Tesla Roadster donates tire squeal sounds to two new video games
Posted Nov 18th 2009 4:04PM by Sebastian Blanco
Tesla Roadster audio recording - Click above for image gallery
What does it take to make a video game these days? A lot of time and effort, that's what. For the upcoming Forza and Project Gotham Racing racing titles, the attention to detail going into these games includes getting the sound of the all-electric sports car – electric motor, tires, etc. – just right. To that end, audio engineers from Microsoft Game Studios spent some time with Tom Burt and his Roadster #203, recently, with mics sticking off the car at all angles. The engineers were excited because the all-electric drivetrain allowed them the opportunity to record tire skids and squeals without an ICE right there adding extra sounds. Burt had a good time:
The Roadster was a lot of fun to push hard and to deliberately get out of shape and recover. Handling was fun and predictable. As expected, given the stock suspension settings and tire sizes, the car moderately understeers or "pushes." I kept adjusting tire pressures, lowering the front pressures and letting the rears stay high as they heated, but could not eliminate the "push." So, I used the e-brake to initiate "oversteer"spins and give the team the more aggressive tire squeals they were looking for. Like most mid-weight cars, once you get the car to over-rotate, it spins quickly. What a ton of fun.
The car almost reached its limits, with the motor overheating twice. You can read more about it – and hear the audio – over at Tesla's blog. A Tesla Motors vehicle will also be available in Gran Turismo 5 and the Roadster's electric motor provided sound for the Batpod in The Dark Knight.
[Source: Tesla Motors]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Toronto web design 4:19PM (11/18/2009)
So what sounds are used in Gran Turismo 5 then?
Also typo in the past paragraph: "The car almost reached its the limits, with the motor overheating twice."
Take out 'the' and the comma and it's fixed.
Reply
Ernie 5:24PM (11/19/2009)
I'm hoping they'll do much the same thing in GT5 actually, but it's worth noting that they did some rather silly things with the Nike One hydrogen concept (which was pure fiction) in GT4, like use a 6 speed transmission, as well as not paying any attention to the torque curve that electric motors produce.
With a real car to model after though, I'm sure they'll do it right this time. I'm just going to have to cross my fingers for that one.
Sebastian 1:30PM (11/20/2009)
typo fixed. thank you.
FlappyPaddle 5:08PM (11/18/2009)
I am still hoping that Tesla eventually will release something with more then one gear, that being said this article is not about that, maybe tho if Forza and Trismo 5 have mods for the Tesla then they will have different tranny options and I think it would be interesting to see what mods if any that these games have for the car other then suspension, tires and brakes I'm wondering what else they have for them like electric motor swaps? and will it actually be able to run out of battery power in the games?
Reply
PopSmith 6:36PM (11/18/2009)
The Tesla Roadster doesn't need multiple gears. I don't think the Model S will either due to the extremely high efficiency of an electric motor. Part of the reason an ICE has multiple gear transmissions is due to the fact that they are very inefficient.
Regarding the Tesla Roadster's motor, Elon said in a video that the engineers spun a Roadster motor to over 20,000 RPM before it exploded. The Roadster goes about 125 @ ~12,500 RPM.
Again, in an electric car there is no need for anything more than a single speed transmission. Using a multi-gear transmission would only add unnecessary weight and complexity.
FlappyPaddle 6:42PM (11/18/2009)
The only reason I would like to see more gearing is for the simple fact that it would raise the top speed and only improve efficency, like an ICE each gear makes it easier for the motor to work, hence hire top speed and range.
Doug 8:00PM (11/18/2009)
The current Roadster motor starts to lose torque around 5kRPM. Another gear would allow it to have better acceleration at the higher speeds.
Of course the real reason they don't have two gears now is because they couldn't get it to work reliably. A two gear set-up with the current motor would make the car even more impressive off the line.
DasBoese 9:41PM (11/18/2009)
"Another gear would allow it to have better acceleration at the higher speeds."
"it would (...) improve efficency, like an ICE each gear makes it easier for the motor to work"
*facepalm* Please, learn about the relationship between gear ratio and torque.
"Of course the real reason they don't have two gears now is because they couldn't get it to work reliably."
No, actually it's the other way around: The first roadsters had a two-speed transmission (technically. In practice, they were locked to one speed) as a stop-gap measure because the original single reduction gears were found to be underengineered.
Doug 2:38AM (11/19/2009)
@DasBoese
In the current Roadster Sport The power and torque peak around 5000 RPM. When I've driven the Roadster, the 0 to 60 acceleration is quite impressive. But accelerating from say 70 to 100 is anemic by comparison. Adding another gear would allow for better acceleration in the higher speed range. What's so hard to understand about that?
http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/acceleration_and_torque.php
"No, actually it's the other way around: The first roadsters had a two-speed transmission (technically. In practice, they were locked to one speed) as a stop-gap measure because the original single reduction gears were found to be underengineered."
That's sorta right, but you have things mixed up. Starting from the engineering prototypes (EP1 and EP2), the car had a two speed transmission. The reason they were using a 2-speed in the first place was to get the 4 second 0 to 60 spec in the low gear while reaching a 130mph top speed in the high gear. The problem was the transmissions kept breaking when you tried to shift them.
They spent about a year trying to fix that transmission issue going through various designs with at least 3 different suppliers. Either it took too long (seconds) to shift or had a lifetime of only a few thousand miles. Given how long it was taking to solve the issue, their stop-gap solution was to go ahead and start shipping cars with the transmission locked into the 2nd gear (giving a worse than specified 0 to 60 time) and promised to replace it in the future when they had a 2-speed that worked reliably. They never managed to do that.
However, at the same time development on the power electronics continued. Tesla was able to increase the power to the motor such that they could get the promised 0 to 60 time and a reasonable top speed (reduced to 125mph), while using a only a single gear. They called this "Powertrain 1.5". So now they use a single speed transaxle with a gear ratio that is in between that of the previous two speeds.
Now with the even better PEM and motor in Roadster Sport (Powertrain 2.0?), a multispeed gear box (assuming it didn't break) would allow for even more impressive acceleration. Capiche?
CH 7:51AM (11/19/2009)
Hmm, wouldn't a CVT work with an electric engine?
Just asking, because it seems feasible unless of course the tourque would tear it apart...
Somebody knows this?
Jared 8:08AM (11/19/2009)
@DasBoese
you need to facepalm yourself. Your argument is restating what other people said. And when you told the one poster wrong about his comment on 2 speeds, he was actually right.
Adding gears will allow the motor to stay in it's powerband. Simple engineering. One loonngg gear will always accelerate slower then 4-6 gears slowly stepping up.
The Tesla is a great idea(electric sports car), but it wasn't engineered to the degree it should have been. Kinda like late 90's Saturns.
Brant 6:06PM (11/18/2009)
Good questions but wouldn't it be harder for the programmers to create upgrades for the tesla as it is for a ice vehicle. it's easy to slap a turbo or supercharger on and say with this much power the car will go this fast... well how do we do that with an electric car? more amps higher voltage? as for distance if they were to do that then they better do it for fuel aswell. so swaps would make more sense for racing(switch battery, tires clean windsheild lol) don't know if the gameing community is ready for this real of a simulation.
Reply
FlappyPaddle 6:46PM (11/18/2009)
They did bring in fuel back in trismo 4 but it wasnt really all that realistic as I drove multiple laps with it beeping at me to pit... That being said I would love to see a day when simulation incorporates all of aspects that make real racing fun (punctured tires, fuel milage cracked windshelds all these things would make it way more exciting and less about 800whp civc's and more about technique!
Brant 9:11PM (11/18/2009)
Totally agree.... If u run out fuel u can't drive anymore this would be a good way to test different size battery packs if they went for the hole picture weight, areo and power. Now that's a real sim
Reply
Laurens 4:18AM (11/19/2009)
From the description of the test troubles, it seems the Tesla is exactly what it has been designed to be: a posers car for the environmentalists :-)
Reply
Marc-O 7:25AM (11/19/2009)
@ Laurens
Oh give us a break.
neptronix 1:50PM (11/19/2009)
A real environmentalist car would be a flinstones yaba-dabba-doo GT?
RITmusic2k 2:17PM (11/19/2009)
The most important thing I took from this article is that Turn 10 studios is already working on Forza Motorsport 4 :)
Reply
FlappyPaddle 5:44PM (11/19/2009)
This is just for PopSmith and his hair brained idea that you dont need more gears for better mileage in EV cars...
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/11/19/japan-ev-club-creams-tesla-range-record-with-tokyo-to-osaka-run/
Ya thats what I thought!
Reply