Hacker News Reader

Comment by ska | Hacker News Reader

> a sports care faster than a 911

Eh, it's not really interesting if you can't corner. Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it, all you need is a ton of torque, tires that can take it, and enough weight and length to keep the front end down. Easy enough any automaker can do it if they choose, but 1/4 mile numbers are a mostly meaningless pissing contest unless you are actually building drag cars.

Now if Tesla built anything that handled up near Porsche territory, that would be interesting. I guess they sort of did with the 1st one, but that was Lotus's chassis.

View on HN

> * Easy enough any automaker can do it if they choose*

Ahh, no.

The Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat with 707 horsepower runs a 11.4 [1]

That is the very definition of a car built to go fast in a straight line. Massive engine, supercharger, massive rear tires, and it's slower than the Cybertruck.

> Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it

Please show me a truck that gets even remotely close to a sub 11 quarter mile. Heck, show me a production sports car (that isn't a super car as expensive as a house) that does.

[1] https://fastestlaps.com/models/dodge-charger-srt-hellcat

The comparison is with the 0-60 of a 911, remember? And even then I didn't say the truck would win, just that they are not bad at it (it being, 0-60) out-of-the box. Current F-150s are in the high 3s/low 4s on 0-60. So are some 911's. The 911s will have most of second on them in a 1/4 i guess, but the fords are still pulling 12s which isn't slow. The point was only that truck form factor lends itself to ok 1/4 mile times. Not that anyone should care :)

NB: I didn't say any of these would beat a big electric. Electric motors have real advantages here, nobody claims otherwise.

And yes point remains for any automaker trying to set up a car to compete with a 911. Getting a similar 1/4 mile time would be about the easiest part...

Hellcats are built to go fast in a straight line with the limitations of a 20+ year old platform. Beating a vehicle Dodge spent about $20 developing in a shed with a giant pushrod engine and hand-me-down parts they got from 90s Mercedes Benz isn't that big an accomplishment.

Going fast in a straight line is easy for electric motors, so it's just not that impressive. It's like a native speaker enrolling in language 101. The A doesn't really mean anything. EVs have been up against the limits of tire adhesion for years now.

EVs with impressive sustained track times are far more interesting since that's actually hard to achieve. Batteries are heavy and that's killer for a real race car.

That 911 will pound hot lap after hot lap until the fuel tank is empty like it's nothing if the owner ticked the ceramic brake option. I suspect the Cybertruck will run out of cooling long before it drains the battery and I guarantee it will cook the brakes hauling itself down from 130 mph.

Edit: plus F-150 Raptor R does a 12.1 quarter mile. That's pretty close to running 11s.

> F-150 Raptor R does a 12.1 quarter mile. That's pretty close to running 11s.

There is a very, very large difference between 12.1s and sub 11s.

I have seen many videos of folks simply loosing a US V8 muscle car at street races when the road becomes a corner or a quick correction needs to be made.

Gobs of RWD power and seemingly a lack of any sort of dynamic active safety systems for inexperienced drivers to help with this kind of fishtailing or oversteer.

> plus F-150 Raptor R does a 12.1 quarter mile. That's pretty close to running 11s

That’s 10% over the ceiling. That’s not close.

It's an ICE car though, if Ford manage to achieve this despite this massive disadvantage it can't be that hard.

12.1 is not fast at all, and as others have said, is a very, very long way from <11s or 11 flat like the 911

To be fair the the 911 can do 9.9 Seconds. Tesla just chose a slower model/config due to obvious reasons (of course 911 Turbo S is more than 2x as expensive as the top-end Cybertruck).

Right, so achieving a sub 11s quarter mile time IS actually hard & expensive.

Somewhat I guess, if you want to keep the weight low, have decent handling et. (not priorities for the cybertruck).

You can a Nissan GT-R for half the price which can do sub 11 seconds. A GT-R tuned for drag racing will be faster on a 1/4 than an F1 car.

Or you can get a bike for less than $20k which can do a 1/4 mile in 9.78 seconds. So just achieving that is not necessarily that hard.

> You can a Nissan GT-R for half the price which can do sub 11 seconds

Stock GT-R is 11.3. Slower than Cybertruck.

https://fastestlaps.com/models/nissan-gt-r

> Or you can get a bike for less than $20k which can do a 1/4 mile in 9.78 seconds

Comparing a vehicle (especially a pickup truck) to a bike shows you how absurdly fast that vehicle is.

You just keep coming up with examples that show it's very hard to make a production vehicle that does a sub 11 in the 1/4.

> Stock GT-R is 11.3. Slower than Cybertruck.

That's a 2008 model. The current (2017+) one with

> You just keep coming up with examples that show it's very hard to make a production vehicle that does a sub 11 in the 1/4.

You're assuming that maximizing acceleration in a straight is the main priority for most sportscar manufacturers and they are willing to throw everything else to maximize it.

> Comparing a vehicle (especially a pickup truck) to a bike shows you how absurdly fast that vehicle is.

Well a Moto GP bike will easily beat an F1 car in 1/4 mile drag race yet would have zero chances on an actual race track. I'd bet the Cybertruck would do relatively considerably worse even against the base config 911. So it really depends on how you define "absurdly fast".

> So it really depends on how you define "absurdly fast".

And very clearly we've been talking about 1/4 mile time for this entire discussion.

Tesla showed a Cybertruck beating a 911 in the 1/4 while pulling a 911.

They didn't show it going around a track, they didn't show it outbraking a 911, they didn't show it on a hillclimb.

They very, very clearly defined exactly the context for "absurdly fast", and demonstrated it quite well.

> Tesla showed a Cybertruck beating a 911 in the 1/4 while pulling a 911.

Yes, the slowest 911 you can buy.

> And very clearly we've been talking about 1/4 mile time for this entire discussion.

I'm not even sure what are we arguing about at this point. My entire point is that this is a clearly an apples to oranges comparison.

Car & Driver achieved 10.9s with the 911 GTS (RWD). $151K buys a new one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com