Earlier this week, Bugatti unveiled its latest car, the Bugatti Chiron, at Geneva Motor Show. Not only does the car look good, it has some serious horsepower as well — 1,478 horses worth, infact. That is almost 500 horsepower over the older Bugatti Veyron. This means that it can easily break the world record for the fastest production car. It can do 0 to 100km/hr in 2.5 seconds and Bugatti has actually limited its top speed to 420km/hr for road usage. When you're done picking up your jaw off the floor, scroll forward to know how the Chiron achieves these crazy numbers.
Let's take a look at the specifications of this hyper-car.
Engine: 8-litre, W16
Horsepower: 1500 horsepower
0 to 100km/h: 2.5 seconds
Top Speed: 500km/hr+ (estimated, not tested yet)
Max Torque: 1600 Nm (2000 to 6000rpm)
Weight: 1995 kg
Price: €2.4 million (Rs. 17,68,45,780 approximately)
Bugatti's founding member, Ettore Bugatti, once said, "Nothing is too beautiful, nothing is too expensive" and that seems to be the case here as the car uses diamonds in the speaker system and the price tag is €2.4 million (Rs. 17,68,45,780 approximately), excluding taxes.
Engine:
This is the most important part of this car. Bugatti has built the Chiron based on learnings from the Veyron. The 8-litre W16 engine sits behind the two seat cockpit and is turbo-charged by four turbochargers. The engine is almost 25 percent more powerful than the Veyron. To achieve this, Bugatti engineers developed a new two-stage method to control the turbochargers, replacing the old parallel system. So, instead of four cylinders feeding exhaust to a single turbo turbine, eight cylinders fire and feed to turbos in series making it more power efficient. This also means minimum turbo lag and a linear power curve.
Fuel combustion
At top speeds the Chiron’s engine gobbles up 60,000 litres of air every minute. This, in addition to the heat generated by the engine, makes the air less dense, causing combustion instability. To counter this, the car uses 32 duplex fuel injectors, which not only curbs the issue, but maintains combustion efficiency as well.
Gearbox (Transmission)
Bugatti has designed an all new 7-speed dual-clutch gearbox for the Chiron. It is specially designed to handle that massive 1600 Nm torque. Like the Veyron, the transmission sends power to all four wheels and both the rear and front differential get the locking function. This is the only way that massive power can be restrained from shredding those Michelin tyres, which by the way, cost $42,000 (Rs. 2,95,132 approximately) per set.
Exhaust system
The Bugatti Chiron uses a Titanium exhaust that is way lighter than any normal car’s exhaust. Also, it needs to be lighter as it comes with 4 pre-converters and two main catalytic converters, which are almost 6 times larger than the catalytic converters used on normal cars. To put it in perspective, the surface of all six catalytic converters is equivalent to the area of more than 30 soccer fields.
Body
For the Chiron, Bugatti has developed an adaptive chassis to offer performance and driving comfort at the same time. The car uses an extremely rigid carbon fibre monocoque, which has torsional rigidity of 50,000Nm per degree and flexural rigidity of about 0.25 mm per tonne. More rigidity means better stability.
It is comparable to the values of a LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype) racing car.
Aerodynamics
The car uses intelligent aerodynamics to not only cool the engine, but to make it easier for the Chiron to slip through the air around it, while travelling at high speeds. The engineers were able to ensure lower drag by designing the front in such a way that turbulence as a result of rotating wheels can be avoided.
Cooling system
The aerodynamics play a major part in the cooling system of this car; the curvy body channels air to the engine to feed it air as well as dissipate the heat. The clever engineering doesn't end there, the Chiron has 10 radiators, with three dedicated to the engine, pumping 37 litres of water in only 3 seconds. This makes it one of the most sophisticated sports car out there.
Sadly only 500 are being made and the company has already received bookings for a third of them.
However, it was not the only car launched at the motor show, Koenigsegg was at Geneva, with its Regera, which also has 1500 horsepower on tap. The rest of the speed statistics are similar to the Chiron, however, unlike the Chiron, the Regera uses the combined power of four propulsion systems. The main being a 5.0-litre V8 engine, which produces 1,100HP then there is a 160kW electric motor (215HP) and there are a couple of 180kW electric motors on the rear wheels as well.
It doesn't end there — all this is driven without a transmission. Yes, there is no gearbox. Excited? Well, we are.