**Testing the Top Speed of the SSC Tuatara**

In this article, we will delve into the world of high-performance cars and examine the top speed of the SSC Tuatara. Our journey begins with an analysis of the car's performance, where we discuss the rolling resistance and how it affects the vehicle's acceleration and top speed.

The SSC Tuatara is a beast of a machine, capable of producing impressive numbers on paper. According to our calculations, the theoretical top speed of the car is around 282 miles per hour, which is remarkably close to the actual speed achieved during testing. The video footage from the test run shows the car reaching speeds of over 271 miles per hour, with the car struggling to accelerate further as it approaches its maximum top speed. Based on these numbers, it's clear that the SSC Tuatara has the potential to break the 300-mile-per-hour barrier.

However, one area where we felt that our analysis fell short was in determining the gearing information of the car. The gear package used by the SSC can vary depending on the application, with two different options available: high downforce and highest velocity (VMAX) packages. These packages feature distinct gearing configurations, which can significantly impact the car's acceleration and top speed. Unfortunately, without access to the actual gearing data or differential count information, it's challenging to accurately determine the gear ratio.

To shed some light on this issue, we turned to the SSC's specifications for the VMAX package. According to these numbers, the sixth gear ratio is 0.757 with a final drive ratio of 2.92, resulting in a theoretical top speed of 336 miles per hour. However, when analyzing the video footage from the test run, it appears that the GPS data and video do not match. This discrepancy raises questions about the accuracy of the GPS system used during the test.

We reached out to Jared Shelby, the CEO of SSC, to discuss our findings and get his insight on the matter. Unfortunately, we were informed that the company does have access to a data log from the test run, but it will not be made publicly available. Additionally, footage of the run was sent to the production company, but it will also not be released at this time.

However, Shelby did offer some reassurance regarding our calculations, stating that we were "close" to their internal estimate of the car's top speed. While this is reassuring, it also raises questions about the accuracy of the GPS system used during the test. It seems that without access to the actual data log or footage from the production company, the only hope for verifying the gearing information lies in the screen recording of the laptop screen displaying the GPS output from the run.

In conclusion, while our analysis suggests that the SSC Tuatara has the potential to break the 300-mile-per-hour barrier, there are still several unanswered questions regarding its performance. The lack of access to the actual gearing data or differential count information, combined with discrepancies in the GPS system used during testing, raise concerns about the accuracy of our calculations. As we await the second attempt at breaking the top speed record, it's clear that more transparency and accountability are needed from the SSC and their testing procedures.

**Further Questions Remain**

Despite reaching out to Jared Shelby, several questions still linger regarding the SSC Tuatara's performance. The most pressing concern remains the lack of access to the actual gearing data or differential count information. While our calculations suggest a theoretical top speed of 282 miles per hour, without concrete evidence, it's difficult to verify this number.

The discrepancy between the GPS data and video footage from the test run also raises questions about the accuracy of the GPS system used during testing. If there was indeed an error in the correction factor for the Devatron GPS system, this could potentially explain why the GPS data and video do not match.

Furthermore, the SSC's decision to release only a screen recording of the laptop screen displaying the GPS output from the run as their "GPS data" seems unusual. Given the critical nature of this information, it's surprising that they would not provide more concrete evidence to support their claims.

In light of these findings, it's clear that more transparency and accountability are needed from the SSC and their testing procedures. As we await the second attempt at breaking the top speed record, it's essential that both the car's performance and its testing procedures are scrutinized closely.

**A New Attempt at Breaking the Top Speed Record**

In light of our analysis and the unanswered questions surrounding the SSC Tuatara's performance, a new attempt at breaking the top speed record is imminent. With several key issues still unresolved, it's essential that the SSC takes a closer look at their testing procedures and provides more concrete evidence to support their claims.

As we await the second attempt at breaking the 300-mile-per-hour barrier, one thing is clear: the SSC Tuatara is a formidable machine capable of producing impressive numbers on paper. However, without access to the actual gearing data or differential count information, it's challenging to verify these claims.

The success of this new attempt will depend largely on the accuracy of our calculations and the transparency of the SSC's testing procedures. As we watch the Tuatara push for another record-breaking performance, one thing is certain: only time will tell if this car truly has the potential to break the 300-mile-per-hour barrier.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we are talking about the ssc tuatara world record run and of course there's some controversy surrounding this run so that's we're going to get into there's three questions i'd like to answer first of all what do we know second of all based on the video how fast do i think the car actually went and then third based on the specifications of the car how fast is this car actually capable of going and so to start figuring out all of this information i spoke with many of the parties involved so i spoke with jared shelby of ssc who was very helpful in providing information i spoke with devatron the gps company that was used to see how fast the car was actually going i spoke with driven studios the video production company filming all of this i spoke with oliver webb the driver of the top speed run and i spoke with tim aka shmee who was like hold on a minute when he started looking at the video footage and some things seemed a little bit off so what do we know well based on a press release by ssc on october 19th on october 10th is when this run was done and it was done on nevada state road 160 and there were three total runs done so one run was done in the southeast direction towards las vegas where they hit a top speed of 287 miles per hour one run was done they set up everything they do it then the reverse direction uh and another run was done in the northwest direction at 301 miles per hour towards pahrump and then they did one final run so they set up again and did it the reverse direction southeast towards las vegas and they hit a top speed of 331 miles per hour so those were the only three runs done and those are the top speeds associated with it so then on 10 19 if you average 301 and 331 both of these in opposite directions to validate the average speed of 316 miles per hour so that was the claim top gear put out the video showing uh them hitting that 331 that final run so then on october 26th smee goes hold on wait a minute some of this isn't adding up because what he noticed is if you look at the medians and you measure the distance between the medians using google maps you can see that the car starts at 1 median at 192 miles per hour and then by the time it gets to that second median it's traveling at 307 miles per hour and that takes about 22 and a half seconds so if you take 1.13 miles and divide it by 22.5 seconds it gives you an average speed of 180 miles per hour now 180 miles per hour is lower than its speed during that entire run there was never a time where it was traveling less than 192. therefore that's impossible something doesn't add up right this cannot all happen now i like schmie's method there i think that's a very simple way of explaining it you know you can't have an average speed that's below the speed you're traveling the whole time that doesn't make any sense so anyways on october 26th ssc puts out a statement and they said devatron a globally respected gps data measurement manufacturer has validated ssc north america's claim that its tuatara hypercar had averaged a top speed run of 316.11 miles per hour now i asked devatron if they did in fact validate the speed of 316 miles per hour and they said no they did not and on october 28th devetron put out a statement saying devatron did not validate any data from world record attempts or preceding tests they also went on to say that the results of measurement data highly rely on the right setup now also on october 28th ssc puts out a statement and they said the good news we did it and the numbers are indeed on our side they go on to say somehow there was a mix up on the editing side and then they go on to say that driven studios does have extensive footage of everything that transpired and is working with ssc to release the actual footage in its simplest form we'll share that as soon as it's available now obviously there's some confusion here right because one of them is saying hey they validated the claim devatron saying no we didn't validate that claim so i reached out to devatron to kind of get some clarification and some of the things they provided to me were that devatron equipment is calibrated and tested before being shipped from our factory and they said that due to corona presumably the virus but it would be funny if it was the beer due to corona we provided a virtual training to ssc for basic setup and configuration in early 2020. they went on to say yes devatron verified that the equipment was verified and accurate devatron equipment leaves our factory always tested and verified by qualified engineers and they go on to say we were not involved in the setup or configuration of the runs okay so finally on october 30th jared shelby puts out a video on their youtube channel and says we were concerned there were doubts in the relationship between the video and the gps uh that this is always going to have a stain on it and that they have to re-run the record so i'm excited and happy to hear that they are going to you know try and do this again to make sure everything is done right and actually achieve the record and i have one more email which we will get on to later on in this video but that is what we know that's essentially what we know so now personally i have two questions uh when looking at this video footage first of all is it possible that the video is the third run the video that we see is it possible that that's actually the third run and also is it possible that the gps and the video the gps data displayed on that video and the video are of the same run so that's the question i'm trying to figure out and i think it is possible yes to both of those questions reason being okay so is it possible that the video is the third run well there's only two runs in this direction so the video could only be from one of these two runs and you can look on the laptop at 1 15 in the video and it says 319 miles per hour 513 kilometers per hour this does convert to that so that makes sense that that's what the video was showing and so the video is showing on the laptop of the run not the gps data overlay the laptop is showing 319 miles per hour and we know the first run's top speed was 287 so it couldn't be the video from the first run and also oliver told me that he only celebrated on that final run and so oliver celebrates in the video so to me that says yes it is possible that this third run is the one being represented in this video now is it possible that the gps data overlay matches the video and i think yes is the answer to that question that it is possible uh there are five gear shifts and there's about a one second delay in the gps data as it kind of drops speed a little bit after each of those five gear shifts which tells me the gear shifts line up that seems to make sense that the gps data overlay would then be uh correct in matching this video maybe it's slightly off time wise but that it matches this video also you can look at time stamps at about 27 seconds 36 seconds and one minute 15 seconds and you can see on the laptop the speed displayed and then you can see the data overlay about one second later will show that speed that you saw on the laptop so you can see that correlation and then finally there's a video uploaded by the channel creator up who i believe is responsible for doing the 360 video uh for this run they have the the full 360 video posted and so you can see very clearly the laptop with its display matching the uh gps data overlay so they're off by you know a slight timing difference but you can see that they correlate the whole time as he goes through that run the laptop is showing a very similar speed to what the data overlay is showing okay so now as the whiteboard implies we're going to do some dumb calculus and this isn't a dig at what some journalists think about youtubers this is genuinely going to be dumb calculus this is a dumb way of doing calculus but it's a way that's very easy to understand which is why i'm doing it this way so really all we're going to be doing is just multiplying two numbers together it's very simple so what we're looking at here is a plot we've got time on our x-axis we've got speed on our y-axis so we're just looking at the ssc speed from the very first median that it reaches to the second median that it reaches because we know the distance based on google maps is about 1.13 miles between those two medians so we're looking at the speed that it's going and so what we can do is we can try and figure out well how far did it actually drive and so we can split this up into little chunks of time so for example right here we're just going to take one second of time and see how far it traveled so we start we know that it's starting this at about 193 miles per hour we say okay it travels at 193 miles per hour for one second so you multiply velocity by time that gives you distance so 193 miles per hour times one second times one hour is equal to 3600 seconds and what that gives you is a distance of 0.05 miles so 0.05 miles so this little chunk right here is just going to be 0.05 miles and so next you know after one second then it's traveling a little bit faster and we can look for that next second okay how far does it travel this time and then we can add up each of these little rectangles all the way until we get to our final time so we have 22 and a half seconds so i'm going to do 22 rectangles plus half of one rectangle and add all that up to see how far did this thing actually drive and again this is the dumb way of doing calculus because really you want to look at every single point on this curve so you're not leaving out this little extra space but i'm choosing to use the speed before that second knot at the speed the end of that second which means we're going to leave a little extra distance on the table that's fine we're not super concerned about it this is just going to give us a conservative estimate of how far did this thing travel so you add up each of those boxes based on the video footage the data overlay and the fact that it took 22.5 seconds and what do you get you get a distance of 1.54 miles now the interesting thing you can do the exact same thing because koenigsegg ran their agera rs on this same road between these same two medians you can do the exact same math to figure out okay well what did the koenigsegg do so we know based on google maps that distance is 1.3 miles based on some dumb calculus we're saying the ssc probably had to travel at least 1.54 miles and so what if you plug in koenigsegg numbers where it gets at that first median at 226 miles per hour it gets to the second median at 264 miles per hour in 16.5 seconds so you add up 16.5 little blocks like this and you get a number of 1.12 miles so near perfectly with the koenigsegg data and we're off by a significant amount with ssc data so if we take this 1.54 and divide it by 1.13 we get a correction factor of 1.3 so for example that would mean if we were traveling at 243 miles per hour and we multiplied 243 by 1.36 that would give us our top speed of 331 miles per hour so the correction factor is implying that if the speedometer were to read 331 miles per hour the actual speed it would be traveling at is 243 miles per hour assuming that video is correct now we have a third median so we can run this same analysis again uh the difference here is that we are starting at what we left off at so 307 miles per hour we're then reaching 331 miles per hour and then we're coming down to 239 miles per hour in about 25.2 seconds so that's number of blocks we're going to add up and a google maps estimated distance of 1.42 miles so that's what we're looking at for the ssc and the numbers that i get for that how far did the ssc actually travel when i add up all of these blocks because i'm a dumb you know internet kid just adding up my little blocks and seeing what happens and so we get 2.08 miles and that gives us a correction factor of 1.46 and so if you were to look at okay if our top speed shows 331 miles per hour we divide that by our correction factor of 1.46 that gives you an actual top speed of around 226 miles per hour again assuming that the video is accurate now what happens if you take the koenigsegg video and do the same thing it enters at 264 miles per hour 19 seconds later so 19 of these blocks were adding up we get to 271 miles per hour and theirs comes out to the math comes out to 1.42 miles so i'll of course display on the screen uh the excel spreadsheet where i have all of this shown you know what's what's the math behind all of this so you can see the actual addition of these blocks but the koenigsegg data lines up with the video and the shelby data shows that a correction factor you know could be applied to explain why the gps speed seems so different from the visual speed now the smart thing to do with all of this and what i was hoping someone would do because i'm lazy and i don't want to take the time to analyze every single frame is to analyze every single frame and use much smaller blocks and then add those up and that would give you a more accurate estimate well luckily julian thomas of uh race logic the dudes that make this great vmox vbox equipment luckily he went in and did that so we looked at it frame by frame and he came up with a correction factor of 1.48 giving you a top speed of about 224 miles per hour now that lines up with my second analysis this one's much more conservative and saying you know a speed maybe of 243 miles per hour but either way it looks like you know a correction factor could explain why we see a difference in speed okay so this correction factor this scaling factor to me seemed like just the easiest simplest explanation like could it be possible that there was a correction factor somehow in the software in the setup and as a result the numbers were off simply because within the setup somewhere in there there was a correction factor being applied and so i asked devatron if that was actually possible within their software and what devatron said in an email on october 31st devetron oxygen measurement software comes with a strong math and advanced math functionality theoretically it's possible to scale and filter any input values so in theory it is possible to have a correction factor within the setup and that could explain why these numbers were off now devatron went on to say i'm not saying that ssc engineers have done that and personally i believe that the car can run a record speed and we will support ssc in another run great so this leads to our final question because the car is going to re-run the record attempt what is its theoretical top speed and so in order to figure this out this is a power equation so power is equal to force times velocity now force in this case is our resistive forces of the car so we need to consider the drivetrain efficiency we need to consider aerodynamic drag and we need to consider the drag from rolling resistance so that's what we have set up here we have power multiplied by our drivetrain efficiency and then we have the equations for the force of aerodynamics and the force of rolling resistance and then all of that is multiplied by our velocity so you plug in the numbers based on ssc specifications and they provided me some additional numbers like the frontal area and the rolling resistance coefficient for the tires and you get a calculated theoretically possible maximum velocity of 345 miles per hour so this is a very powerful car and according to the specifications very aerodynamic as well so its theoretical top speed is quite high now you might be wondering jason is your math correct here does this all make sense and so my you know verification of that is well what if i run the same analysis on the koenigsegg aguero rs so this vehicle has a thousand kilowatts about 400 horsepower less than the tuatara it has a higher drag coefficient with more down force and it has a larger frontal area now it was able to achieve the average in both directions a top speed of 278 miles per hour and if i do the same math analysis just like this one right here there's one small assumption on downforce but downforce isn't going to play a huge role in the rolling resistance but if i run that same analysis i get a calculated theoretical top speed of about 282 miles per hour and that's very close uh to the actual speed that they tested and you can kind of see in the video it's kind of cresting that you know 271 on that run that we were talking about earlier it's kind of just sitting there 271 it's you know struggling to accelerate much more there because it's getting very close to its theoretical top speed so i think it's capable based on the specifications of definitely going over 300 miles per hour okay so that spot right there is probably the cleanest place to end this video however unfortunately i feel like there are still some unanswered questions as a result of gearing now the thing that i don't like about gearing is that unless the car finishes its run and i pull out the differential count the teeth on the input and the output i'm not going to know what that actual gear ratio is in the car it's very difficult to know that you could possibly back calculate it using can data which i'm trying to look into but basically what i'm saying is it's very difficult to know gearing information now there are two gear packages offered with the ssc to atara there's a high downforce gearing package and there's a highest velocity package vmax package where you're trying to reach that maximum top speed and so the gearing for them is different for gears six seven and the final drive and so if you look at the uh high velocity version the the version going for the maximum top speed six gears 0.757 final drive ratio is 2.92 and if i do the math that works out to a top speed in sixth gear of 336 miles per hour and so in a statement uh ssc is saying that if you look at the data log the core is at 8 600 rpm and sixth gear during that run which puts it very close to 331 miles per hour now suddenly you have a discrepancy now between the gearing data and the gps data if the video is accurate so it could be that this can data can validate this gps data if they both line up however there's also a different gearing package a high downforce gearing package where the sixth gear ratio is 0.784 and the final drive ratio is 3.454 and so if you look at these numbers that gives you a maximum speed in sixth gear of 274 miles per hour now based on an analysis by robert mitchell and misha where they're looking at sound frequencies they believe different gearing was used this high downforce gearing that .784 rather than this .757 so to me this leaves two final questions which i'm still trying to figure out is the candidate available to verify the gearing and then also is it possible that there was just simply a mess up in the correction factor in the settings for the devatron gps system that could explain why the gps and the video do not match okay well very conveniently after i had finished filming this video i was able to hop on the phone with jared shelby of ssc and discuss my remaining a few questions and so regarding the can data being available in order to verify what gearing was used um and this is actually referenced in their press release that they do have a data log however they will not be releasing this data they also do have additional footage of the run that has been sent to them from the production the video production company however they will not be ssc will not be releasing this video footage at this point basically everything is going towards the second attempt making sure everything is done 100 correctly uh so that it can all make sense uh and finally this question of is it you know possible that there was a scaling setting that had occurred with the gps settings so unfortunately apparently i am told there is no gps data so i'm told the only gps data that exists is a screen recording of the laptop screen that's displaying the gps output from the run and so i'm told that this screen recording is what is needed to submit for the world record however you know to me obviously it does seem strange that for something so critical you wouldn't actually record all of the data from the gps but at this point everything is focusing on redoing this making sure you know all the t's are crossed and the eyes are dotted um and and making sure it's done correctly my math based on their specifications looking at a top speed of 345 miles per hour i did tell this to jared shelby was like hey what do you think is this close he wouldn't tell me what their internal guesstimate calculation theoretical max speed was but he did say that i was close so it'll be interesting to see what happens with the second run thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave them belowhello everyone and welcome in this video we are talking about the ssc tuatara world record run and of course there's some controversy surrounding this run so that's we're going to get into there's three questions i'd like to answer first of all what do we know second of all based on the video how fast do i think the car actually went and then third based on the specifications of the car how fast is this car actually capable of going and so to start figuring out all of this information i spoke with many of the parties involved so i spoke with jared shelby of ssc who was very helpful in providing information i spoke with devatron the gps company that was used to see how fast the car was actually going i spoke with driven studios the video production company filming all of this i spoke with oliver webb the driver of the top speed run and i spoke with tim aka shmee who was like hold on a minute when he started looking at the video footage and some things seemed a little bit off so what do we know well based on a press release by ssc on october 19th on october 10th is when this run was done and it was done on nevada state road 160 and there were three total runs done so one run was done in the southeast direction towards las vegas where they hit a top speed of 287 miles per hour one run was done they set up everything they do it then the reverse direction uh and another run was done in the northwest direction at 301 miles per hour towards pahrump and then they did one final run so they set up again and did it the reverse direction southeast towards las vegas and they hit a top speed of 331 miles per hour so those were the only three runs done and those are the top speeds associated with it so then on 10 19 if you average 301 and 331 both of these in opposite directions to validate the average speed of 316 miles per hour so that was the claim top gear put out the video showing uh them hitting that 331 that final run so then on october 26th smee goes hold on wait a minute some of this isn't adding up because what he noticed is if you look at the medians and you measure the distance between the medians using google maps you can see that the car starts at 1 median at 192 miles per hour and then by the time it gets to that second median it's traveling at 307 miles per hour and that takes about 22 and a half seconds so if you take 1.13 miles and divide it by 22.5 seconds it gives you an average speed of 180 miles per hour now 180 miles per hour is lower than its speed during that entire run there was never a time where it was traveling less than 192. therefore that's impossible something doesn't add up right this cannot all happen now i like schmie's method there i think that's a very simple way of explaining it you know you can't have an average speed that's below the speed you're traveling the whole time that doesn't make any sense so anyways on october 26th ssc puts out a statement and they said devatron a globally respected gps data measurement manufacturer has validated ssc north america's claim that its tuatara hypercar had averaged a top speed run of 316.11 miles per hour now i asked devatron if they did in fact validate the speed of 316 miles per hour and they said no they did not and on october 28th devetron put out a statement saying devatron did not validate any data from world record attempts or preceding tests they also went on to say that the results of measurement data highly rely on the right setup now also on october 28th ssc puts out a statement and they said the good news we did it and the numbers are indeed on our side they go on to say somehow there was a mix up on the editing side and then they go on to say that driven studios does have extensive footage of everything that transpired and is working with ssc to release the actual footage in its simplest form we'll share that as soon as it's available now obviously there's some confusion here right because one of them is saying hey they validated the claim devatron saying no we didn't validate that claim so i reached out to devatron to kind of get some clarification and some of the things they provided to me were that devatron equipment is calibrated and tested before being shipped from our factory and they said that due to corona presumably the virus but it would be funny if it was the beer due to corona we provided a virtual training to ssc for basic setup and configuration in early 2020. they went on to say yes devatron verified that the equipment was verified and accurate devatron equipment leaves our factory always tested and verified by qualified engineers and they go on to say we were not involved in the setup or configuration of the runs okay so finally on october 30th jared shelby puts out a video on their youtube channel and says we were concerned there were doubts in the relationship between the video and the gps uh that this is always going to have a stain on it and that they have to re-run the record so i'm excited and happy to hear that they are going to you know try and do this again to make sure everything is done right and actually achieve the record and i have one more email which we will get on to later on in this video but that is what we know that's essentially what we know so now personally i have two questions uh when looking at this video footage first of all is it possible that the video is the third run the video that we see is it possible that that's actually the third run and also is it possible that the gps and the video the gps data displayed on that video and the video are of the same run so that's the question i'm trying to figure out and i think it is possible yes to both of those questions reason being okay so is it possible that the video is the third run well there's only two runs in this direction so the video could only be from one of these two runs and you can look on the laptop at 1 15 in the video and it says 319 miles per hour 513 kilometers per hour this does convert to that so that makes sense that that's what the video was showing and so the video is showing on the laptop of the run not the gps data overlay the laptop is showing 319 miles per hour and we know the first run's top speed was 287 so it couldn't be the video from the first run and also oliver told me that he only celebrated on that final run and so oliver celebrates in the video so to me that says yes it is possible that this third run is the one being represented in this video now is it possible that the gps data overlay matches the video and i think yes is the answer to that question that it is possible uh there are five gear shifts and there's about a one second delay in the gps data as it kind of drops speed a little bit after each of those five gear shifts which tells me the gear shifts line up that seems to make sense that the gps data overlay would then be uh correct in matching this video maybe it's slightly off time wise but that it matches this video also you can look at time stamps at about 27 seconds 36 seconds and one minute 15 seconds and you can see on the laptop the speed displayed and then you can see the data overlay about one second later will show that speed that you saw on the laptop so you can see that correlation and then finally there's a video uploaded by the channel creator up who i believe is responsible for doing the 360 video uh for this run they have the the full 360 video posted and so you can see very clearly the laptop with its display matching the uh gps data overlay so they're off by you know a slight timing difference but you can see that they correlate the whole time as he goes through that run the laptop is showing a very similar speed to what the data overlay is showing okay so now as the whiteboard implies we're going to do some dumb calculus and this isn't a dig at what some journalists think about youtubers this is genuinely going to be dumb calculus this is a dumb way of doing calculus but it's a way that's very easy to understand which is why i'm doing it this way so really all we're going to be doing is just multiplying two numbers together it's very simple so what we're looking at here is a plot we've got time on our x-axis we've got speed on our y-axis so we're just looking at the ssc speed from the very first median that it reaches to the second median that it reaches because we know the distance based on google maps is about 1.13 miles between those two medians so we're looking at the speed that it's going and so what we can do is we can try and figure out well how far did it actually drive and so we can split this up into little chunks of time so for example right here we're just going to take one second of time and see how far it traveled so we start we know that it's starting this at about 193 miles per hour we say okay it travels at 193 miles per hour for one second so you multiply velocity by time that gives you distance so 193 miles per hour times one second times one hour is equal to 3600 seconds and what that gives you is a distance of 0.05 miles so 0.05 miles so this little chunk right here is just going to be 0.05 miles and so next you know after one second then it's traveling a little bit faster and we can look for that next second okay how far does it travel this time and then we can add up each of these little rectangles all the way until we get to our final time so we have 22 and a half seconds so i'm going to do 22 rectangles plus half of one rectangle and add all that up to see how far did this thing actually drive and again this is the dumb way of doing calculus because really you want to look at every single point on this curve so you're not leaving out this little extra space but i'm choosing to use the speed before that second knot at the speed the end of that second which means we're going to leave a little extra distance on the table that's fine we're not super concerned about it this is just going to give us a conservative estimate of how far did this thing travel so you add up each of those boxes based on the video footage the data overlay and the fact that it took 22.5 seconds and what do you get you get a distance of 1.54 miles now the interesting thing you can do the exact same thing because koenigsegg ran their agera rs on this same road between these same two medians you can do the exact same math to figure out okay well what did the koenigsegg do so we know based on google maps that distance is 1.3 miles based on some dumb calculus we're saying the ssc probably had to travel at least 1.54 miles and so what if you plug in koenigsegg numbers where it gets at that first median at 226 miles per hour it gets to the second median at 264 miles per hour in 16.5 seconds so you add up 16.5 little blocks like this and you get a number of 1.12 miles so near perfectly with the koenigsegg data and we're off by a significant amount with ssc data so if we take this 1.54 and divide it by 1.13 we get a correction factor of 1.3 so for example that would mean if we were traveling at 243 miles per hour and we multiplied 243 by 1.36 that would give us our top speed of 331 miles per hour so the correction factor is implying that if the speedometer were to read 331 miles per hour the actual speed it would be traveling at is 243 miles per hour assuming that video is correct now we have a third median so we can run this same analysis again uh the difference here is that we are starting at what we left off at so 307 miles per hour we're then reaching 331 miles per hour and then we're coming down to 239 miles per hour in about 25.2 seconds so that's number of blocks we're going to add up and a google maps estimated distance of 1.42 miles so that's what we're looking at for the ssc and the numbers that i get for that how far did the ssc actually travel when i add up all of these blocks because i'm a dumb you know internet kid just adding up my little blocks and seeing what happens and so we get 2.08 miles and that gives us a correction factor of 1.46 and so if you were to look at okay if our top speed shows 331 miles per hour we divide that by our correction factor of 1.46 that gives you an actual top speed of around 226 miles per hour again assuming that the video is accurate now what happens if you take the koenigsegg video and do the same thing it enters at 264 miles per hour 19 seconds later so 19 of these blocks were adding up we get to 271 miles per hour and theirs comes out to the math comes out to 1.42 miles so i'll of course display on the screen uh the excel spreadsheet where i have all of this shown you know what's what's the math behind all of this so you can see the actual addition of these blocks but the koenigsegg data lines up with the video and the shelby data shows that a correction factor you know could be applied to explain why the gps speed seems so different from the visual speed now the smart thing to do with all of this and what i was hoping someone would do because i'm lazy and i don't want to take the time to analyze every single frame is to analyze every single frame and use much smaller blocks and then add those up and that would give you a more accurate estimate well luckily julian thomas of uh race logic the dudes that make this great vmox vbox equipment luckily he went in and did that so we looked at it frame by frame and he came up with a correction factor of 1.48 giving you a top speed of about 224 miles per hour now that lines up with my second analysis this one's much more conservative and saying you know a speed maybe of 243 miles per hour but either way it looks like you know a correction factor could explain why we see a difference in speed okay so this correction factor this scaling factor to me seemed like just the easiest simplest explanation like could it be possible that there was a correction factor somehow in the software in the setup and as a result the numbers were off simply because within the setup somewhere in there there was a correction factor being applied and so i asked devatron if that was actually possible within their software and what devatron said in an email on october 31st devetron oxygen measurement software comes with a strong math and advanced math functionality theoretically it's possible to scale and filter any input values so in theory it is possible to have a correction factor within the setup and that could explain why these numbers were off now devatron went on to say i'm not saying that ssc engineers have done that and personally i believe that the car can run a record speed and we will support ssc in another run great so this leads to our final question because the car is going to re-run the record attempt what is its theoretical top speed and so in order to figure this out this is a power equation so power is equal to force times velocity now force in this case is our resistive forces of the car so we need to consider the drivetrain efficiency we need to consider aerodynamic drag and we need to consider the drag from rolling resistance so that's what we have set up here we have power multiplied by our drivetrain efficiency and then we have the equations for the force of aerodynamics and the force of rolling resistance and then all of that is multiplied by our velocity so you plug in the numbers based on ssc specifications and they provided me some additional numbers like the frontal area and the rolling resistance coefficient for the tires and you get a calculated theoretically possible maximum velocity of 345 miles per hour so this is a very powerful car and according to the specifications very aerodynamic as well so its theoretical top speed is quite high now you might be wondering jason is your math correct here does this all make sense and so my you know verification of that is well what if i run the same analysis on the koenigsegg aguero rs so this vehicle has a thousand kilowatts about 400 horsepower less than the tuatara it has a higher drag coefficient with more down force and it has a larger frontal area now it was able to achieve the average in both directions a top speed of 278 miles per hour and if i do the same math analysis just like this one right here there's one small assumption on downforce but downforce isn't going to play a huge role in the rolling resistance but if i run that same analysis i get a calculated theoretical top speed of about 282 miles per hour and that's very close uh to the actual speed that they tested and you can kind of see in the video it's kind of cresting that you know 271 on that run that we were talking about earlier it's kind of just sitting there 271 it's you know struggling to accelerate much more there because it's getting very close to its theoretical top speed so i think it's capable based on the specifications of definitely going over 300 miles per hour okay so that spot right there is probably the cleanest place to end this video however unfortunately i feel like there are still some unanswered questions as a result of gearing now the thing that i don't like about gearing is that unless the car finishes its run and i pull out the differential count the teeth on the input and the output i'm not going to know what that actual gear ratio is in the car it's very difficult to know that you could possibly back calculate it using can data which i'm trying to look into but basically what i'm saying is it's very difficult to know gearing information now there are two gear packages offered with the ssc to atara there's a high downforce gearing package and there's a highest velocity package vmax package where you're trying to reach that maximum top speed and so the gearing for them is different for gears six seven and the final drive and so if you look at the uh high velocity version the the version going for the maximum top speed six gears 0.757 final drive ratio is 2.92 and if i do the math that works out to a top speed in sixth gear of 336 miles per hour and so in a statement uh ssc is saying that if you look at the data log the core is at 8 600 rpm and sixth gear during that run which puts it very close to 331 miles per hour now suddenly you have a discrepancy now between the gearing data and the gps data if the video is accurate so it could be that this can data can validate this gps data if they both line up however there's also a different gearing package a high downforce gearing package where the sixth gear ratio is 0.784 and the final drive ratio is 3.454 and so if you look at these numbers that gives you a maximum speed in sixth gear of 274 miles per hour now based on an analysis by robert mitchell and misha where they're looking at sound frequencies they believe different gearing was used this high downforce gearing that .784 rather than this .757 so to me this leaves two final questions which i'm still trying to figure out is the candidate available to verify the gearing and then also is it possible that there was just simply a mess up in the correction factor in the settings for the devatron gps system that could explain why the gps and the video do not match okay well very conveniently after i had finished filming this video i was able to hop on the phone with jared shelby of ssc and discuss my remaining a few questions and so regarding the can data being available in order to verify what gearing was used um and this is actually referenced in their press release that they do have a data log however they will not be releasing this data they also do have additional footage of the run that has been sent to them from the production the video production company however they will not be ssc will not be releasing this video footage at this point basically everything is going towards the second attempt making sure everything is done 100 correctly uh so that it can all make sense uh and finally this question of is it you know possible that there was a scaling setting that had occurred with the gps settings so unfortunately apparently i am told there is no gps data so i'm told the only gps data that exists is a screen recording of the laptop screen that's displaying the gps output from the run and so i'm told that this screen recording is what is needed to submit for the world record however you know to me obviously it does seem strange that for something so critical you wouldn't actually record all of the data from the gps but at this point everything is focusing on redoing this making sure you know all the t's are crossed and the eyes are dotted um and and making sure it's done correctly my math based on their specifications looking at a top speed of 345 miles per hour i did tell this to jared shelby was like hey what do you think is this close he wouldn't tell me what their internal guesstimate calculation theoretical max speed was but he did say that i was close so it'll be interesting to see what happens with the second run thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave them below\n"