Just because a car’s gone on sale doesn’t mean the engineering process is done. Sure, it may be homologated and in an approved state for public release, but behind the scenes, engineers are often tweaking the nuances of a vehicle’s control systems, working on making them better. Sometimes, better even means reclaiming an acceleration record, and that’s exactly what Koenigsegg just achieved.
Beyond outright top speed, the most head-spinning metric in the hypercar game is zero-to-400 km/h-to-zero, or from a dead stop to 248.54 MPH and back to stationary. It’s an enormous test of both acceleration and braking, so it seemed for a while that Rimac had the title on lock with the Nevera R, its beefed-up 2,107-horsepower quad-motor electric hypercar. That thing did the ludicrous test in a mere 25.79 seconds, meaning you could pop some Minute Rice in the microwave and do the acceleration and deceleration run twice before the timer beeped.
However, Koenigsegg has been tinkering with its 1,600-horsepower Jesko Absolut, and the Swedish hypercar maker has beaten Rimac’s record by more than half a second without any hardware changes. We’re talking zero-to-248.54 MPH-to-zero in 25.21 seconds. In this game, nearly six-tenths of a second is an eternity, so how have the Swedes managed that, especially without the ferocity of an all-wheel-drive launch?
As Christian von Koenigsegg put it, “Our software engineers have been tweaking and adjusting the Light Speed Transmission & Engine Management system and have introduced a new torque control system which manages the grip of the Absolut like never before.” Indeed, having amazing hardware is one thing, but making it all work together perfectly is another kettle of fish altogether, one that’s laborious and time-consuming but well worth the effort. While tweaks to the engine and transmission calibration make plenty of sense, it’s worth noting the role that torque management plays here.
Obviously, asking two road-spec tires to handle 1,600 E85-fed horsepower in a reasonably low gear is a big request, and without anything limiting torque output, you’d simply generate a cloud of tire smoke that Greenpeace could see from Amsterdam instead of accelerating quickly. Torque management is a huge part of the secret sauce that lets road cars get off the line quickly, constantly limiting engine output in low gears to get the most out of the available traction. Koenigsegg seems to have cracked the formula, helping to shave 2.5 seconds off its previous zero-to-400 km/h-to-zero time in the process.
Best of all, because this so-called Absolut Overdrive update doesn’t require any hardware changes, it’s being rolled out to every Jesko Absolut, including those already in customer hands. So, hats off to the team in Ängelholm for diligently tinkering with lines of code. All that hard work has certainly paid off.
Top graphic image: Koenigsegg; depositphotos.com
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Great post, thanks Thomas. Torque management is also the secret sauce (though not really secret) in every NHRA drag race.
Maybe the driver got a small taste of what an UAP pilot must feel. Ar Ar.
I’m not all that surprised about a RWD car taking this – the 0-100 stint is the one most affected by the number of driven wheels, and at this level of power and tire grip, there’s enough rearward weight transfer that the weight savings (especially at the nose) of RWD probably come close to nullifying the disadvantage of traction. There’s a reason NHRA top-fuel is RWD, and while these cars aren’t running drag marshmallows, they’ve still got some pretty serious rubber.
Once over 150kph, traction becomes a rapidly-dwindling concern. Nearing 400, it’s really just a drag and weight formula, and a 2WD transaxle combustion drivetrain is simply lighter.
After that, the RWD car is almost certainly more tail-heavy ( Koenigsegg doesn’t disclose weight distribution, but the Nevera’s is 48-52, more nose-heavy than a Ferrari F12, and I doubt Koenigsegg is ignorant to the advantages of a rearward bias), the front tires aren’t as hot from acceleration since they’re not driven and that leaves more grip available for braking on both axles, more weight out back and fresher tires up front. This is why Formula 1 cars are RWD, and how Porsche 911’s out-brake their competitors on track.
I would expect the Nevera’s front tires to be a few degrees hotter than the rears at the end of this test, but the Jesko is probably fairly close to an even temperature all the way around.
All that said, the Nevera seems to be a civilized street car that I could drive to the shops, while the Jesko is a specialized weapon I wouldn’t trust to anyone but an actual racing driver.
This is what OTA updates should be about. Something meaningful instead of another “here’s a patch to fix the OTA security flaw” update.
Not sure if this is an OTA update. Theory still holds.
I usually don’t care for hypercars any more, but Christian von Koenigsegg and his team’s mad genius is something to watch
Let’s not forget ol’ Mate Rimac, who took his German engineering education back to Croatia to achieve a lot of the same stuff. I’m a sucker for underdogs, I guess — and they both are that, to a certain degree. But Sweden already has an established worldwide critical mass of car production, so they have a leg up on talent and funding.
What Mate Rimac did is truly impressive, but the cars leave me cold somehow.
Maybe blame a very impressionable young me playing a game called Midtown Madness 3, but Koenigsegg always had that aura of Ultimate
Koenigsegg is really the only hypercar I can bring myself to care about, cause they just out engineer everyone else and I have to respect it.
Of course this type of car is so far from my reality that it is in the realm of space travel. Still, there have always been records no matter how far they depart from daily reality.
The Land Speed Record and the like are interesting to observe but also not suitable to compare to my trusty Smart ForTwo for example.
Just the same I am glad that there are people obsessed enough to set these records.
Meh.
My thoughts exactly.
Yeah, I have absolutely no interest in all these speed records, supercars, etc. I’d rather have a field full of cars from Shitbox Showdown
Along with ‘ring times, I can think of few records that are less relevant to 99.999875% of car owners. This car costs twenty-five times what my home cost, and the car doesn’t even have a flushing toilet.
Seems like a pretty effective way to flush money, though.
Lol!
Seems like a strange record to go for, since there only a handful cars that can even go 248mph.
Bugatti invented this particular test in autumn 2017 with a mark of 42 seconds, which got Mr. Koenigsegg’s attention. The ink was barely dry on the Bugatti press release when Koenigsegg thought, “eh, why not?” and took a customer car out on their runway and immediately took five seconds off of Bugatti’s mark.
0-400-0 – Koenigsegg-Registry.net (by yours truly, probably won’t view correctly on mobile, sorry, never solved that.)
I’ve been out of the know for a while so take this for what it’s worth: But I might point out that back in 2017 they followed their new 0-400-0 with an absolute production car speed record a few months later. It’s internet rumor that Mr. Koenigsegg has asked Michelin about 330mph capable tires.
Im currently trying to set this record in my hybrid camry. Its been 3 weeks and many tanks of gas but i will keep you updated.
I think for a Camry to complete this test you’d have to drop it off a tall cliff. The 248 to 0 portion of the test would be completed in record time. 😉
I was looking at the numbers for this:
The 0-400 time was only 16.77 seconds, the rest was braking. So the Camry would certainly have an advantage on that side of it.
But at 1 g the Camry would need 11.3 seconds to get to 400kph and that’s with no drag. Idk what the terminal velocity of a Camry is and I don’t care to dig that up right now, but I think those numbers show how fast this car is.
I did wonder if terminal velocity was even high enough, but it seems unlikely Toyota publishes that number. 🙂
I think car and driver used to test terminal velocity of new cars but they phased that out sadly.