DREAME, a Chinese maker of upmarket vacuum cleaners, has just shown a rocket-boosted EV called the Nebula Next 01 Jet Edition, which it says can zip from zero to 100km/h in . . . wait for it . . . less than a second.
A report in the respected Road and Track magazine says there’s no timeline for when this car might go on sale, but interestingly, Dreame debuted it in San Francisco, rather than Beijing where the Chinese auto industry recently displayed its best and brightest products at the Beijing Auto Show.
An EV hypercar with a rocket booster system sounds somewhat like Elon Musk’s thought to have a SpaceX rocket package available on its next-gen Tesla Roadster, even though the production Roadster has yet to see the light of day.
Back to Dreame. This car is called the Nebula Next 01 Jet Edition, which begs the question: was there ever a First edition?
Anyway, R&T says it’s probably safe to call it a concept car for now.
Specs are hard to come by, but Dreame says the car is capable of a 0.9-second 0-to-62 mph (100km/h) with the assistance of the “custom-built, dual solid-fuel rocket booster system.”
Dreame also claims the rocket system “responds in 150 milliseconds” and generates a peak thrust of 100 kilonewtons.
As a point of reference, the ThrustSSC, current holder of the land speed record, generates 223 kilonewtons of force, which drove it to 763 mph (1228km/h) in 1997.
There are no top speed claims made yet for the Nebula Next 01 Jet Edition, but the company’s video reveal says it has “SkyTour Intelligent Chassis Architecture 2.0.”
The video zooms in on an exploded view of the suspension, revealing that its rocking air suspension.
Additionally, Dreame says the car will feature steer-by-wire technology.
Dreame’s release goes on to tout a new LiDAR system that’s designed to support “fully unmanned autonomous driving,” which R&T says “seems like one of the last things one might want out of a high-performance hypercar with solid rocket boosters” — but Dreame is adding it to the list of big features to ship.
“That suggests the company has its sights set on sales in America . . . but we’ll believe it when we see it.’
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