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Comment by starbugs | Hacker News Reader

> Why are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit?

German here. I don't understand the question.

"Don’t tell me they’re made with the Autobahn in mind."

A quote from the inquiry. Other than that the speed limit is not universal, and it's not 'the speed limit' as the limit is context based. There are many a situation where speeding up would help prevent an accident.

Thank you. Just wanted to find out if a little bit of joking is still allowed on HN.

As the percentage of humorless PC drones rises, that's going steadily down.

That's a hit and miss there. Sometimes a humorous bunch makes a mundane thing giggle worthy, sometimes a joke is taken too serious and you get accused of being manipulative.

So, YMMV.

i see what you did there. and smiled :-)

'joking' is always a bit manipulative anyway (I bet asperger people understand that better than me, I've heard that it's how therapists teach them white lies).

I guess the issue is when the joke isn't that funny and perceived as too manipulative, and anybody's threshold is different on both those.

I mean, I hate jokes belittling people or throwing them curveballs and hitting their self esteem. As a result, I never make these kinds of jokes. The jokes I labeled manipulative are about something else and built upon double meanings of words, in the context of the subject being discussed.

Absolutely verboten. You have the choice of the manner of your excommunication today.

You know that most german manufactures limit the max speed of their cars right?

What is that limit set to supposedly?

Last summer I topped out at 210 km/h in my Audi A3 which was bought in Spain, and it seemed to be limited by the engine rather than a hardcoded limit (slowly approached 210 km/h instead of reaching it and then getting stuck there)

250 km/h for most models that are limited.

But not all are.

Afaik those limits are there because the tires aren't rated for higher speeds

Supposedly, the Bugatti Veyron tires last for 12-15 minutes at 400 km/h. Then you need a new set, for $42k.

That's safe though, as the fuel tank also only lasts 12 minutes.

Not really - my Mercedes AMG came with tyres rated for 300km/h(ZR rated Contis), and it was still limited to 255km/h electronically. For me it's just a way to make more money - Mercedes will happily take that limiter off for an extra £1200 when buying the car.

The only information I can find about that is an article from 2005 about car makers dropping this informal limitation:

> Premium automakers are quietly abandoning their informal agreement limiting the top speed of production cars to 250km/h.

https://www.just-auto.com/news/germany-car-makers-dropping-2...

Maybe it's not a thing anymore?

> What is that limit set to supposedly?

Even on the autobahn, you'll very rarely see anyone exceeding 3×10⁸ m/s

It’s always drivers of red cars.

They always look blue to me... maybe it's relative

yeah but the real question is if they'll see you

It's 250 for Audi, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. It's a "voluntary self-restriction" because they feared regulations in the 90s.

Well played sir! Well played!

The question was:

> Why are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit? (Don’t tell me they’re made with the Autobahn in mind.)

Since you didnt read the question, it was questioning whether the autobahn is a valid reason for the majority of cars and if there was a better reason.

Outside Germany, there are places with 140km/h in Europe. Outside Europe there are cases with 160km/h.

Even with 140km/h in mind, you'd not want to be the absolute upper limit as that would make it inefficient in different ways. If it's about having an artificial limit (say electronics) it could also be needed to temporary speed up over the max. Such a limit would stimulate over inflating the tyres to 'cheat' it.

I was merely pointing out that the question was whether there were any benefits of having such a high speed on a lot of road vehicles. The dismissive nature of the gpp of the question because they didn't read it, was irritating.

I would also show the relationship between top speed and engine power. I don't need to drive at 200mph, but I like that I can drive up a hill with 4 adults in the vehicle.

My wife's car has a smaller engine, lower top speed and struggles with more than 2 adults, and 2 children when dealing with hilly countryside.

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