Tuesday 4th July 2017

Cars we won't regret going electric: Speed Matters

Ditching internal combustion may be the best thing that ever happened to the Smart - could any other cars benefit?

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What will the Goodwood Festival of Speed be like in 25 years' time? Just as noisy and thick with the smell of tyre smoke and exhaust fumes I'd hope. And populated by our generation, misty-eyed at displays of the machinery of our youth being given a run out. Much as our parents may enjoy visits to volunteer branch lines to relive the glory days of steam or gaze in wonder at Spitfires looping the loop at air shows.

I'd expect there to be rather fewer internal combustion powered cars in the queues for the car parks though. A thought that struck me as I watched a Formula E car whistle past me at the Festival at the weekend. It was fast. But up against the mightiest examples of petrol-powered excess, an electric car was always going to suffer on the excitement stakes. An opinion perhaps not shared by the driver of the Rimac that very nearly 'did a Hammond' in front of the hospitality pavilions. But even that raised little more than a curious shrug from onlookers against the thunder of Jochen Mass power sliding a Mercedes W125 or the sound of the sky being ripped apart by an 8.4-litre McLaren M8F.

Will I be so nostalgic about the car I drive to the event though? Not sure. Accepted wisdom has it that electric cars are interesting. They can be fast - ludicrously so in the case of Tesla. But can they ever be better than their internal combustion equivalents? Does, for instance, the idea of an electric Porsche 911 fill you with hope? Or fear?

A collection of recent experiences have me unexpectedly leaning toward the former. First was driving the Porsche 918 Spyder on the Le Mans Unravelled trip. Before driving it I'd been one of those saying "just imagine what it would be like without all the hybrid gubbins", to which the answer is of course "like a Carrera GT". But, thankfully, that car already exists. Having experienced it on electric power only I actually ended up pondering what it would be like the other way around - as in purely electric powered. OK, you'd miss that epic ka-BOOM! as the V8 fires up and signals your transition from tree-hugging EV to full-blown hypercar. But even with just 286hp of the total 887hp coming from pure electric the 918 is quite amusing in EV mode.

Don't worry, I'm not advocating removing the V8 from your 918 quite yet. But I have driven a car dramatically improved by swapping out the petrol engine for electric power. And that's the Smart ForTwo I drove recently in cabriolet form as an add-on to the E-Class Cabriolet launch the other week.

This to me makes absolute sense, Smart boasting it is the only manufacturer in the world offering electrically powered versions of all the products in its range. Given the weakest links in the Smart package thus far have been the laggy internal combustion engines and the slow-witted transmissions it'd seem to be a no-brainer to go for an electric ForTwo over a petrol one. The more so having driven one. What are you missing? Mainly that feeling of not much happening when you mash the throttle, the sudden spool-up into a power 'band' that lasts for about 500rpm and then another head-noddingly slow upshift, even with the more up-to-date dual-clutch transmission.

All gone. Instead, a perky, instantaneous response to the throttle thanks to 81hp and on-demand 118lb ft of torque. A smooth and punchy power delivery. And - joy - no gearchanges to worry about. Our man in the presentation for the car acknowledged the official 96-mile range is realistically around two-thirds of that for many owners. But for a Smart car that's OK. £16,420 for a coupe (including the OLEV grant) doesn't seem daft either. And with a bit of extra weight under the floor, it even went round corners without feeling like it was going to topple over. I'll admit it, the car was a hoot. And not once did I miss the internal combustion engine.

Which has me thinking. Which other cars stand to be improved by going electric?

Dan

[CDP]

Diesels.

[CDP]

DiscoColin said:

Frankly : everything that spends most of its life in traffic or cities. By definition, viable electric taxis and busses are the holy grail of urban transport.

I've always thought trolley busses with batteries to handle the gaps in the network would be an excellent choice for many cities. Put the wires on the main routes with an automatic system for hooking up the supply when available. All of this would have been possible with 80's tech let alone now. With the research on inductive power supplies under the road it may be possible to do away with all the ugly overhead cables.

[CDP]

loose cannon said:

CDP said:

I've always thought trolley busses with batteries to handle the gaps in the network would be an excellent choice for many cities. Put the wires on the main routes with an automatic system for hooking up the supply when available. All of this would have been possible with 80's tech let alone now. With the research on inductive power supplies under the road it may be possible to do away with all the ugly overhead cables.

The company I work for have been messing around with induction charging for busses and so far it has been a complete failure,
Also who is going to pay for all the road development for induction charging when we currently struggle to fill in pot holes, let alone completely re engineer the road system
It all sounds lovely but it's going to be some time
Before anything drastically changes imo

It wouldn't stop the overhead cable method which is only a minor enhancement of a system that has been run since the 80's. 1882 to be precise...

[CDP]

Just looked it up, they've had trolleybusses with off-wire capacity since the 30's using IC engines and the 1980s in the USA, Canada and China.

So why hasn't it featured in this country?

[CDP]

Defconluke said:

An electric vehicle would be perfect for the sort of drving I regularly do however it's not so much the range that worries me with an electric car but the logistics of being able to charge it at home.

If (like me) you live on a busy street and especially if you do shift work then being able to get parked even remotely close to where you live can be a lottery. You can't run an extenstion lead across a busy road or down the street & round the corner very easily (especially from a 2nd floor flat) and parking spaces are irregularly sized because people drive cars of all shapes and sizes so placing a charging station every so often isn't going to be practical. With a current ICE vehicle I can park wherever there is a space and not have to worry about the logistics of being able to refuel it for a week or longer if needs be regardless of where or when I need to drive somewhere.

Maybe we'll get to a time where you have to own a parking space to own a car?

[CDP]

99dndd said:

Defconluke said:

An electric vehicle would be perfect for the sort of drving I regularly do however it's not so much the range that worries me with an electric car but the logistics of being able to charge it at home.

If (like me) you live on a busy street and especially if you do shift work then being able to get parked even remotely close to where you live can be a lottery. You can't run an extenstion lead across a busy road or down the street & round the corner very easily (especially from a 2nd floor flat) and parking spaces are irregularly sized because people drive cars of all shapes and sizes so placing a charging station every so often isn't going to be practical. With a current ICE vehicle I can park wherever there is a space and not have to worry about the logistics of being able to refuel it for a week or longer if needs be regardless of where or when I need to drive somewhere.

Do you live near a lamppost?



I'd agree with other posters here and say that city/school run cars could all go electric, save the petrol for the weekend cars