Rimac/Bugatti CEO explains problems with Tesla Roadster’s under 1 sec 0 to 60 mph
Mate Rimac, CEO of supercar makers Rimac and Bugatti, has commented on Elon Musk’s claim that the new Tesla Roadster is going to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than 1 second with thrusters.
He sees some problems with it.
Tesla’s next-generation Roadster was first unveiled back in 2017. It was first supposed to come in 2020, but it has been delayed every year since.
Last year, Elon Musk said that it would come in 2024.
Last month, the CEO said that he had a design meeting about the new Roadster, and they decided to “radically increase the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster.” Musk said that the vehicle is delayed again until next year, but he said that Tesla plans to unveil an updated version later this year.
Musk again claimed that the vehicle would achieve sub-1-second 0 to 60 mph acceleration with cold air thrusters built by his rocket company, SpaceX.
Rimac has been keeping close track of the Roadster program as its Neverra electric hypercar is achieving similar performance that Tesla has been originally claiming for the Roadster.
After Tesla unveiled the prototype of the new Roadster, Rimac unveiled a new version of its supercar with similar specs.
The Croatian electric supercar manufacturer is also now in a better than position than ever to compete with Tesla after Porsche invested in the company and had its founder and CEO, Mate Rimac, takeover legendary supercar maker Bugatti.
Recently, Rimac was asked on Facebook about Tesla’s claim of sub-1-second 0 to 60 mph acceleration in the new Roadster.
He said that Rimac did the simulation. He thinks it’s possible, but it creates some weight issues:
It is possible with thrusters. We did the simulation. The problem is that you release the air in 2-3 seconds, and then you have a lot of dead weight that you are carrying around (tanks, compressors, valves, nozzles, etc.). Same with fans – they just give you more grip, but you need something like 30.000 Nm on the wheels to accelerate below 1 sec 0-100 km/h, which means you need massive motors, inverters, gearboxes, driveshafts, etc. Plus, the car has to be super light as otherwise you can’t create a lot of excess downforce with the fans as the tires would be overloaded very fast with any kind of car with “normal supercar” weight, especially electric. And then again you are carrying the weight with you when you are not doing 0-100 km/h. So thrusters are really the only way to go. But it brings a lot of downsides as well.
It sounds like Rimac is not sold on the idea of putting cold air trusters in its supercars.
Can Tesla prove them wrong?
Electrek’s Take
It sounds like a fair assessment. There is a lot of hardware in the car, almost entirely just to accelerate faster, which you will likely not be able to do on public roads with the thrusters.
The rest of the time, it will make your car’s performance worse with the added weight.
Originally, Tesla talked about the new Roadster having over 600 miles (965 km) of range. That was one of the things I was most excited about with the Roadster.
However, since then, Musk has said that Tesla is not interested in making cars with more than 400 miles of range and interestingly, it’s for a similar reason as the problem highlighted by Rimac. People rarely drive more than 400 miles in one go and the rest of the time, you are carrying a super large and heavy battery pack for no reason.
With his recent update on the new Roadster, Musk didn’t mention the range. It will be interesting to see if 600 miles of range is still in the plans for the new Roadster.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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