Koenigsegg just broke a world record with their Jesko Absolut hypercar. They managed to get from 0 - 400 kmh to 0 again in 27.83 seconds. I-ll let that sink in for a second.
0 - 400 kmh or 248mph was done in 18.82 seconds. That is less time than it takes the Honda Civic Type R, which is by no means a slow car to get to 200 km/h.
This very record of 0-400-0 was taken from Koenigsegg in May of 2023 by the Rimac Nevera. that managed to do the feat in 29.93. Of course Koengisegg couldn’t let that stand so just a month later they took their hybrid hypercar Regera to a smoother runway put more extreme tires on it and posted a time of 28.81.
That record stood until this week when the Jesko managed to do 27.83.
Of course, the Koenigsegg Jesko costs 3 million dollars so this kind of performance is expected and this record would be just another feat of uber expensive hypercar upmanship if the previous two record holders were not a hybrid and a battery electric vehicle.
The Jesko is not a hybrid, it has nothing but a mid-mounted internal combustion engine to drive the wheels and it has less power than both of the previous record holders.
So how did the Jesko manage to beat the record? Wll if the answer was not more power, than it must be less mass. Because by having less mass to lug around you can accelerate and decelerate faster. And indeed the Jesko is 910 kilograms lighter than the Rimac and 200 kilograms lighter than the Regera.
And how do you become lighter? By becoming more simple. For a hypercar of this day and age the Jesko is remarkably simple. Unlike the Rimac which has an electric motor on each wheel, the Jesko only drives the rear wheels. And it has no clever crankshaft mounted or wheel shaft mounted electric motors like in the Regera. There are no e-turbos either. The only battery is the 12 volt one and the Aero is inactive…no clever moving wings , just two solid fixed winglets in the back.
Of course it still needs big power to achieve crazy speeds but the approach to power is kinda old school too. 5.0 liter flatplane V8 with two giant turbos and a remarkably low compression ratio for this day and age. Just 9:1. Why so low? So they could stuff 2.2 bar boost down the throat of each cylinder bank.
And that’s it. Of course there’s all the carbon and the clever suspension and the uber clever transmission. But overall, compared to the previous record holders the Jesko adopts the approach of Less is More…an approach the rest of the auto industry, and even the world seems to have forgotten.
The Jesko had a goal. The goal was more acceleration, reaching a top speed faster and them coming to a stop from that top speed more quickly. It achieved this goal by shedding everything that it didn’t need and perfecting everything it did need.
The auto industry today, and many other industries also have a goal. At least they claim to have a goal. And that goal is the reduction of emissions. The reduction of our carbon footprint.
So if our goal is to emit less of something, wouldn’t Jesko’s approach of less is more be applicable here?
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