You Musk be joking? Tesla Roadster electric car will do 0-97km/h in under a second!

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is well known for making wild claims but his latest social media posts about the acceleration of the upcoming Roadster are outrageous, with Musk announcing that the electric sports car to do 0-60mph (97 km/h) in less than a second.

"Tonight we radically increased the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster," Musk said on X (formally Twitter) on Wednesday.

"There will never be another car like this if you could even call it a car."

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"0-60pmh < 1. And that is the least interesting part."

If true, the Tesla Roadster could become the world's fastest accelerating production car by more than half a second.

Currently the fastest accelerating (an unofficially most menacing) production car on the planet is the 754kW 6.2-litre V8 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon which screams its way from 0-60mph in 1.66 seconds.

In second place is the fully electric and almost totally silent Aspark Owl which is powered by four monster electric motors making a combined 1450kW for 0-60mph time of 1.72 seconds.

If true, the Tesla Roadster could become the world’s fastest accelerating production car by more than half a second.

The Tesla Model S Plaid is further back in the list but still in the top-10 world's fastest accelerating cars with 1.98 seconds.

But a claim of less than a second to 60mph and possibly also 100km/h for the Roadster is not only hard to imagine but concerning for safety reasons.

Passengers in the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon under full acceleration experience 2.004Gs, according to a JD Power report.

Forces above 3G can have effects on blood flow and it's known from aviation and aerospace that most people will lose consciousness at 10G.

Our own calculations reveal that the Roadster hitting 60mph or a linear velocity of 26.82 metres per second in one second would result in a G Force of 2.73G. Say the Roadster could do it in 0.8 seconds and that's 3.4G.

To put that in perspective, the fastest accelerating of all cars is the top fuel dragster - these have more than 8000kW of power and can sprint from 0-60mph in about 0.4 seconds and deliver about 5Gs to their drivers. If you've ever watched one in person you'd know you also feel it through your body as they burn through 56 litres of nitromethane fuel in four seconds.

Passengers in the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon under full acceleration experience 2.004Gs, according to a JD Power report.

But G forces aside, a car that accelerates to 100km/h in about a second comes with its own road safety concerns, with reaction time being a major factor in accidents.

So, will the Roadster truly have this type of acceleration? Well, according to Tesla the Roadster will have two electric motors providing all-wheel drive and producing 10,000Nm of torque and a top speed of more than 400km/h. That information is from 2017, however, when the Roadster was first revealed.

It's clear though from Musk's social posts that the engineering specs have changed and now that it's seven years later it appears the Tesla's awareness campaign for the Roadster is beginning to build and the brand's hype man is doing what he's so good at - hype.

According to Tesla's Australian website those interested in buying the Roadster can make a reservation for $7000, with a follow up payment of $59,000 required within 10 days.

The final list price has not been announced for Australia, but in the US the Roadster is expected to cost US$200,000 or A$307,000.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is well known for making wild claims.

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But his latest social media posts about the acceleration of the upcoming Roadster are outrageous.

2 / 3

But his latest social media posts about the acceleration of the upcoming Roadster are outrageous.

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But after nearly seven years of waiting the question is: will the Roadster actually happen at all? Musk says it will.

"Production design complete and unveil end of next year, aiming to ship next year."

Can we believe that? Well in the same barrage of posts yesterday he also said: "SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include 10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around the car… Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly".

Maybe not. Then again, he truly did strap a Roadster to a rocket and it's now out there floating in space towards Mars.