Documents Reveal That The New Tesla Roadster Might Suck
Elon Musk claims that the upcoming second generation Tesla Roadster will be able to fly, but a new patent issued to the company suggests it will also be very grounded.
Tesla designed an Adaptive Vehicle Aerodynamics for Downforce system that uses underbody airflow to create downforce for a vehicle.
The Roadster isn’t mentioned, but it is clearly intended for a high performance model. It’s a ground effect system that uses deployable skirts to form chambers under the car that are evacuated by fans mounted to the rear of the vehicle, which produce a partial vacuum that “sucks” it toward the ground.
Similar designs have been used on racing cars as well as the McMurtry Spéirling track car, which has been demonstrated with the ability to “drive” while inverted.
Tesla’s design features a series of skirts in an almost hexagonal formation, which can be further segmented. There are several settings that adjust how far the skirts extend depending on the speed of the vehicle and the smoothness of the surface.
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It generates an area of low pressure and doesn’t have to be that big to make a difference. Ambient air is at 14.7 psi, so it would take less than two square feet of perfect vacuum to create enough force to overcome the weight of a 3,800-pound car, which is what a Tesla Model 3 weighs. Half or even a quarter of that would still be significant.
One of the hurdles this type of system has is that the fans can blow dirt and rocks out of the back of the vehicle and toward other traffic and bystanders. The patent doesn’t address that issue, which may be mitigated if the fans aren’t running at a very high speed. The Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 supercar uses a fan, but primarily to clean up the air that is naturally flowing under the vehicle and through its rear diffuser, which does the work creating downforce.
Even without the fans, skirts can be used passively to generate as many racing cars have shown over the years, and another American sports car almost got a set of adjustable ones. Tesla’s patent references one issued to General Motors in 2017 for “Active Side-Skirts” that were depicted on a seventh generation Corvette, but never made it off of the drawing board.
While they are difficult to put into practice, deployable skirts aren’t rocket science, but something else that might be featured on the Roadster definitely is. Musk insists that the Roadster will be offered with a SpaceX package that uses cold gas thrusters to help the vehicle accelerate, corner and even lift off of the ground for short distances.
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As for when we’ll find out what if any of this the long-awaited production version actually has, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy said it will be publicly demonstrated later this year.