Slashdot Mirror
Is Elon Musk Serious About Building A Flying Tesla? (inc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Inc:
It's inevitable, really. Musk's two largest companies, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, make electric cars and rockets.... Musk tweeted about a "SpaceX option package" for the next Tesla Roadster in June of last year. The upgrade was described as including about "10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car. These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering. Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly..."
Musk then hinted even more strongly at the possibility of a flying Tesla this week when he retweeted a GIF of a flying DeLorean from "Back to the Future," saying: "The new Roadster will actually do something like this." He then went on to describe how small SpaceX air thrusters will be used to essentially turn a Tesla Roadster into a hovercraft or perhaps... something with an even higher vertical range.
Two years ago Musk insisted flying cars were noisy and annoyed the people on the ground -- although you could argue this shows he'd been thinking about the mechanics of flying cars, and when it's an appropriate time to use rocket thrusters.
Inc's headline? "Elon Musk Has Plans For a Tesla / SpaceX Flying Car (And He's Serious. Probably.)"
Musk then hinted even more strongly at the possibility of a flying Tesla this week when he retweeted a GIF of a flying DeLorean from "Back to the Future," saying: "The new Roadster will actually do something like this." He then went on to describe how small SpaceX air thrusters will be used to essentially turn a Tesla Roadster into a hovercraft or perhaps... something with an even higher vertical range.
Two years ago Musk insisted flying cars were noisy and annoyed the people on the ground -- although you could argue this shows he'd been thinking about the mechanics of flying cars, and when it's an appropriate time to use rocket thrusters.
Inc's headline? "Elon Musk Has Plans For a Tesla / SpaceX Flying Car (And He's Serious. Probably.)"
This is Elon Musk trolling for attention as usual. Of course he's not going to build a flying Tesla, why is this even on Slashdot?
soylentnews.org
People have already tried strapping rockets to cars. It usually doesn't end well, unless the outcome you wanted was some awesome high-speed camera footage and a totaled car. Also, rocket engines tend to use lots of fuel, and once you run out of fuel, gravity takes over with predictable results.
So yeah, unless Elon Musk is getting into the business of expensive car demolition (well, he did send a car off into space), I don't see the practicality in this. Sounds like he's just trolling for attention, again.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Apart from big problems like high fuel consumption, limited combat time, maintenance and cost, the minor problems not talked much outside included FOI, military speak for foreign object ingestion, small objects pebbles and stuff on the tarmac being kicked up and getting sucked into the air intakes. And another issue was the control jets. When the aircraft is hovering or at very low speeds, the control surfaces dont work, (ailerons, rudder, elevators etc), so they used small nozzles at the tips of control surfaces. These jets go in all directions creating hazard for tarmac workers and sailors on the flight deck.
The roadster is going to have two packs of Model 3 batteries. That is 2200 lb. So the loaded weight is likely to be around 3500 lb, very heavy for a two seat roadster. 10 thrusters, 350 lb each kicking up pebbles all around is very very impractical. Hazard to adjacent vehicles and pedestrians would be too much. But, on a clean surface, on prototype, with some good press cameras rolling, it can occupy one or two news cycles. About 30 sec coverage in news, and probably 2 minute segments in other programs. Free publicity worth about 100 to 200 million. So it is worth doing from Tesla point of view.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
No kidding. Ever pull the pressure relief valve on a compressor tank with ~130 psi in it? Even if it's a horizontal tank with wheels on one end and rubber feet on the other, with the vavle sending air that "would direct" the tank towards the wheels, it doesn't move an inch and is loud. I guess the only places this could be used would be drag strip or track days