Ok, the matter is simple: whichever vehicle you drive, the speedometer lies to you. It shows much higher speed than you're actually going. In reality, we're currently going 2+ times slower than game says we do, assuming speed is displayed in MPH in the game. Which we should, seeing how Panam's ride has specifically "MPH" displayed on its speedometer, which is visible whenever we ride with her, on the right side of the car's interior.
The proof - is simple: in the following video, switch to 720p manually and go fullscreen, then pause at 0:28 mark in the video. Note how timer displayed in the video itself shows some 00:00:25.something at this moment. Then note how the 2nd car (in the middle) goes "188" (presumably mph, or at least kph) as displayed by the game, and very next second it'll be going 189 for the rest of the run. Then note how this car has exactly 1.0 km left to reach white waypoint directly ahead. Now, unpause the video and see how it spends 26 seconds to cover this 1 km distance:
And now, pause the video at 0:54 mark. Timer in the video will be 00:00:51:something. So, in terms of youtube video, you see the car spent 54 - 28 = ~26 seconds to go this 1 km distance. Similarly, the timer displayed in the video also confirms it: 51:something - 25.something = ~26 seconds.
What does it mean? Quite simply, it means the car is not going 189 mph, nor even 189 kph. In reality, it goes merely 3600 (seconds in an hour) / 26 (seconds for 1 kilometer) = ~138 kph!
I have similar results in my game with other vehicles as well. Please feel free to verify this, if you want, but i'm plenty sure this is how it is with all cars and bikes available.
I also checked if maybe distance displayed is bugged - i.e. indicated distance being smaller than it actually is. I found this is not so. To check this, i simply drove to some quest waypoint, parked my Rayburn ~15 meters away from it, then noted where the car stands and slowly moved backwars, directly away from the waypoint, for exactly 3 lengths of the car's body. Ended up ~30 meters away from it, which means it's nearly 5 meters distance as indicated by the game for 1 car body length for rayburn - which seems exactly proper. This proves distance indicated is not broken - rather, speedometer is.
Or is this not a bug? Is this intentional design feature CDPR made to have it "easier" for players to drive around?
This suggestion is somewhat _not_ supported by how fast different vehicles accelerate to "60" as indicated by the game, though. At 1:28 mark in the following video, we can see it takes merely 1.4 seconds for a Rayburn to get to 60, and 1.6 seconds for a GTS to do it:
Those are extremely unrealistic (too quick) values for a street legal car. For comparison, 1000+ hp Bugatti in real world does it in ~2.4 seconds.
Still, be it bug or feature, it's quite sad to realize that fastest we can go - which is some 212 "indicated speed" - is actually rather humiliatingly slow 212 / 189 x 138 = ~155 kilometers per hour. IRL even some 30-years-old VW Golf will easily go faster than that 1660 hp hupercar Rayburn pretends to be in the game.
P.S. If it's a "feature", then i guess we have one solid mod idea here: fix this shit and make the cars go 2+ times faster, while keeping indicated speed the same, so that indicated speed actually becomes real mph. It'd be 212 x 1.6 / 155 = 2.18 times faster, to have indicated speed to become real mph, to be more precise.
The proof - is simple: in the following video, switch to 720p manually and go fullscreen, then pause at 0:28 mark in the video. Note how timer displayed in the video itself shows some 00:00:25.something at this moment. Then note how the 2nd car (in the middle) goes "188" (presumably mph, or at least kph) as displayed by the game, and very next second it'll be going 189 for the rest of the run. Then note how this car has exactly 1.0 km left to reach white waypoint directly ahead. Now, unpause the video and see how it spends 26 seconds to cover this 1 km distance:
And now, pause the video at 0:54 mark. Timer in the video will be 00:00:51:something. So, in terms of youtube video, you see the car spent 54 - 28 = ~26 seconds to go this 1 km distance. Similarly, the timer displayed in the video also confirms it: 51:something - 25.something = ~26 seconds.
What does it mean? Quite simply, it means the car is not going 189 mph, nor even 189 kph. In reality, it goes merely 3600 (seconds in an hour) / 26 (seconds for 1 kilometer) = ~138 kph!
I have similar results in my game with other vehicles as well. Please feel free to verify this, if you want, but i'm plenty sure this is how it is with all cars and bikes available.
I also checked if maybe distance displayed is bugged - i.e. indicated distance being smaller than it actually is. I found this is not so. To check this, i simply drove to some quest waypoint, parked my Rayburn ~15 meters away from it, then noted where the car stands and slowly moved backwars, directly away from the waypoint, for exactly 3 lengths of the car's body. Ended up ~30 meters away from it, which means it's nearly 5 meters distance as indicated by the game for 1 car body length for rayburn - which seems exactly proper. This proves distance indicated is not broken - rather, speedometer is.
Or is this not a bug? Is this intentional design feature CDPR made to have it "easier" for players to drive around?
This suggestion is somewhat _not_ supported by how fast different vehicles accelerate to "60" as indicated by the game, though. At 1:28 mark in the following video, we can see it takes merely 1.4 seconds for a Rayburn to get to 60, and 1.6 seconds for a GTS to do it:
Those are extremely unrealistic (too quick) values for a street legal car. For comparison, 1000+ hp Bugatti in real world does it in ~2.4 seconds.
Still, be it bug or feature, it's quite sad to realize that fastest we can go - which is some 212 "indicated speed" - is actually rather humiliatingly slow 212 / 189 x 138 = ~155 kilometers per hour. IRL even some 30-years-old VW Golf will easily go faster than that 1660 hp hupercar Rayburn pretends to be in the game.
P.S. If it's a "feature", then i guess we have one solid mod idea here: fix this shit and make the cars go 2+ times faster, while keeping indicated speed the same, so that indicated speed actually becomes real mph. It'd be 212 x 1.6 / 155 = 2.18 times faster, to have indicated speed to become real mph, to be more precise.