
Tesla Roadster is going to be able to hover over the ground, says Elon Musk - devy
https://electrek.co/2019/01/09/tesla-roadster-hover-off-the-ground-elon-musk/
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dTal
With compressed air? No. I don't care how "not joking" he is, the power
density is just not enough to lift a car for more than a few seconds even if
the entire car were filled with tanks. It's just common sense. Have you _ever_
seen compressed air VTOL on _anything_?

He also claims it will allow the car to accelerate "at the limit of human
endurance" which would imply thrust vectoring also.

Perhaps he's testing the limits of human credibility...

~~~
olyjohn
Even if it would work... what would hovering even do that is beneficial?
Without tires touching the pavement, you won't turn or stop well at all. You
will bottom out over every speed bump and driveway and parking lot entrance,
unless you're hovering like a foot off the ground. The efficiency gains from
the decreased rolling resistance will certainly not overcome the juice that
these things will suck down...

~~~
dTal
Parallel parking?

(There are no "efficiency gains from decreased rolling resistance" if the
tires aren't even touching the ground. Your wheels will spin without moving
the car, an efficiency of 0%)

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Traster
I think we need to have a conversation about Elon Musk and gas-lighting.

I think we can all agree that some people are demonstrably taking what Musk
has said to be a genuine statement about a feature in a new product. You can
observe this from the people discussing in detail how it will work. Now, I'm
not going to argue about that. Let's assume it turns out that this feature is
not in the next Roadster. Can someone convince me that this isn't market
manipulation? He's lying about features in his future products in a way that
will clearly effect the market if they were true. And when it turns out to be
untrue he'll throw his hands up and say it was a joke - despite literally
saying he's not joking and going into details of the implementation.

Tell me, how does this differ from when Elon Musk called someone a pedofile,
repeatedly, then claimed that his accusations must be true because the guy
didn't sue him, and then filed court documents claiming that it was clearly
all a joke to defend himself from libel claims.

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable handing ANY money or control to this
person? I personally feel like Elon Musk seems to have started to cross a line
into actively attacking some of the fundamental norms in our society in some
sort of effort to avoid ever having to have any responsibility. This is
genuinely starting to feel dangerous to me, maybe I'm being overly sensitive,
but we've let this stuff slide in the past and it has been catastrophic.

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AndrewKemendo
I saw this tweet and immediately became concerned that the SEC would consider
this a problem with disclosure, as there's a world in which people take this
seriously (given his history with successful rockets) and thus would take
action financially because of it.

In my mind it was a silly offhand joke - aka there is no world in which he's
not joking about this. HOWEVER there may exist people who took it seriously
and then went out and bought TSLA.

~~~
CardenB
I think it’s safe to announce features for your product

~~~
AndrewKemendo
It is if they are reasonable and not total fabrications that are deceptive.
That's not to say that musk was being deceptive, I don't think he was.

I think even this thread shows that people take Musk's jokes or snide comments
as truth.

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jt2190
Here’s the tweet that the article makes reference to:

> SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~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...

[Emphasis mine.]

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005577738332172289?s=12](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005577738332172289?s=12)

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King-Aaron
Ok, some thoughts of mine:

1\. Reactive thrusters for aiding turning - Bosch is playing with this concept
already for motorcycles, and is an interesting idea. Effectively firing a
thruster against the direction of turning. Would be interesting to see
implemented, RIP to whoever was riding a bike next to the car that does a hard
turn all of a sudden.

2\. Braking - having a reverse-thrust system in emergencies would be
interesting, but I'd imagine you'd need an awful lot of thrust... Again, RIP
to the small child who's crossed the street and required you to emergency
brake.

3\. Acceleration. We have rocket powered drag cars already. Do it. Please.

4\. Sustained flight of a car. I think that reefer over at Joe's office may
have affected him deeper than we'd like to have thought.

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megaman8
As a consumer, at this point (unless they can make it fly), I'd rather have
them add reliability and reduce the total cost of ownership.

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xt00
Anything that would replace the back seat of the car that generates thrust
downward I would expect would cut into area that would be allocated for
battery. So less area for battery but a major demand for the battery being
added? Sounds like wishful thinking to me unless it’s just a few USB fans with
spaceX written on the side of them facing down.

~~~
k__
Maybe they reduce the >600miles range to 60?

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exabrial
Some time ago, Eaton invented a hydraulic hybrid system that stored hydraulic
fluid under compressed air tanks from braking. It was incredibly efficient
because of minimal conversion losses in a simple system. It didn't take off,
sounds like what's mentioned

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lodi
Reading only the headline, I thought this was going to be a claim that it'd
accelerate so fast it would lift its front wheels off the ground--like this...
[https://youtu.be/_59wxPsC9NU?t=142](https://youtu.be/_59wxPsC9NU?t=142)

But what he actually said... that's just crazy.

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sunstone
Musk is technically very clever (have you seen SpaceX rockets landing in
tandem?)s o it's likely he has something that comes close to what he's saying.

If so, I expect the real problem with this system will be safety. Sure you
might be able to squirt a high density gas or liquid at high enough speed to
move this car but then what is that high speed fluid going to hit? Probably it
would tear up roads, cut down trees, decapitate passersby and create all kinds
of mayhem.

Stick handling this through a government approvals process looks like a non-
starter.

~~~
aaaaaatttuyy
> Musk is technically very clever (have you seen SpaceX rockets landing in
> tandem?)s o it's likely he has something that comes close to what he's
> saying.

This was done in the 90s, there's nothing special about landing rockets
upright.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X)

Also, being technically clever includes being able to navigate the problems
that you brought up, such as the need to meet government standards, meet
safety requirements and actually be useful.

