I think more and more enthusiasts will agree that any toxic exhaust fumes spitting car by definition cannot be considered a “supercar” any longer...
But either way... even if you take his definition of a supercar: “Reggiani added that these specifications would be a speed of “more than 300 km/h (186 mph)” and “being able to complete 3 laps on the Nürburgring racetrack”, he will be proven wrong. Can a fully electric super car be fully “on” for 40 miles of continuous repeated acceleration, cornering and braking? I definitely think it can. I actually think the battery may not prove the biggest problem (assuming sufficient cooling). I’m more worried about the brakes overheating given the high weight of the car.
(which makes me wonder - does the Roadster prototype use carbon brakes?)
Note that I’m surprised he doesn’t mention a lap-time target. Given the undoubtedly very high weight of the car, I think achieving “supercar” nürburgring lap-times will prove to remain a challenge for some time.
So much talk about weight and it's more of a myth.
A Lambo Aventador gets up to 1800kg with 740hp or about, a Bugatti Chiron is at 1,996 kg with 1,479 hp,
The Rimac is at 1,950 kg with 1914HP. The Roadster can be 1700-2000kg.
Sure there are some ICE competitors that are much lower weight but only some.
Battery cooling is a big deal, air intakes = drag, fancy cooling=costs, weight and mechanical volume and maybe that could be spent elsewhere so not always the best solution.
And back to weight, how is that bad? All equal weight is bad but nobody designs based on all equal.
Some will claim lower grip but is it? The rubber , the material itself (not the tire) is designed for a certain amount of friction at a certain amount of pressure or call it compression rate or w/e. So weight per unit of area. If you have more weight, the simple solution is a wider tire - same everything else- so you end up with same weight per area. Ofc they are gonna tune more than just that. There are upsides and downsides to that ofc but weight is not something you can't deal with.
Battery is gonna provide a lower center of gravity height and you can go even further with a big wheelbase and track. That gives you much lower load transfer and that's great. Great for how the suspension is designed and wheel alignment, great for tires, great for the brakes, great for oversteer/understeer management. With a longer wheelbase you might even get more downforce from the diffuser. If you have AWD, low load transfer is a plus too as you can take better advantage of all the available power.
Rolling resistance is very little considering the torque and power available, the main enemies are drag and traction.
If you have abundant power, weight is less of a constraint, not a huge deal if you optimize more for handling and grip.
They can't beat an F1 car without a lot more downforce and similar tires but there is no reason not to beat direct competitors, assuming the Roadster can sustain perf.
And at Nürburgring the electric NIO EP9 has the second fastest time behind a hybrid McLaren P1. But the EP9 was underpowered, it lost time on the straight, too much drag and downforce. Had 1300+HP and a lot of downforce but only 313 km/h top speed and 2.7s for 0 to 60.