- Joined
- Mar 7, 2020
- Messages
- 6,064
- Reaction score
- 8,434
- Location
- Naples, FL
- Cars
- Model S Plaid, Odyssey
- DE Number
- 154
- Referral Code
- 033M4EXG
Sorry, but I disagree with your statement. The heavier the car the more HP is required to maintain speed.
Horsepower affects the time it takes to gain speed and the ultimate speed that can be attained. However, you asserted that the weight of the car affects top speed, arguing in your original post that a lighter battery pack was part of attaining 235 mph. I responded with, "weight has more to do with acceleration rate than with top speed."
You need to read this:

Weight has no effect on your car's top speed! | Know it All with Jason Cammisa | Ep. 09
Adding extra weight to your car will slow acceleration, but won’t reduce its top speed. In determining a car’s top speed, its engine battles two main forces: rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. At very high speeds, air resistance makes up the vast majority of the overall drag on your car...

It opens with:
"Adding extra weight to your car will slow acceleration, but won’t reduce its top speed. In determining a car’s top speed, its engine battles two main forces: rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag.
At very high speeds, air resistance makes up the vast majority of the overall drag on your car. So much so that an increase in rolling resistance from extra weight is likely negligible."
Getting to 235 mph requires a LOT of horsepower. More weight will mean it takes longer to get there, but weight has virtually nothing to do with maintaining that speed once there.
Also, you're ignoring the fact that the greater current capacity of a larger battery pack is a necessary element to attaining the horsepower required to overcome aerodynamic drag at very high speeds. There is simply no way that Lucid would have used its smaller battery pack in testing the car's ultimate speed capability. Any negligible advantage of lower weight at top speed would have been swamped by the significant reduction in power from the smaller pack.