Launch Control (automotive)
Launch control typically refers to an electronic aid which is used to assist the drivers of various motorsports at the start of a race. By using "Launch control", cars can get a greater acceleration when it starts at the beginning of the race. Thus, cars gain a greater speed which makes them use less time to run farther. Launch control also refers to an electronic setting on many modern sports cars which help the driver accelerate from a standing start, to gain the most effective "launch". Popular automobiles with launch control include the BMW M series, certain marques of the Volkswagen Group with Direct-Shift Gearbox (most notably the Bugatti Veyron), Porsche 911 (sport++ mode), Panamera Turbo, and certain General Motors products. Mitsubishi also incorporated launch control into their Twin Clutch SST gearbox, on its "S-Sport" mode, but the mode is only available in the Evolution X MR and MR Touring (USDM). The Nissan GT-R has electronics to control launch but the company does not use the term "launch control" since some owners have equated the term with turning off the stability control to launch the car, which may void the warranty of the drivetrain. The current version of Nissan GT-R allows user to launch the car by turning the Traction Control to "R" mode.
Read more about Launch Control (automotive): How It Works, Reason For Use, Side Effect, History
Famous quotes containing the words launch and/or control:
“I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is made ... and at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)