Talk:Bugatti Bolide

Reveal Date

I'm pretty sure it was just the teaser image that was released on October 28 that just showed the taillights. Can I get confirmation on the release date? Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 14:02, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Turns out the reveal date is correct. I just looked it up and it turns out it was revealed on October 28. I just didn't get it until yesterday. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 14:02, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

0-400-0

I didn't find on any of the four sites mentioned the 0-400-0 time of Bolide. But surely 24.62 seconds is wrong, because if it goes from 0 to 400 kph in just 12.1 seconds, it can't take more than 12.5 seconds to stop. If theoretically it goes from 0 to 500 in 20.1 seconds and does 0-500-0 in 33.62, it takes 13.52 s to stop at 500 kph. That is, just 1 second longer than it takes to stop at 400 kph. Eduardo César Schmidt (talk) 21:55, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

The reference wasn't clear but I eventually found all the claimed performance estimates at the 2nd reference https://newsroom.bugatti.com/en/media-kits/bolide instead of any of the references in that paragraph. This of course needs to be made clearer in the article. Somebody also converted them all to mph and then converted them back to km/h, so there are rounding errors too.

The actual numbers seem okay. Accelerating is against a massive wall of air that gets much, much harder for the higher speeds (drag from air resistance goes up as the square of the speed). But braking is actually helped by that same wall of air at high speed. So, that last 400-500 km/h acceleration takes a longer time compared to the lower speeds but braking 500-400 km/h takes a shorter time compared to lower speeds.  Stepho  talk  22:41, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

The Bugatti link you posted is about fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. I didn't see anything about performance. Anyway, it is worth remembering that Koenigsegg Regera takes 8.62 s to stop at 400 kph, being much heavier than Bolide. So I don't see why Bolide would take more than 12.5 s. Eduardo César Schmidt (talk) 23:31, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

That link has an entry for the Bolide to download a PDF. That PDF has all the performance values. Like I said, the references need to be cleanup and that PDF would be made into a direct link.

Many factors affect the performance. Perhaps the Bolide has smaller brakes. Perhaps the Regera has more air resistance at high speed. What type of air brakes do they have? Being heavier is an advantage at high speed - light cars tend to be skittish. Too many variables that are not obvious when just looking at the final results.  Stepho  talk  23:44, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Yup. It is true. But another thing that I also don't understand, is how can a car that they say has more than 2600 kg of downforce go over 500 kph? We all know that too high downforce limits the top speed. I sent an email to Bugatti asking about this, and they answered that there is a variant of the Bolide for tracks and another for top speed. Do you know anything about it? I didn't find this information on any site. Eduardo César Schmidt (talk) 20:58, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't know the specifics for the Bolide but in general (and vastly oversimplified), not enough downforce at high speed makes the car unstable and dangerous - it literally tries to fly. The downforce usually manifests as drag, which is countered by sheer horsepower. There's a reason that 500 km/h cars have 1000+ kW engines.  Stepho  talk  23:27, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I was reading one day about the Jesko Absolut, and I saw the downforce was quite reduced compared to the Jesko Attack, which leads to believe that Bugatti must be planning two different versions of the Bolide, one focused on circuits and the other on very high speed , as they told me. Or else, all these numbers that have been released are nothing more than a big bluff... Eduardo César Schmidt (talk) 23:57, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

As I said above - vastly over simplified. Aerodynamics (a part of fluid dynamics) is a hideously complex field that can be quite non-intuitive. If you want to call their bluff then be prepared to show your degrees in maths, engineering and fluid dynamics - or a lifetime experience in the top levels of racing. I've got a maths degree and moderate knowledge of engineering but I'm no fluid dynamics expert. So I can tell that their numbers are plausible but can't go much further than that.  Stepho  talk  00:46, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I have no intention of catching Bugatti's attention, nor do I have any university degree. I'm just a curious person who reads a lot on the subject and questions whenever I notice something strange. If I were rich enough to buy a Bolide, I would call Bugatti engineers into a meeting and ask them to show me how they arrived at these numbers. But that's not my case, I'm just a curious guy. I think it's the specialized press who should ask these questions to them, not me. Eduardo César Schmidt (talk) 16:48, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

No problem.  Stepho  talk  22:41, 30 August 2022 (UTC)