Comment by synapsomorphy

One of the best episodes of Mythbusters when they recreated this.

Interesting. Air is approx 1 kg/m^3, so that tank is 0.4 kg at 1 bar, and a typical COPV can go to say 300 bar, so we're talking 120 kg.

For a 1000 kg car and with 200 m/s nozzle exit velocity, to hover the car you need (with m_0 g = m_a v/t) about 50 kg of air per second, so we're talking about roughly 2.5 seconds of flight (from those 400 litres).

Your link is to an article that references an iSeeCars study from two years ago. They got their crash data from NHTSA FARS, but got their mileage data from sales of used cars on their platform. At the time I noticed some issues with their mileage data.[1] It's very likely that Teslas sold on their platform have very low mileage compared to average, because people either sell a car quickly after buying it, or they hang on to it for years. This also lines up with the fact that the other cars in their unsafe list were all released recently.

Working backwards from their stats & FARS data, I calculated that for their claims to be true, each Model Y would need to accumulate only 4,300 miles per year. This is far below Tesla's reports of 13,000-14,000 miles per year. Also iSeeCars claimed that an average of 2.8 vehicles were involved in fatal accidents for every billion miles traveled. But at the time the US had 13.3 deaths per billion miles traveled. So for their data to be correct, the average fatal accident would need to have five fatalities.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42209142

Your comment is—at best—misleading. See the last two paragraphs of the article:

> The study's authors make clear that the results do not indicate Tesla vehicles are inherently unsafe or have design flaws.... Many of the other cars that ranked highly on the list have also been given high ratings for safety by the likes of IIHS and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, as well....

> “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities”....

Safety of a car is a different axis than safety of the driver. That combines them. Related, it's why performance cars have higher insurance rates: people who buy fast cars go fast.

The fatality rate of an accident includes all parties involved. Most often when a Tesla hits someone, it kills the other guy, since it's basically an ultra-dense block of mass that can do 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds, very quietly and without launch control[1]. Teslas are incredibly safe for the people inside the Tesla.

[1]Lots of other cars have technically faster times than Teslas, but most of them require launch control, good tires, and sound like the engine's about to explode. You can floor the Tesla at any time and the software will deliver however much power it can without slipping.

i think some self selecting populations are skewed.

i remember reading about the first cobra in the 60's, where a huge percentage of the owners didn't live to make the second payment.

This is silly. I bought my Model Y specifically because its safety is so high. You can see it in (1) the crash rate numbers when using FSD, (2) the crash-test ratings are fantastic, and (3) impossible situations where people survived such as plummeting off a cliff on route 1.

Sure, so is the RAM 5500 and many, many other vehicles that are legal in the US and not the rest of the world.

This just says vehicles in the US have lower safety requirements than other countries, which is need to nobody.

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Every Tesla ever made has a door release that doesn't require any electricity.

Damn that's exactly what happened recently to someone here, it seems to be a recurring thing, a safer battery technology will probably fix that later

Maybe there should be a standard for that.

  > EU safety regs are pass/fail - there's no sources stating Tesla have exceeded anything there, they need to pass in order to be sold in Europe, so they've done whatever the minimum required is for that. 

That falls under the purview of my phrasing "meet or exceed the absolute highest safety regulations in the US and in Europe". They meet European regulations and exceed US regulations.

Europe requires removal of FSD. US safety standards "seems a lower bar"

Quite ironic.

The manual override is so obvious that half my passengers use it instead of the button.

It's not legal because it's unsafe for pedestrians, not for people inside the car.

And yet, here's one in Poland, which is in EU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nfMEz8eJZc

I personally saw one in Krakow, Poland.

Cybertruck does not have EU homologation so Tesla can't sell it in EU. Because at the moment they don't want to.

You can buy it, import it and certify for legal use. It requires minor modifications but is perfectly legal.

That feels like it's much more "by design" than "cannot meet regulations".

Says more about the EU than about the Cybertruck.

Test metrics are just plain silly. For example, if your car emits 100 ppm of some gas, it is illegal to drive it. If it emits 99 ppm, it's good to go!

They're bang-bang functions, which aren't very smart.

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Best guess is that it's disabled for anything but track/trick stuff. There will be some cool videos eventually showing up with tricks people pull with this. I don't know what else it's for.

I can imagine the lateral thrusters helping it turn faster on the track. Although I wonder if the extra weight is going to net out positive for lap times.

But really, a few very rich people will buy the full-rocket version to impress their friends. They'll play with them on private property.

This is a track car for the uber wealthy. It's only rarely going to be on public roads, and it'll probably have some unlock mechanism for the truly stupid stuff. Honestly, I'm here for it. Automakers have gotten complacent. Between Chinese automakers and stunts like this, we might see the return of outrageous engineering just to prove a point.

It's for the ultra rich and a tech showcase, so probably will be classified as off-road use only.

Well he does know a few people in govt now I think? I remember a Tesla showroom on thr white house lawn not too long ago

I mean, Leno drives around with a jet engine motorcycle that can melt the guy behind him.

Suck comes standard.

SpaceX Tesla crossover. Not exactly what was on my bingo sheet today.

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Really? Everyone is talking about it. Did you know Porsche announced a new supercar on the same day? Most people don't, but even non-"car people" can't stop talking about Tesla's flying car.

So the publicity is arguably priceless.

Tesla's stock price might be detached from reality, but is their actual business in trouble? I ask because anywhere I travel (Europe, UK, HK, NZ for example) there are just tons of Teslas, most of them the latest refresh models. There were more Telsas than BYD in Hong Kong!

Yeah, I hear twitter won't survive the weekend too.

It's really difficult to see such ridiculous levels of hyperbole in every single Tesla thread and not think people are doing this in a coordinated way for ulterior motives

He says in that video that they opened up the doors to show them that model, so it's unclear it's the same one "driven" for the demo.

Even if it is, they show interior, wheels & a distance shot of the rear opening showing a large air tank - very little can be seen of the actual chassis or engine.

Whatever tricks were done for the demo - whether the car is real or fake - it's highly unlikely what was shown today will ever be like-for-like accessible to consumers in the production model.

It’s a flying squirrel.

It doesn't fly in the same way I don't "fly" when I jump. You need to be on more than a ballistic trajectory.

uh. it doesn't fly as in it can't sustain flight...

That doesn't mean combustion engines tho?

I felt the same way when they were calling the Segway skateboards "hoverboards" and referring to back to the future.

It's basically the batmobile from Dark Knight. A small bridge jumper. Still pretty cool

I guess any LPG-installed car is also a "bomb" by your definition?

Do you feel the same way about every Red Bull stunt?

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Now do the definition of AGI.

It doesn't have to be pressurized at all times!

You could only pressurize it right before your jumping stunt.

From the interview, they says it takes 6-8 hours to fill and you get 1 "launch" before its depleted in under a second.

If the flying version is ever sold (unlikely) it will be subject to flying thing rules (FAA). Best case it would be like buying a used F1 car from Ferrari. They retain possession and you get to occasionally fly in on the private jet and drive it under supervision on a racetrack.

It’s cool tech demo. I’m not expecting to see one fly in private hands ever.

It's never going to be street legal, and I doubt there was ever a plan to try.

The cybertruck is so dangerous to pedestrians it would never pass homologation pretty much anywhere outside of USA, and yet it sells there. If the roadster is sold anywhere it will be there too.

There’s no way this will ever directly make back the salaries and time spent on it so far. It’s not a way to make money for Tesla.

So no, Musk is trying to prepare the ground for a merger with spacex and distract from Tesla’s worsening fundamentals and the flop of cyber truck, the decade late delivery of roadster etc etc.

It's not the actual car that will be sold but apparently another prototype.

Actually, title of the submission should be changed to "Tesla Roadster new prototype".

For the record, previous prototype was in 2017 and the real deal was supposed to ship in 2020

Ok I looked this up because I found it very strange.

Inconel would not be a good choice for an automobile frame. Not only is it expensive and heavy it also can be pretty brittle. You want a frame that's strong but ductile so that it will absorb impact energy.

From what I've been able to find, Tesla uses inconel in some battery components. This makes sense because the thing inconel is really good at is staying strong even when very hot. This is why it's used in turbines and jet engines.

This thread points out that inconel is not unused in the automotive world, high-end ICE cars have used it for their exhaust systems. Another advantage of inconel in this application is that it's highly corrosion resistant:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/inconel.50251/

So in summary: Tesla uses inconel where it makes sense to use it (to deal with high heat) and so do other automobile manufactures.

I checked a few sources (including grok) for your inconel in struts claim as it seemed unlikely. They all said it was false.

Certainly there has been crossover in both directions, most famously in Musk forcing SpaceX to buy Tesla cybertrucks (18% of production at one point).

I can’t see any documentation of income ever being used on an S.

Given that it costs 10x more than aluminum, it is highly unlikely to be useful as a material in a production car.

The frame breaking the NHSTA story is correct but is just well-designed aluminum.

I’m happy to be shown a reference I’m wrong.

This was a "the cybertruck will be a boat" style claim.

Clearly some time between 2018 and now he decided he'd have to actually have it done and ordered his people to make a stunt car with thrusters.

Wasn’t aware of that detail thanks, it’s such a bizarre idea.

I disagree that it couldn’t come out of thinking of how to justify merging spacex and Tesla which he’s wanted to do for a long time.

This isn’t a cool car, it’s a gimmick. It will never be road-worthy, would lose money, and I doubt they’ll ever even sell it to customers.

As to why he’s going this dog and pony show now, we can only speculate, but I can’t think of any reasons that are good for Tesla (vs Musk personally) can you?

I don't know what stoped him just designing and building the roadster by now or any update or upgrade to it.

Musk also said production was starting on the Roadster in 2020. It turns out that things Musk says don't mean much.

And it can still be a distraction. The fact that they went through all this effort for a fantastically unreasonable thing just to wow for a company that is off the rails is...pretty telling. Have you never worked with someone who is late for everything, always overpromising and underdelivering, and as it becomes more apparently their promises get more exaggerated and unreasonable? That's Musk. Like "look you can play games on your screen", which absolutely no one asked for in a car, and for which it does much shittier than a $200 pad.

For that matter it's Trump too, and they're both cut from the same cloth -- don't like the dumb arch? Well now it has snipers and drones! And also it will eliminate the debt, deficit, income taxes, and...

So instead of just starting production of a vehicle 8 years behind schedule, look, new distraction! Amazeballs! Don't worry coming real soon now. Just put in those deposits!

I mean, the one part of this story that is unclear and no one seems to be asking hard questions is the compressor status -- there are vague, handwavy (oh we'll build a compressor claims, but I have huge doubts). A 5000 psi to 10000 psi compressor in the real world today is enormous. It's industrial equipment that generates enormous amounts of heat, is hilariously loud, and takes enormous power. While I am 100% certain this dog and pony show had their tanks filled by external massive compressors out of sight, I am pretty skeptical Tesla has any magic innovation in that field.

Maybe it could be sold as a safety feature.

Suppose you accidentally drive your car off a cliff. Accelerometers and other sensors (cameras) could detect the fall and activate the cold gas thrusters to rotate the car into a safe orientation and bring it to a soft landing.

It should even be possible to use the thrusters as an emergency braking system in case of loss of traction, rollovers, departing the roadway, etc, to avoid or reduce impact damage and injuries.

I don't think any 'evil' person sees themselves as 'evil'.

But pushing himself onto the President, manipulating democracy and being responsible for killing kids as a billionair makes his actions nefarious.

His antics vis-à-vis propping up the far-right in Europe or calling people he doesn't like NPCs don't persuade you otherwise?

His Nazi salute doesn't bother you in the least? That's not "socially awkward".

Stop anthropomorphizing billionaires.

Those are not at all mutually exclusive. In fact, both of those characteristics make up most of the Silicon Valley oligarchy.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Are you not aware of his blatant Nazi salutes or his DOGE attempt to dismantle oversight/regulation of his business concerns or him cancelling USAID (700,000 deaths and counting) or his interference in UK/European politics to promote far right violence and riots?

If you had that amount of money and power, you could be anyone you wanted, so why on earth does Musk choose to be as he is?

He recently shut down Starlink for Ukrainians, thus contributing to Putin's genocide. Have you not been reading the news? Calling Musk a "nerd" is the wrong term here. That is deliberate support of a genocide.

The Musk invective in HN is just wild to me. No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute (unless Biden, and Hillary and Obama are all Nazis too having made the same motion). No, he hasn’t cut Ukraine’s internet. All of these are lies, repeated over and over and over. He’s just a Republican accelerationist and unapologetic about his race. His companies create legitimately awesome products that millions use daily. Shocking that today that’s enough to breed such extraordinary hate from the left.

He got the power to shape the US government because he spent hundreds of millions to elect Trump through PACs and was Trump's single largest political donor by miles

The twitter purchase likely did little either way

The power to shape governments to his liking is exactly why we've got to demand those governments to rein him in.

Reshaping of a classic blowtorch - if you're looking for a level up, try the Rodenator - less immediate flame, way more bang at the end.

It isn’t “just” a relabeled weed burner, it’s a relabeled weed burner... with a fancy plastic shell.

And that makes a big difference, right? Right?

Can I suggest a break from Reddit and touching some grass?

you have to take into account that reddit in general is completely Anti-Elon. He could cure cancer and folks on that site would find a way to blame billionares.

This would be a step backwards for jet packs, which can currently do minutes of flight, using a tank of high pressure air would reduce that back to seconds

A jet pack that flies for 10 seconds and then needs 6 hours of recharging ?

Yes, this was my first thought too. This car is for people to make YouTube videos with.

I think they needed a test for lunar/mars Landers.

Bonus: use cars!

hmm maybe this car will appear on 007?

it's "actual stunt" car

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I think its thrusters would be useful for ocean-going vessel insertions.

So in the straight of Hormuz, you'd have a "Tesla boat" hover off a destroyer and into the water, reach the target as a boat, then hover up to its deck. People would exit and meet the vessel's crew for however long. No hook ladders, anchor lines or helicopter rappels. Seems like a good balance between projecting soft and hard power to make a ship turn around, arrest or replace crew, run security checks or extract payment. The Tesla boat should make this type of rendezvous less costly, easier and safer - legality/ethics considerations aside.

Would be interesting if the boat rose up on a variable foil and keel as well where the forward thrusters could be used for super speed, maneuverability and fuel efficiency. I am just dreaming.

There is absolutely no way that a compressor that will fill those tanks in 6 hours is in that vehicle. There is a good chance that the compressor and cooling stage weigh more than the car and are larger than the car.

Yes, exactly. It's pretty good, isn't it?

They imply a heavy weight with the suction downforce numbers but I think those numbers are not real. I’m reminded of neural link where the pig food detector was unimpressive, then shortly later a monkey demo was very impressive, they have since had human trials and humans don’t appear to get anywhere close to that same level.

They said there was no real driver in it for safety reasons

I've seen a clip that shows under the skin.

It's compressed air RCS. The compressor, regulators and a ton of hardware take up the entire space from the seats back to literally the very last inch of the car. Hard pipes run along the door frame for the forward RCS, meaning only one person (driver) can sit in it and enter from the drivers side. Huge carbon RCS tanks fill every other space.

No idea how long it would take to recharge the tanks after venting them.

There's no room for 'car' stuff in it.

Interestingly there is a big... sleeve of wizard... that extends down under the car to assist the ground effect fan. Packaging that and the RCS stuff into it is a real engineering feat.

But it didn't look to have crash structures, or any other production ready hardware.

I think everyone is getting too caught up in the Thrust and Rocket variants. There aren’t going to be very many of those. But the base model will just be a regular Tesla.

Sounds like it was just compressed air (rechargeable on the fly). Impressive if true.

In his pocket or what? When SpaceX IPO'd he was valued at over a trillion USD. Currently somewhere over 900MM, and worth more than the 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the rich list combined.

In terms of net worth, you are closer to Jeff Bezos than Bezos is to Musk.