Cars have gotten faster; a lot faster to be exact. But when it comes to hypercars they are just on another level. With massive horsepower figures, extreme use of carbon fibre and clever aero technologies but still not even a single production vehicle has been able to do 300MPH. Sure we are a lot near to the goal than ever before, and with cars like Bugatti Chiron, Hennessey Venom F5 and Devel 16 have claimed to achieve that goal in the near future, however, let us discuss all the factors which are have held us back to accomplish this goal way before.
- Massive Drag to Overcome Drag (At each instant)
Even if you don’t do the math, you know that at each given instant the car should be producing a massive power to overcome drag it faces at higher speeds. Being more specific you need around 1500HP to overcome the drag required to reach the 300MPH club. Since most of these hypercars produce power which is below this number and the number they actually put on the road is even less (15-20% power loss of drivetrain). So this is the leading factor holding the cars back.
- Rolling Resistance on Tyres
Since tyres are the only thing of the car in contact with the road, they have to face a massive resistance known as rolling resistance. At 300MPH or 133m/s, you need around 50HP of added power to battle the rolling resistance. (Keeping sticky tyres in perspective). Add it up, and the total required engine output jumps to 1550HP.
- Cooling System
The commonly used method to bring down the heat produced by the engine components is to have some sort of cooling mechanism along with an exhaust which spits out heat from the car into the air. A car with over 1500HP needs a massive cooling system in order to protect the internals from being melted. Which is quite a difficult task to do considering that you are at 300MPH. This also requires the cooling system to be light enough to fit inside the car without sacrificing too much.
- Tyres
Tyres are probably the most critical aspect of reaching 300MPH so the tyres should be made of very resistant and durable material. This means they should be perfectly balanced, maintain their shape and withstand extreme g’s faced at 300MPH. Not only that they should also withstand the heat caused by friction and not blow out. In simple words, this also to ask from a set of tyres at the stage.
Since constant improvements are being me made we are sure the time is not far when we will finally have the first 300MPH car which will be later joined by many other cars. But for now, these are the factors which are stopping us to reach this goal.
