Tesla rival debunks Musk's 1s Roadster 2 acceleration claims — Rimac CEO injects shot of skepticism

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, recently made headlines for some incredible claims about the upcoming Tesla Roadster 2's performance. Specifically, the controversial CEO said on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that the Roadster 2 would accelerate to 60 mph (ca. 97 km/h) in under a second. Now, Mate Rimac, founder and CEO of Rimac Automobili and part of the genius behind the record-breaking Rimac Nevera, has responded to Musk's outrageous claims in a Facebook comment, of all places.

Needless to say, Rimac's response pours some cold water on Elon's claims of a sub-second Roadster, explaining that while it was theoretically possible to achieve that sort of acceleration, it would require on the order of 30,000 Nm of torque at the wheels. Additionally, it would almost certainly some sort of traction or downforce augmentation, like fans or thrusters.

Dan it is possible with thrusters. We did the simulation. Problem is, you release the air in 2-3 seconds and then you have a lot of dead weight that you are carrying around (tanks, compressor, 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. So thrusters are really the only way to go. But bring a lot of downsides as well. – Mate Rimac, CEO, Rimac Automobili

Counter to Musk's claims of sub-second acceleration, the Tesla Roadster webpage still reflects the original 1.9-second 0–60 mph time. Tesla also claims that the new Roadster will be able to go 620 miles (ca. 998 km) on a single charge, which also makes Elon Musk's new acceleration claims seem unlikely, given the immense weight of the Tesla batteries that are required to push its other EVs to a mere 300 miles (ca. 483 km) of range.

Currently, the EV that holds the acceleration record is the go-kart-sized AMZ Racing Mythen, achieving the 0–100 km/h (62 mph) sprint in just 0.956 seconds, while the Rimac Nevera, which holds the record for a production car with the fastest acceleration, can do the sprint in 1.85 seconds. You can watch both of these vehicles perform their acceleration feats in the videos embedded below.

Buy a Hot Wheels Tesla Roadster Then and Now die-cast model on Amazon or read about the development of Tesla's EVs and Elon Musk's management of Tesla in Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, also on Amazon.