Tesla likes to make a lot of statements about the performance of vehicles that don’t yet exist and makes promises of the one ahead Tesla Roadster can go from zero to sixty mph in just 1.9 seconds, and possibly even faster if you drink the Musk Kool-Aid. But for far less than $ 200,000, a YouTuber built an electric RC car that can over-accelerate Tesla’s best offer.
In the past few months, YouTube Engineering after hours has been perfect a design for a remote controlled car that uses two electric jet fans to create a vacuum underneath that literally pulls the vehicle to the ground, increasing traction and dramatically improving acceleration. It may seem like an unorthodox approach to speed, but in 1978 Gordon Murray, the famous car designer responsible for the iconic McLaren F1, helped create the Brabham BT46 “Fan Car” which did exactly the same thing and in 1978 the Swedish Grand won Prix before retiring from the competition.
The Engineering After Hours fan car isn’t as elaborate or expensive as Murray’s entry-level F1, but it represents months of design and redesign since getting an RC car to 60 mph is no easy task. At this speed, the tiny two-inch wheels have to spin at over 5,000 revolutions per minute, which requires powerful electric motors and reinforced components. At these speeds, even rubber tires tend to lose grip and slip. In addition to adding traction mass to each wheel to improve tack, the use of electric jet fans increases downforce and gives the tiny car an impressive 20 pounds of pulling power from the line.
Even with the sophisticated design of the fan car, there were still unexpected surprises and challenges in the acceleration tests, including strong components that simply sheared off due to the high G-forces. With a special tuning of the electric motors to increase power at takeoff, the RC car was finally able to accelerate to 60 mph in just 1.73 seconds.
That easily outperforms a Tesla Roadster, but the makers of the fan car believe the 0-60 time can be shortened even further as the vehicle inexplicably experiences a slight tremor when it starts and hinders its ability to accelerate properly in the first few moments . Once the cause is identified and fixed, it should be able to accelerate even faster, although at some point it will be so fast that putting a human operator on the remote control may not be the best idea.
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