Elon Musk announced the second-generation Roadster on November 16, 2017, as a surprise at the end of the Tesla Semi truck launch event. Originally the specs were listed as:
- Acceleration from 0-60 mph in a claimed 1.9 seconds
- A top speed exceeding 250 mph
- A staggering 620 miles of range
- A futuristic design
The base price was announced at a cool $200,000, with a $50,000 deposit required to reserve one. A special “Founder’s Series” limited to 1,000 cars was also offered at a substantial $250,000.
Since then, the timeline has changed many times and after hearing virtually no information about its development for some time, this afternoon Musk began replying to people about the next-generation Roadster on X and confirmed the production design is expected to be complete and unveiled at the end of this year (2024), and they are aiming at shipping next year.
- 2019: Musk began to hint at delays, citing technology development challenges for the Roadster’s extreme performance goals.
- 2021: Tesla focused on ramping up production of core models like the Model 3 and Model Y. The Roadster took a back seat in terms of priority.
- 2022: The global chip shortage and supply chain disruptions further complicated matters. Little news was released regarding the Roadster’s progress.
- 2023: Musk indicated a potential 2023 release during a Tesla earnings call, yet this again proved overly optimistic.
The performance of the Roadster was originally targeted to be a smackdown to the fastest combustion hypercars, showing the superiority of an electric drivetrain. During the years of delay, Rimac shipped the Nevera, an EV capable of a 1.74 second 0-60 time. So outside the design, what’s the point of the Roadster if it’s not the fastest?
Today Musk confirmed a new benchmark is the target, an unbelievable less than 1 second time to go 0-60 mph. That level of performance is unheard of on any street-legal vehicle and could have some serious impacts on your body.
Calculations
To calculate how much force would be applied to the human body, we convert 60 mph to meters per second: 60 mph * 0.44704 = 26.8224 m/s
The acceleration curve matters here, but if we assume the car achieves this speed under 1 second, the acceleration is 26.8224 m/s divided by the time (we’ll use 0.9 seconds for a challenging but theoretically possible example). This gives us an acceleration of 29.8027 m/s².
To calculate g-force, divide the acceleration by the acceleration due, to gravity so 29.8027 m/s² / 9.81 m/s² ≈ 3.04 g.
This means for that second, your body weighs more than 3 times your normal weight placing serious pressure on your internal organs.
For comparison, a professional top-fuel dragster is subject to 5.6 g’s of force during a run. Humans would need to be very ready to experience the acceleration and perhaps Tesla’s computer vision would need to check the position of the occupants (head in the headrest), before allowing the full deployment of the power.
This of course assumes that all of the power can be transferred to the ground without spinning the tyres. To date, we’ve seen Tesla’s traction control is very impressive, with the Model S Plaid, their most performant vehicle so far, showing no signs of slipping if you smash the pedal to the floor, however this is a physics challenge here with the tyre’s surface area and the demand to rotate them quickly against the road surface.
Impact on the Human Body
A g-force of 4.56 g is incredibly dangerous for the human body. While highly trained pilots in specialized suits can briefly withstand forces up to 9 g, this level of sustained acceleration would be extremely harmful.
This could lead to the following consequences:
- Loss of consciousness
- Internal injuries
- Vision problems (blackout, tunnel vision)
- Cardiovascular complications
- Potentially, even death
Musk went on to say that the project is now a Tesla/SpaceX collaboration, while we’d previously heard that Tesla would leverage cold air gas thrusters to achieve a crazy level of performance, it seems they’re working closer than ever before to bring space-age technology to the road.
News about the Tesla Roadster is likely to excite many, particularly those influencers who managed to secure one or more free Roadsters through a previous referral program. A 2% discount for every referral meant that some with larger audiences were able to accumulate more than 50 referrals, effectively making the purchase price free (taxes and delivery likely not included).
