extra 45 seconds, and the ID.R still beats Niki. Sorry.”

You either break the record or you don't. Theres no “could possibly if I do a linear fit”.

Linear fit? Really?

But lets keep it linear. Niki’s record is 45 years old on a longer, more difficult track on a car made to last a 2 hr race and not custom built for that one track, and not made of carbon fiber.

Im supposed to be impressed compared to the Ferrari?

Here’s F1 dirty secret:

Since the 1930s (!!) the cars have been faster than human reflexes. F1 rules, for almost 100 years, have been about slowing the cars down.

Good for VW, great accomplishment, but its good for an electric car. Good despite being an electric car. Good for within their competition space. But the ICE has too much of a weight advantage.

> You compared an ID.4 to a LeMans car.

Nope, I never mentioned the ID.4.

> They can only compete on a very restricted space

Supercars are a very restricted space. That's why they're so expensive and produced in such low numbers. People don't buy them to do grocery shopping.

> Linear fit? Really?

Yes. You should check the circuit layout between 1975 and now.

> F1 rules, for almost 100 years, have been about slowing the cars down.

False. F1 lap times have increased at historic circuits. In 1991 Aryton Senna qualified at Monaco with a time of 1:20.344. In 2021 Lewis Hamilton qualified at Monaco with a time of 1:10.346.

In 2020 Lewis Hamilton set a new record for the highest average speed around Monza:

https://www.racefans.net/2020/09/05/264-362kph-the-stats-of-...

>* The batteries overheat and turn into literal bombs.

They -can- do so, but there are plenty of ICE fuel and oil fires and they're not easy to put out either. I've seen rally cars go up in flames and there was nothing to be done other than watch £100k+ burn.

>* The overheating results in quickly degraded batteries

You're assuming a fault condition and extrapolating from that. That's like me saying that ICE cars radiators fail, and then they overheat and break down.

>* Plaid performance is egregiously overstated

"The electric car accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.07 second" - [1]. Doesn't sound egregious to me.

[1] - https://divisionkent.com/car-reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plai...

You should email all your remarks to Rimac and tell them their Nevera EV supercar is all wrong.

Is he wrong?

Also, the Nevera has 4 wheels. Which means that the 2 000 hp it has are, mostly, BS. That much power can't be delivered to the tires. Not unless they have custom, street illegal, tires.

How can a tire be illegal? (Honest question)

Do they damage the road or something?

By being spectacularly dangerous for road use.

A race tire is

1. slick

Even the slightest moisture will result in hydroplaning and loss of control. Today’s F1 race was a good example of how the cars go from behaving like their on rails glued to being on ice from a drizzle.

2. made of a special rubber compound

Race tires feel like plastic, not rubber, until they are at temperature. Their operating T is above boiling.

To get to T, you have to drive like a maniac in a way no one has ever driven on streets (seriously, you wont make a live a few km driving the way you have to to keep the tires warm)

3. very wide

Makes them very difficult to handle. Also makes hydroplaning much easier (see point 1)

4. wear out in 100 km.

Number 4 i don't think needs an explanation.

However, if you’re on a dedicated race track these same tires are like putty when they’re used properly and will withstand 6 G of lateral force.

To give you an idea of the grip, a coasting F1 decelerates harder than your road car if you slammed on the breaks. Your road car’s braking performance is limited only by your tire grip.

"cornering performance is atrocious"

Weight in corners hurts you in terms of acceleration out (which is not a problem for Tesla) and by the turning force required to change the momentum direction.

BUT that weight also gets you increased downforce and traction, regardless of aero performance at the time. You can essentially treat your car like it has an F1 wing that never stalls.

The result is 5000lb which breaks the four-door nurburgring record.

> Weight in corners hurts you in terms of acceleration out (which is not a problem for Tesla) and by the turning force required to change the momentum direction.

The acceleration is drastically degraded once the battery is hot.

> The result is 5000lb which breaks the four-door nurburgring record.

They broke the record for production EVs, not for all four door cars. In a test that was also officiated by Tesla themselves, so not very credible. In 2017 a Civic type R could do a faster lap time than Plaid does in 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YSjItQneNM&feature=youtu.be

Check the times they got 7:30 bone stock beating the 7:40 of heavily modified and weight reduced Renault Mégane RS Trophy-R

You might be confusing 4-door with 4WD?

Also yes performance is lower when the battery isn't topped up, but "degraded" is a bit dramatic. It's less significant than, say, tire-wear.

In formula E practice sessions they gradually adjust how much charge is available, only enabling 250kW at the end of the session.

In NY P1 this year, the best time on "low power" was 1m08.988s, and the best time on full power was 1'08.472

Half of the grid ended below 'the low power' fast lap

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nords...

Plaid gets beat by unmodified ICEs that are 1/5th the price.

And which of these 2 DOOR vehicles are you claiming is cheaper than plaid, let alone 1/5?

Every corvette and camaro on that list, for starters.

There's several 4 door cars faster than plaid on there too, not sure why you'd bother trying to move that goalpost.

Can you please name a faster 4 door time? Still haven't seen one... and i believe you may have misread the times.

and my goalposts haven't move... my original comment said fastest 4 door time.

There's at least 5 that I can see from a quick glance of the wikipedia list:

* Audi RS3 (7:35.522)

* Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT (7:33.95, also an SUV)

* Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio (7:32)

* Porsche Panamera Turbo (7:29.81)

* Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé 63 S 4MATIC+ (7:25.41)

It's actually hilarious to me that you would rather double down and act like a tantruming toddler instead of taking 1 minute to read the list like I did. You're a loser clamoring to defend Tesla with any excuse possible, to the point of desperately lying.

I would also wager that if it was actually tested independently the performance would not hold up to what Tesla claims, and that the M5 below it would probably exceed it's time. We already know Tesla lied egregiously about the 0-60 time as no independent test has managed to get below 2.27s without a glued surface and drag slicks.

It's also extremely embarassing that the S Plaid cannot beat the times of the Camaro, C6, C7 and C8 corvettes, and R35 GTR. These cars all were less than $80k USD new, while an S Plaid is $148k USD.

I wonder what time the $124,000** tesla.com/models plaid would set if it had an 18 liter battery or what those vehicles would do on a full tank or with the plaid's road tires.

I guess we'll find out when the roadster tries later this year. enjoy your troll accounts until then.

PS You attributed a time as the Panamera turbo which was actually the Panamera Turbo S, a hybrid :P

You linked a 7:43 to prove it's faster than 7:30?

> The result is 5000lb which breaks the four-door nurburgring record.

Tesla, again, twisted everything into their favor here, so they could market themselves better than they are.

According to the official Nürburgring Record Database, Tesla only beat SUVs and compact cars (Audi RS3). All other ICEs were a lot faster than the Plaid. Even a Porsche Panamera Turbo S, which is a 4-door sedan.

1: https://www.nuerburgring.de/info/nuerburgring/records

Indeed. And one of the reason EVs like Teslas and the Porsche Taycan corner so well even though they're incredibly heavy is also that their center of gravity is so low, due to the batteries being at the bottom of the car.

Indeed not. We've been putting engines mid-bay since at least the 60s. If you want to compare this Tesla or the Taycan fairly, you have to compare it to a mid-engined car. Like the Corvette C8 (The C7 vette's record's better than either EV anyway, but I digress)

Low center of gravity is good, but no one would add dead weight just to lower the CoM. Stiffen up the springs and the lighter car is ahead by a lot.

[EDIT] Also, we've had boxer engines in race cars since at least the 40s.

Ah, this explains why they put that lead weight into F1 cars!

These days they don't use lead, but mostly tungsten[1] or more exotic materials.

[1]: https://www.auto123.com/en/racing-news/f1-technique-the-secr...

No. OP is completely wrong and has zero understanding of car dynamics. They put weights in F1 cars to get them to the regulated minimum weight.

Car (dry weight I believe) + driver + weight > minimum.

There is no advantage to adding dead weight in a car. The disadvantage can be minimized by using very dense metals that minimize their impact on the car's moment of inertia.

I'm wrong?

I said "Weight in corners hurts you in terms of acceleration out and by the turning force required to change the momentum direction."

You are twisting my words to say that i'm arguing weight is a benefit, which is an easier argument for you to attack....

My point is that a low center of gravity and higher downforces are positive influences on a car.

The increased weight can be OVERCOME in race duration by using this downforce and by the exceptional performance of motors over engines.

Oh look... I made my point without resorting to a reddit attack on your character.

“My point is that a low center of gravity and higher downforces are positive influences on a car.“

You dont add mass just to lower CoM. And downforce from added mass sucks: the downforce, Fn = mg, from weight cancels out

Slam on the breaks. Traction is F = u m g. acceleration is F/m = a

M cancels out so weight doesnt help you. It appears to come out even though.

Except it doesnt cancel out. Traction scales sub linearly. So your stopping times go up.

Same thing for every part of the track.

Corner? Turning torque is proportional to mass. Traction is sub linear to mass.

Acceleration in a straight? Power is constant wrt mass so accel is inverse proportional to mass.

And to all of this you have to add the aero effect which add to mass downforce and aren’t proportional to mass.

So traction becomes:

Ff = u(Fn) = u(mg + kv^2)

For high speeds v^2 dominates so Ff is constant with m so:

A = Ff/m.

Or acceleration is inversely proportional to mass for any driver action.

Throwaways are rampant on arguing against strawmen... Hmmm...

No one has argued that a heavier car will go faster.

I am arguing that because the weight is low it handles better than a car of the same mass with ICE distribution of weight.

I'm arguing that because the weight is not 'just to lower CoM' but instead 'to allow insane amounts of rapid energy release' the NET RESULT is something ICE can not accomplish.

Another throwaway account mentioned the Panamera turbo S beat the plaid by 5.7 seconds on the nordschliefe... Ignoring the fact that the plaid was carrying 90% too much battery for the circuit, the ICE was not carrying excess fuel, and that the 'ICE' is actually a hybrid and the identical car (Panamera turbo) without electric power was another 5 seconds slower than plaid /despite/ fueling down.

Also your friction force purism ignores that the behaviour of a car at it's limits has a huge effect on how the driver can drive the circuit.

A heavy EV with low CoM can be driven at or near the limit of traction without risking an F1 style spinout when tires chirp.

If you've driven a Tesla you know how difficult it is to get off it's turning line.

I know you're being sarcastic but they used to put the added weights in downforce-benefiting places such as the nose but they are now required to have 80kg in the seat + driver so the weight was forced to move there for regulation practicality.

Let me quote my Math Phys professor:

"You're utterly and completely wrong."

Let's assume we're talking about acceleration due to change of direction, or braking (since for increasing speed weight is obviously a disadvantage you simply decided to disregard)

The force required to change car's direction due to change of direction or braking is proportional to weight.

F = m*a

Therefore

(1) a = F/m

The expression for the turning torque is similar

To a first order approximation the maximum traction force available to a car is proportional to the normal force

(2) Ff = u Fg = u m g

Where Fg is force of gravity, and Ff is maximum force of traction.

So, it appears that the mass cancels out. It doesn't:

1. there's the fact that Coloum's law of friction is incorrect, especially for rubber. That's why race cars have wide tyres.

2. aerodynamic downforce is independent of weight. So my expression (2) is wrong.

Ff = u* (m*g + k*v^2)

Where k has all the information about lift.

As you can see mass no longer cancels out. As mass increases the force required to change direction increases proportionally, but the traction force available stays roughly the same.

But it gets worse. Let's say we ignore aerodynamics and assume Coloumb's law of friction (hahahahaha), largely your scenario

In comparing two cars, one double in mass than the other, the heavier car will wear out tires more quickly (since they're subject to double the loads). The heavier car will run the breaks hotter and be more prone to fading.

There is nothing good about added mass for the dynamics of a car. Nothing.*

No... the forces required to change a car's direction are friction forces on the tires reaching their limits.... your space calculations dont really mean much unless you are trying to build a rocketship.

… he literally wrote Columb’s expression for frictional forces. Then pointed out that that expression overstates the amount of traction that weight gives you

What rules of physics do you propose we use? Ones where dead weight makes you faster? In the ideal case weight cancels out. But it doesn't, it forces you to take corners slower.

But hey, if you don't believe the math, watch an F1 race how the lap times drop and tyre life extends as they use up their fuel.

Can't edit my original answer any more, but I just wanted to state that:

- I think every proposition (not just sentence) of this comment is wrong.

- Tesla, not only didn't break the lap record (they only broke the EV record) which is ridiculous, but the Ring is probably the best suited lap for an EV: large track with mostly long straights or gentle curves. Try breaking the lap record at Suzuka.[1]

- Even if Tesla had the record, a single lap is hardly a fair comparison to a Ferrari or a McLaren. The Tesla couldn't do 30 laps before taking 4 hours to recharge. Those ICE cars are raced in LeMans 24. That's 24 hr. straight of driving. I'd love to see a Tesla compete in that.

[1] Full respect to the Ring - see Rush's explanation for it in the link bellow. But the Ring Niki did in under 7 minutes [2] in the 1970s is not the ring of today, and the prime difficulty of the Ring is that it's so long that

a. Weather conditions are different around the track

b. No driver can really learn the track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjyIrLKgbbA

[2] Niki's record still stands today because the original, much longer, ring is no longer.

"No driver can really learn the track"

you cannot be serious... I've done nordschliffe over a hundred times in simulator... every corner is memorized... i'm not even amateur let alone professional

I'm also waiting for someone to find a faster 4 door time, my original comment that everyone is ignoring to teardown a strawman "fastest car ever" argument no one made

> I'm also waiting for someone to find a faster 4 door time, my original comment that everyone is ignoring to teardown a strawman "fastest car ever" argument no one made

Didn't you read my previous comment? Porsche Panamera Turbo S is the answer, just look at the official Nordschleife Records Database.

Tesla Plaid: 7:35.579

Porsche Panamera Turbo S: 7:29.81

The Porsche did it in 2020, Tesla in 2021. The Porsche is also a 4 door car.

I agree that 5.7 seconds separates these two cars.

But they are also separated by these https://www.summitracing.com/parts/MHL-51138

We will see if that 5.7s is comfortable enough when the tesla also has a rollcage and racing tires...

until then it's speculative which is faster.. since it's been 2 years, surely we have some Porsche times with stock tires you can share???

Also its kinda funny to argue 'electric cars are slower' when your example is a car which did 7:38, changed nothing about the engine but added electric power, and now does 7:29

Simulator appears to be quite the qualifier. Try doing it with G-forces ripping you off your seat and with your life on the line.

Lauda almost killed himself there. Toto Wolf almost killed himself there.

Are you sure you know the Nordschlieffe better than those two blokes?

Alfa Romeo Quadriglio, 7:32

Theres also a few M3 reports, but I cant tell which ones are stock

https://www.alvolante.it/news/alfa-romeo-giulia-quadrifoglio...

Also, consider that the weight penalty for an EV four door is less than for a two door. Which makes sense, electric propulsion has always made sense for heavier vehicles

also LOL no one does the nurburgring with 30 laps of fuel... they all fuel down... i'm not sure what you're on about there.

moving the goal to endurance racing is interesting choice... because this conversation is about the performance capabilities of a car... not about the best cruising vehicle or enduro series winner...

It's almost as if off-track performance of refueling speed is the only metric left for clear ICE dominance?

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