Tesla turns to 50-year-old stunt technology as it tries to Roadster again
If you want to make a car spin in the air, compressed gas is a good way to do it.
If you want to make a car spin in the air, compressed gas is a good way to do it.
The short version
- Nine years after first trying to resurrect the Roadster , Tesla is apparently trying again.
- At the rear are four giant exhaust pipes; these do not signal Tesla’s sudden embrace of hydrocarbons beyond those emitted by private aviation.
- Rather, it’s where 100,000 psi jets of compressed nitrogen shoot out.
What happened
It’s early in the morning and the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Statutes are dense reading, so I am yet to find the section where it explains how and when it’s legal to use such a thing on the road. Unusually, Tesla says it stuck with rear-wheel drive for the new electric vehicle.
Why it matters
The battery pack uses the troubled 4680 cells it has been trying to scale up in-house; customer complaints of poor performance were presumably the driving force behind developing what the company says is a special battery chemistry just for this model.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.