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Tesla 'Easter Egg' Makes the World's Fastest Car Even Faster (bloomberg.com)
The world's fastest-accelerating car is about to get even faster. Tesla's high-end Model S will soon be able to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in just 2.4 seconds, following a software enhancement next month that shaves off a 10th of a second. That's a new threshold that distinguishes it from any other production car on the road. From a report on Bloomberg: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk teased the update in a tweet on Wednesday -- but there's a twist. When the changes are delivered wirelessly next month to all P100D Model S vehicles, the owners will have to figure out how to enable it. It's what's known in the tech industry as an "Easter Egg" -- a hidden feature that requires a specific series of gestures to unlock. These speeds are crazy fast. For perspective, the Model S already outpaces sold-out supercars with tiny production runs, such as Ferrari's $1.4 million LaFerrari, Porsche's $845,000 918 Spyder, and Bugatti's $2.3 million Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse. Tesla's seven-seat Model X SUV will also shed a 10th of a second, putting it on a par with a $1.15 million McLaren P1.
If they could make one with this performance, and in the ballpark range of a Vette, man..I'd be in the market for that immediatly.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
My guess is IDDQD http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doo...
Slashdot editors are so removed from news for nerds that they really post this shit. This is a marketing gimmick; it's being publicized deliberately. Easter eggs are hidden; this is not. Easter eggs are toys programmers leave behind, not a deliberate engineering design. How much did Musk pay for this astroturfing?
Acceleration and speed are TWO DIFFERENT THIIIINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ass wipe homo (lower the caps nugger threshold)
owners will have to figure out how to enable it
No way could this end badly.
These stupid articles always bring up hyper car speeds. The tesla is stupid quick to 60mph, but once you get to 60mph it fades quite fast. Over 60 and it will be clowned by anything. Additionally comparing it to cars that can run endless laps on a track is pointless. But continue on with the Musk dick sucking
hidden feature that requires a specific series of gestures to unlock - let me guess, one has to cup his hand and quickly move it up and down as if polishing the barell of a gun for this feature to be unocked? Also you can flip a birdy for the car to enter a more advanced and more aggressive self driving mode, which includes features like cutting others off and forcing them to break suddenly, driving in on two lanes at once, taking over on either, left or right sides. Doing a both hands birdy salute will remove the electronic speed limiter.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!! Hoooollleeeeeee Crrrraaaaaaapppp!!!!!!!!
Soccer mom in Tesla Mini-Van beats Ferrari in quarter mile. News at 11.
up up down down left right left right B A
Repeat after me. Hyperbole is not your friend. The only way Tesla has made the worlds fastest car is if you put enough caveats on it.
Way to compare things of similar mass here, genius.
The fifty-cents bullets coming out of a gun are also much faster than your $15K two-wheeled piece of junk.
You've confused quick and fast.
The Tesla is not faster than the 918 from 0-60mph. The 918 spyder does it in 2.3s so faster now, and faster after the upgrade. Makes sense since the porsche is a 4 wheel drive unlike the McLaren P1 or Ferrari La Ferrari. Any 4WD car with lots of power and torque will be faster than any 2WD propulsion hypercar. And Tesla is not even the fastest electric car. That would be the Rimac. But hey, Elon Musk can claim all he wants, that's marketing (ie. damn lies.)
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
Ok..I LOVE the performance of the Tesla, now, PLEASE make a version that looks once again like a sports car, and not like a family sedan.
I seriously WISH family sedans looked as nice as the Model S does. I think the styling on the Model S will still look good in 20 years which is something I cannot say for a lot of cars.
If they could make one with this performance, and in the ballpark range of a Vette, man..I'd be in the market for that immediatly.
It will happen. Only question is when.
Apart from the Porsche's 918 Spyder which managed managed 0-60 in 2.2 seconds in independent tests.
Radar detectors are illegal in most states/countries.
Not in most of the USA they aren't. There are a handful of states with bans or restrictions and you can't use them on military bases. But most places they are perfectly legal to use. Legality varies tremendously by country.
"... And as an easter egg let's see if you can unlock reckless mode!" (facepalm)
What do I win?
Nope, no sig
I've never owned a car in my life that had more than 2 functional seats
Then you clearly don't have children and/or don't do practical work involving a vehicle. My daily driver is a pickup because I need that sort of vehicle for various tasks (hauling, plowing, etc) that could not possibly be accomplished with a little sports car. Good luck hauling a 4x8 sheet of plywood in your 911. If you have a family in most parts of the US you will immediately need at least a third seat and some cargo capacity. People don't drive minivans because they think they are awesomely fun to drive.
I like cars that are fun to drive too (and have owned several) but two seat sports cars are hugely impractical and generally expensive luxuries. Nothing wrong with that but not compatible with the banalities of daily life for many of us.
I'd like to see it up against Matt Smiths pro stock bike at IRP.
If that's not possible, how about Ashley's Top fuel FC.
The tesla is stupid quick to 60mph, but once you get to 60mph it fades quite fast. Over 60 and it will be clowned by anything.
Not actually true but even if it were, so what? It covers a quarter mile as fast as anything you can buy from a showroom today (usually for less money than the cars that are close to as fast) and it's not as if you can drive any car over 100mph routinely no matter who made it. Certainly not on public roads. Why would I give a shit what it does at 140mph since I'm never ever going to drive any car that fast?
Additionally comparing it to cars that can run endless laps on a track is pointless.
Why is it pointless? That's like saying it's pointless because it isn't designed to haul lumber like a pickup. The Tesla is a great car for real world driving. It's not a car that is designed to meet every need and it's not a car designed for laps on a track. If you want to do some specialty activity then buy a vehicle that suits that need. Nobody has ever pretended that a Tesla is a great track car but it is a great car for daily driving. Cars that are great on a track tend to suck on real roads. (stiff suspensions, noisy as hell, uncomfortable, too low, etc)
Now try to beat the 7:19 of a $100k Nissan GT-R on the Nordschleife.
(Hint: battery will overheat, too heavy for corners, speed is capped, suspension not for racing, ...)
SpaceBall One/Megamaid didn't have the look of a sports car, but it had Ludicrous Speed too.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Try sitting on that bullet to get somewhere you want to be.
let me borrow your Tesla, I'll solve the "easter egg" for you.
Someone put a carrot on a stick and tape it to the hood of the car. Maybe that will work? It should sense that!
>>>"the owners will have to figure out how to enable it"
I think these guys forgot that they are not designing a video game. How about Easter Egg car payments, with Tesla having to figure how to get the cash?
"the Model S already outpaces sold-out supercars with tiny production runs, such as Ferrari's $1.4 million LaFerrari, Porsche's $845,000 918 Spyder, and Bugatti's $2.3 million Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse"
No it really doesn't. Not by a long way.
car, 0-60 1/4 mile top speed
P100D 2,5 11.8 155
LaFerrari 2.4 9.8 218
918 2.2 9.8 214
Veyron 2.4 9.9 255
"Tesla's seven-seat Model X SUV will also shed a 10th of a second, putting it on a par with a $1.15 million McLaren P1"
At least my definition of "on a par" means "not beaten by"
ModelX P100D 2.54 10.78 155
P1 GTR 2.5 9.75 218
Also, all these are specs are based on straight-lne performance. Once you start throwing corners into the formula, the differences get MUCH bigger.
Both Teslas are VERY heavy so will handle like shit relatively, meaning on twisties or a racetrack they will be no more than dots in the rear-view mirror of any of the other cars above.
It's only the worlds fastest car if you count the cars that aren't faster, such as the Porsche 918. This is why I have a problem with Elon Musk: he likes to manipulate facts rather than discuss his products honestly.
Actually, if that was the Easter Egg, that would be absolutely hilarious.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It's as much a sports car as the Hemi Cuda was. At least Chrysler didn't market it as such.....
love is just extroverted narcissism
Sigh... there is so much more to a sports car than pure 0-60 time. Would you like to know more? Drive a Miata or Boxster on a windy road.
Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, SELECT, START
A series of gestures that will shave off a 10th of a second or placebo effect in order to get Tesla owners more acquainted with every button in their car? You can make up a 1/10th sec just from getting a better reaction time at the tree. No appreciable difference means they want to get more Teslas at the race track. It's hogwash from a racing perspective.
Odd, I say that exact thing about pickups. They suck down gas and are horrifically impracticable as a daily driver.
Most pickups get as good or better gas mileage as most high performance sports cars. Mine gets about 20mpg around town and some of the best are up over 30mpg on the highway.. If you think they aren't practical as a daily driver then you've never actually driven one. They're HUGELY practical. Excellent traction, excellent hauling ability, robustly built, comfortable to drive, plenty of power, great for plowing, reasonably quick in a straight line (not so much in a corner), decent fuel economy for many recent models especially in the light duty diesel versions, and many are reasonably priced. If you want one with a plush interior you can get one as nice as most luxury cars if you want.
Show me any pickup that sucks down gas and I'll show you a sports car that sucks it down even faster.
My VW GTI can haul 99% of the stuff I ever need
I owned a GTI when I was just out of college. Was good fun. Now that I've grown up and own a house and have a family it's not so practical anymore. I put stuff in the pickup bed weekly that you wouldn't dare put in your GTI even if you could fit it. If the GTI suits you and your current life situation that's fine but those of us who aren't so arrogant will drive what actually works. If that happens to be a pickup so be it.
Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, Start.
How does a software update to a Tesla Model S make another car faster?
When was the last time I needed to haul a 4x8 sheet of plywood?
I've done it about 15 times this year alone. Plus loads of stone, dirt, compost, 2X4s, concrete, tools, lumber, dog crates, bicycles, trash and countless other things that a sports car would be utterly useless for. Believe it or not some of us here on slashdot don't just spend all our time behind a keyboard. Some of us actually build stuff and work with our hands. I own a pickup because it's practical for me to own a pickup and I actually use it.
Please tell me they work in Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Brake, Accelerator into the gesture code...
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start
I like cars that are fun to drive too (and have owned several) but two seat sports cars are hugely impractical and generally expensive luxuries.
And then there are the "four seat sports cars" with the two tiny rear seats that are just about unusable, even for kids.
Those seats are there to let you drive a sports car and not pay insurance like you are driving a sports car.
(Similarly with the fold-down "jump seats" in some trucks. You CAN ride in them, if you fold yourself up. But if the truck hits a bump, as you're likely to do a lot on a trip to, from, or around a work site, you're likely to break your tailbone. The space is really for tools and the seats are at least partly an insurance-rate hack.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Try sitting on that bullet to get somewhere you want to be.
Try spinning out on a curve on your 'bike vs being in a Tesla.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
... when a Slashdot story confuses acceleration from 0-60 with being the "fastest" car.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
> For perspective, the Model S already outpaces sold-out supercars with tiny production runs, such as Ferrari's $1.4 million LaFerrari, Porsche's $845,000 918 Spyder, and Bugatti's $2.3 million Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse.
Once. Try the test more than once and you'll quickly find your Model S in low-power mode.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start
Really nothing special. It just so happens that the drive they use (electric) is especially well suited for low speed acceleration.
Like a motorcycle (with its insanely high power-to-weight ratio), an electric vehicle, in principle, can apply just enough torque to keep from spinning the wheels, and thus accelerate at a rate proportional only to the tires' coefficient of rolling friction. This is essentially the limit of acceleration for ANY wheeled vehicle.
Some sports and race cars cheat it - just a little - by using aerodynamics to put a little more downward force on the driving wheels at high speeds, and some race drivers raise the coefficient slightly by pre-heating (melting) the rubber. Both are equally possible with an electric drive. Meanwhile, the smooth, controlled, application of torque possible with electric drive makes it easy to track the friction coefficient - all the way back to the total stall at startup. So a well-designed electric drive SHOULD be able to beat or tie ANYTHING ELSE in a sprint.
But the early electric cars were designed by companies who thought the target market was deep-pocket eco-freaks and government-driven purchases and market distortion victims. So they didn't do the work to obtain performance. It took Elon Musk and some of his colleagues to realize that high-performance electric cars had a (voluntary) market, and actually build cars for that market.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
But the Tesla is not even close to the fastest car...in terms of top speed, it's mediocre at best. 155 MPH. Hell, I've been that fast in a bone-stock 1991 Lexus LS400 with only 250 HP.
Honestly burst power is great as a gimmick, but Tessa still can't get it to survivor at WOT on any circuit for even half a lap before it overheats/dies/complains otherwise.
Let's get it doing endurance stuff first before breaking more stuff, sound good? Reliability is already an issue if the news is to be believed. Stressing components further for buzz factor will hurt in the longer run.
OK, lessee, 60 mph is 26.8 m/sec. To go from zero to 26.8 m/sec in 2.4 sec requires an acceleration of 26.8/2.4 = 11.17 m/sec^2. g = 9.81 m/sec^2, meaning that it has to accelerate at 1.14 g.
The only force that can accelerate it is the frictional force from its tires. The maximum force of static friction (under ordinary circumstances, like ordinary tires and ordinary roadway) is f_s = \mu_s mg, producing a maximum acceleration of a = \mu_s g, so \mu_s would have to be 1.14 in order for this to be possible. This is well above the maximum for ordinary tires. So in order for your Tesla to do anything but burn rubber, you'd have to invest in some pretty serious racing tires capable of exerting an acceleration force greater than the weight of the car.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
1) Have to be going more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit as per the speed limit data in the Tesla GPS Database
2) Have the car painted by a radar gun (Detected by the same Radar sensors used for Autopilot)
3)No Activation of brakes or lane changes for 2 minutes
In short it will activate when you are running from a cop trying to give you a speeding ticket
**Life is too short to be serious**
Speed is a drug. I think you meant to say: Acceleration and velocity are two different things!
In the mid 80's, my dad was still an automobile dealer. Ford released the SHO version of the Taurus. This was in the midwest, small town that they lived in. A guy buys one from my dad. About a month later, middle of January, cold as all get out, he brings it in for an oil change or something. My dad asked him what he thought of it. He handed my dad the keys and said take it for a spin. Now, my dad at the time, was in his late 50's, gray hair, middle of winter, big huge fur hat, gloves, overcoat. He heads down the state highway south of town. He said a kid in a 70's Camero came up behind him, and when they hit a straight stretch, the camero went to pass. Dad stepped on the gas and blew him away. Slowed down and the Camero did it again, trying to pass, dad blew him away. On the 3rd try my dad just let him go...he said when he passed, he honked, flipped him off. Said his girlfriend was laughing. My guess is he took his car to have it checked. "I just got blown away by some old man in a 4 door family car". Those SHO's back then, the only way you knew what it was, was to look closely at the SHO impression molded into the side moldings.
Your insurance rates are not based on how many seats it has, nor the color. Nope, Red cars are not charged more for insurance than their other colored siblings.
It is purely based on cost of repair of car, along with your driving record.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm pretty sure it will only take one owner to figure it out and post it to the 'net where google can find it. Interesting that they can improve performance through software updates, it makes you wonder what they were previously doing to limit performance. You can keep going faster by increasing the voltage to the motors, but at some point you are limited by risk of the motors melting. Sounds like they are shaving away at the safety margins, meaning eventually somebody is going to damage one of their electric motors.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If only there were these things that could help with that problem. I've got it! Let's build a bunch of different sized wheels and put fingers or teeth-like cuts in them so that one can turn another. Now I'm just brainstorming, but it looks to me like if you take a really small one and turn a really big one, the small one will spin really really fast, but the larger one will go much slower. I think if you went large enough, or maybe chained a bunch together, that you could make the larger one spin at damned near zero RPM. I don't know for sure though. Has anyone tried something similar?
...for example the Arial Atom V8 500 is street legal, has been around for almost a decade already, and will also do 0-60 in 2.3 seconds. Citation: http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/N...
up up down down.......
Thrashing a Porsche 911 and Nissan 350Z on the Autobahn
Your insurance rates are not based on how many seats it has, ... It is purely based on cost of repair of car, along with your driving record.
and the computed probability of the car being in an accident, which is not JUST your driving record.
But they don't compute that based on every model of car. That would bury them in law-of-small-numbers noise. They need a large enough sample for the averages to show through. So they group many "similar" cars and take aggregate statistics.
It happened (about 1990, when I decided to buy a sporty car while I still had reflexes good enough to enjoy it) that one of the big group boundaries was two-seaters versus four-seaters. Of course the sports cars had ended up in the two-seater groups and trashed their estimated probability of being involved in an accident, relative to four-seaters. So there was a big difference in premiums between the two- and four-seaters. The auto companies had responded to that by making "four seater" sports cars with token rear seats. Example: The Diamond Star Motors Misusbishi Eclipse / Jeep Eagle Talon / Plymouth Laser. (Apparently there was a similar difference between the accident rates of standard and "crew-cab" pickup trucks that led to the jumpseat phenomenon, as well, about the same time.)
Now maybe these days the insurance companies have wised up and adjusted their group boundaries to avoid this auto company hack. But that is how it was, at least back at the start of the last decade of the 20th century, according to both my auto dealer and my insurance salesman at the time.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Do you know why Ferrari and other luxury super-sport cars have relatively small fuel tanks? Because it has to run dry in 15 minutes or less at top speed. That's because even the most elite Pirelli, Michelin, etc. wheel sets won't last more than 15 minutes at 320km/h or higher top speed on public road's asphalt and they have to be replaced before explosive tire wall failure happens. Fuel exhaustion forces the driver to stop and get out of the car to top up, so he/she will recognize that threads originally under the rubber are now becoming visible on the wheels and swap them.
In contrast, a 25kV electricity powered bullet train can easily ride for 3 hours or more constantly at 320km/h, without as much as a dent on her steel wheels, while people eat, read, sleep or wc onboard. Of course, the rails must be maintained to japanese expectations to do that, but even the french manage to do so, so it's not like magic.
(BTW, it's not as fast as mentioned above, but next week a direct Moscow Berlin electrified train link will start service for pax, doing the trip in 23 hours' time, one way. It doesn't even stop for the russian broad gauge rail boundary of 1435/1522 mm, as its axles are equipped with onboard "Talgo" self-adjusting calipers. The low-ish average travel speed is due to the use of existing legacy and curvy tracks, for lack of any high-speed corridors in the area.)
Mr. musk,
The world needs a four wheel drive vehicle that can handle ice, snow and rough road conditions , has easy egress and can carry stuff like a more boxy if less flash design that can reasonably accelerate safely and is highly efficient and dependable. No one has such a vehicle that is Eco superior yet and the last bloody thing that is needed is this infantile street racer..my god,Mr.Musk,you have sich great engineering for Space X but your vehicles are designed for California Nerdlings and not 80 percent of this continent. Road clearance, all weather heating and cooling, accident protection and the like would be nice..Did you ever hit an elk or mule deer at highway speed? No? Well, good, it does not feel good to do so.. A sloped hood will guarantee you will not live to talk of it after. I know..my stumpy looking ugly Subaru saved my life because of its less than flash design but greatly superior engineering built as it is for the planet earth...