is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
When I first heard that a vacuum company had released a rocket-powered electric vehicle with physically impossible-sounding performance specs, I immediately thought James Dyson was up to his old tricks again.
Fortunately, I was wrong. This time the household appliance company trying its hand at super car design is Dreame (pronounced like “dreamy”), a little-known Chinese firm that has grand ambitions to become a global consumer electronics giant. The company held an expo of sorts in San Francisco this week that resulted in a flurry of product announcements. And because we live in an attention economy, and one of the best ways to grab people’s attention is to show off a ridiculous looking car, Dreame is doing exactly that. Again.
The first time was last January at CES, when Dreame displayed a four-door concept car with four electric motors capable of putting out 1,399 kW of power (that’s 1,876 horsepower) and accelerating to speeds of 100km/hour in 1.8 seconds. As you can see, we’re already off to an absurd start.
The NEXT 01 JET Edition Car at the Dreame NEXT event during the Silicon Valley Summit at the Palace of Fine Arts on April 29, 2026, in San Francisco, CA. Photo by Kelsey McClellan / The Verge
Not even five months later, Dreame is back with another car — and this time, they really outdid themselves. The company claims that its Nebula NEXT 01 Jet Edition, equipped with a pair of “rocket engines,” can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 0.9 seconds.
Not only is that quicker than anything ever made, it is most likely physically impossible. Modern tires simply do not have the grip to allow for that kind of acceleration. As long as traction remains a real concern, there’s not a car in existence that could achieve this.
Even in an all-wheel drive configuration, modern hypercars are “traction limited.” They may have the horsepower to spin their wheels indefinitely, but the limiting factor is how much force the tires can transfer to the ground before they break loose and starting smoking. To get to 60 mph in under a second, you’d need to exert immense force instantly. Your average tires certainly couldn’t handle this amount of torque without slipping. Drag racers can get close by using sticky rubber and prepping the track. But a normal street car driving on normal pavement would simply burn out.
The Dreame NEXT event during the Silicon Valley Summit at the Palace of Fine Arts on April 29, 2026, in San Francisco, CA. Photo by Kelsey McClellan / The Verge
... continue reading