Automotive Technology and Tragedy: Past Week in Review

Let's get going.

For my first post, I'm going to do more of a weekly review of what went down the past week in the automotive world. And I can't start it off without mentioning the absolute BOMBSHELL Tesla dropped on us with their presentation.

The Tesla Semi-Truck

For those of you not familiar with Tesla, it's an automotive company which makes electric cars, great ones at that. I've always been skeptical of electricity powered cars, but I have to say that Tesla have really turned that skepticism round into optimism. In the great presentation they held (putting aside CEO Elon Musk's nervous stuttering), they revealed something I didn't think would be possible: An Electric Semi-Truck.

They're given the same futuristic design Tesla is known for on their cars, with an equally simplistic and futuristic driver cabin. Not only does it have a range of 500 miles at highway speed, but it can also do 0-60 mph in 5 seconds fully loaded ! That's amazing, most family cars can't even do that let alone a fully loaded semi. It's illustrated below with this animation where the top truck is the Tesla Electric Semi real time acceleration. The bottom "thing which looks like it may not be moving", at Elon Musk brilliantly put it, is a diesel truck accelerating oh so slowly to 60 mph with a full load.


It seems Tesla's semi trucks have caught on immediately. Other than 40 trucks ordered immediately by Walmart and Loblaws, Chuck Kuhn of the JK Moving Services (the largest independent moving company in North America) has visited Tesla's factories and shown interest.

Kuhn said:

Tesla Semi-Truck's futuristic cockpit

It’s standard operating procedure to get a factory tour, Tesla or diesel, ahead of committing to spend what could be well over a million for new trucks. But Kuhn said none of the other factories “compared to what we saw out of Tesla.

The Tesla Roadster in all its glory

At the end of the presentation, just as you thought it was all over, a car rolls out of the back of one of the semi trucks, later revealed to be the new Tesla Roadster. This isn't just any other roadster, it's a feat of electrical engineering and can best be described as crazy. Why ? It can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, it's a four-seater (it's a bit of a squeeze in the rear), it has a top speed of 250+ mph and it only costs around 200,000 dollars. Now you might say that's not cheap at all why say only? I'll tell you why. A Bugatti Chiron costs around 2.5 million dollars to purchase and does 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds. Still fast, but slower than the roadster and might only slightly surpass the top speed of the roadster. Still, is it justifiable with a 2.3 million difference in price ? Oh and before I forget, the roadster has a 600 mile range on a full charge, the Chiron can empty its tank in 8 minutes going full throttle.
Watch the presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n9xafjynJA&t=470s

The stupendous acceleration of the Tesla Roadster

Moving on to the next bit which caught my attention. Car crashes during a race is a somewhat normal occurrence. Usually it's one or two cars, maybe three, rarely four. What if I told you only four cars out of the entire race avoided crashing in a pileup that cost millions ?

Yes, that just happened. In the first lap of qualifying for the FIA GT World Cup in Macau, a Porsche 911 GT3 driven by Laurens Vanthoor collided with a Mercedes-AMG GT3 driven by Daniel Juncadella and then chaos ensued. All other cars piled up into each other, resulting in millions of dollars in damages and "One of the worst car crashes I've ever seen" said the commentator. The session was immediately red flagged (stopped) and thankfully no one got hurt.
See the pileup ensue here: https://youtu.be/WuN421qNmxE

The race was then ultimately restarted, but I still have one question in mind: Isn't that track too narrow for such a large amount of cars, all with wide body kits and going fast through each corner ? That's just my opinion anyways, but tracks like these should be widened for the safety of drivers and onlookers because with that many cars so close to each other at those high speed, somebody's bound to make a mistake, and next time drivers might not be so lucky.

Daniel Hegarty

Even though no one got hurt in the Macau Grand Prix pile-up, unfortunately Motorsport still suffered a fatality the past week. That of 31-year old British rider Daniel Hegarty, who died on his way to hospital after a nightmare of a crash during the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix. The Topgun Racing Honda rider came off hi bike at a sharp bend, flinging himself into the barriers. His helmet came off and he suffered fatal injuries. It's a sad day whenever someone dies in Motorsports. Many safety regulations are put in place, but when it comes for motorcycles there's only so much they can do right ? They're travelling at very high speeds and any slip-up leaves your body to take the full impact of a crash, unlike with a car where most of the impact is absorbed by it. Ultimately it's a risk riders take when taking upon a sport such as this, it's just a shame when something like this happens, it really is. My condolences to all family and friends.
This is the horrific crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCAgzQyzk-E

Peace petrolheads,
Damian

The Tesla Website: https://www.tesla.com/
The article on truck orders: https://electrek.co/2017/11/22/tesla-semi-companies-confirm-electric-truck-orders/
The pileup article: https://blackflag.jalopnik.com/huge-first-lap-pile-up-consumes-most-of-the-macau-grand-1820571056
Daniel Hegarty article: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/nov/18/daniel-hegarty-macau-motorcycle-grand-prix