Hacker News Reader

Comment by pbohun | Hacker News Reader

Okay, that's some of the most impressive feats I've ever seen. Congratulations to the engineers!

Is that "flying" car a "real" car? As in full battery and standard weight or is it just a shell stripped down to the minimum to save weight.

Looking at the promo video... This thing weights less than 500 pounds, guaranteed.

No to mention there was no actual driver in it.

Apparently the thing used in the flying video was a "different car" to the actual car that drives.

According to who?

It was a clearly different unit, look at the wheel caps.

Actually, only the demo car up front and close had different wheel caps. The car that accelerated was similar looking than the one that flew.

I'd repeat the question, according to who is this even likely a materially different car? Why does a wheel cap mean it's a different car? You could make this argument by pointing to literally any difference, like a sticker - it doesn't add an credibility to it.

Please show us the math on wheels and tires and battery and electric motor that would make a car go 0 to 60 in 0.8 seconds and weighs under 500 pounds.

It only has to do it once. Ie it only needs 0.8 seconds of battery. If you think you are looking at a real production car I’ve got a 2017 Tesla roadster to sell you.

All 4 wheels and tires on modern teslas are a combined 200+ pounds. The roadster has massive tires and guaranteed they weigh more.

For current performance motors, they each weigh between 100 and 150 pounds. It's very likely the roadster ones will weigh more.

The "gearbox" equivalent is about 200 pounds on modern teslas, and again the roadster will need a beefier one.

So literally just the essentials of motors and wheels and "gearbox" is now at a bare minimum of 600+ pounds. This isn't including the actual frame and structure itself, the battery, the wiring and electronics, and literally the entire vacuum/cold gas system.

I would like anyone to comment how the demo unit could possibly be under 500 pounds "guaranteed".

~1700KG with 600L of nitrogen gas at 10,000 PSI

If you do the math that gets you about 13 seconds of hovering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22rvpUecLts

Because it makes zero economic sense to make a car do that?

you fail to understand the psychology of billionaires

Most supercars and hypercars make zero economic sense.

For the buyer, yes. But this one also makes zero sense to the maker.

Almost certainly true, but sometimes there are indirect benefits. Three I can think of are earned media, the knowledge gain from blue sky R&D, and key employee retention.

Zero sense for Tesla? They've just pulled off one of the most impressive marketing stunts in the automotive industry, that clearly has some sense :)

Remember when you were a child and your imagination wasn't killed yet by money and politics?

Absolutely.

If only I had been given fidicuary responsibility for millions of peoples life savings. Then I could build a car that has 0 chance of ever reaching production, just to impress my friends.

Imagination is powerful.

Yes it is, and imagination is how we got to the moon, or got rockets that land, or why I can talk to my computer now.

Yeah, and if it wasn't for dynamite, we wouldn't have the Nobel Peace prize, which we give to warmongers.

The Apollo program was taxpayer funded. It's priority was to develop and test ICBMs for delivering nuclear weapons, the most destructive thing man has created to date.

The IC's were for the same program.

We went to the moon on a murder mission, so you're right, this is not entirely unlike the Apollo program.

Destruction of the future only requires your passive participation and rosey glassed outlook.

A pox on anyone who does the math which would break those glasses.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com