Driving Upside Down? Piece of Cake! %

Simple calculations by Fernando Dall’Agnol and his colleagues at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil show that driving upside down is not as complicated as it seems.

While examples such as the “wall of death” rely on centripetal forces acting on vehicles, allowing them to ‘stick’ to a wall at a 90-degree angle, Fernando’s group demonstrated with a toy car that with the right speed and friction, the car could remain inverted at angles even greater than 90 degree, for an indefinite period of time.

For real cars to be able to drive upside down, the team suggested designing tracks in the shape of an inside of a doughnut, using engines that can function in inverted states with ease, and modifying the braking fluid system to ensure a smooth flow when upside down. The latter two suggestions can easily be overlooked for electric vehicles, showing that it might not be long before upside down driving becomes a new normal.