Tesla Roadster with SpaceX thrusters: 0-96 km/h, 1.1s?

Elon Musk has been making headlines lately with multiple SpaceX rocket launches out of Earth’s orbit, but lest we forget, there are existing plans to equip the Tesla Roadster with SpaceX cold-gas thrusters, and Jason Fenske from YouTube channel Engineering Explained said it’s quite an achievable goal.

In his video, Fenske theorised that the Roadster will weigh roughly around 2,000 kg, a figure derived by applying Newton’s laws of motion. However, he stated that the production car could weigh much more if Tesla is serious about the 1,000-km range.

Two years ago, Musk said there would be up to 10 “seamlessly fitted” cold-gas thrusters around the Roadster (some even behind the license plate, which would pop off when the thrusters are used), thereby improve acceleration by a considerable margin. In typical Musk fashion, he even said it could allow the Roadster to fly, and Tweeted that the thrusters will allow the car to hover above ground.

As ridiculous as that sounds, Fenske has some math to show us how using SpaceX rocket thrusters could drastically improve the Roadster’s acceleration in real world use. Now, for the Roadster to hover above the ground, they would need to generate at least 20 kilo Newton of thrust.

If these thrusters shoot rearwards, it would enable the Roadster to do the 0-60 mph sprint in 1.1 seconds. This results in an acceleration force of 2.5 G, which in other words, would send you sinking in your seat. The thrusters can even be used to improve braking performance, but the focus now is entirely on raw acceleration.

A sprint time of 1.1 seconds will make the Tesla Roadster the quickest accelerating production car on record, leaving the Aspark Owl (current fastest accelerating car in the world) in a trail of space dust. The Japanese hypercar’s official 0-60 mph sprint time is 1.69 seconds.

Musk once said “we’re going to do things with the new Roadster that are kind of unfair to other cars. (It’s a) crushingly good relative to the next best gasoline sports car.” You may watch Fenske’s video, below.

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