[WhatsADSM]

Originally Posted by The Wind Breezes

You size / spec the motor so it does whatever top speed you need while turning reasonable RPM and smokes the tires from go. See the latest Koenigsegg...it has only one speed. There is a combustion engine in addition to the electric because batteries can't store enough energy yet for a car with that much power to have any kind of range whatsoever, and guess what it can do with 1 gear?

SMOKE THE TIRES UP TO PAST 300 KPH....yes, you heard me right.

The intent is to maximize torque to the wheels over the desired range of speed (I.e. 0 to Vmax).

A transmission is almost always part of that equation since something like an ICE engine can't spin fast enough to reach desired top speed and still provide reasonable torque to accelerate at low speed.

Electric motors have a distinct advantage in that they are mechanically much simpler and can spin at much higher speeds. This allows them to achieve a much higher maximum RPM and still hold *some* torque at high rpm (The induction motor in the Tesla has a max speed of 18000 rpm, albeit it's not very efficient up there). This is what makes it possible to at least attempt to run without a transmission. However make no mistake about it, if the Tesla had a transmission it could run much lower motor speeds at high vehicle speeds which as people stated before would unquestionably improve performance (since the motor would be much closer to base speed) and would likely improve reliability slightly as well.

As for the Koni you refer to I'm not sure if that is a parallel, series, or other form of hybrid but the ability to spin it's tires so aggressively may be largely in part due to an engine assistance and surely due to the cost of the car. A supercar can afford to put a very expensive and powerful electric motor in there if they wanted.

[The Wind Breezes]

Originally Posted by WhatsADSM

The intent

You missed my point entirely, Mr. Engineer. We're not talking about Teslas, reasonably priced cars or what's possible with current battery tech. We're talking about what the GOAL should be with the fast electric cars of the future: put in a powerful enough motor, controller and batteries, so that so much torque is available throughout the entire driving profile that you don't need gears. It's a really simple idea, and it's absolutely the future.

Also, I already explained why the K. has an IC engine, it's purely to offset the fact that it would have a 2 mile range driven in anger if they put a 1500HP electric motor with current battery tech.