6 Reasons Why Petrolheads Should Love Electric Cars
Is it wrong for me to take pleasure in watching some “car enthusiasts” go completely mental over the advancement of technology in the auto industry? I mean, we now officially have cars that drive themselves. That shouldn’t be something for petrolheads to complain about. It just means we’re one step closer to having our own freaking Knight Rider! Seriously, I’m just counting the days until I can buy a car that drives itself and talks back to me with a sassy attitude.
Of course, doing that means prolific computer control throughout the car, and that’s another hot button for enthusiasts. Drivers want to drive, they don’t want a computer doing the work for them. Whatever. You think F-16 or Eurofighter pilots care that their jets can’t fly without computer control? And don’t get me started on the whole flappy paddle gearbox thing. I love the good old manual lever to swap cogs as much as anyone, but people railing on Ferrari for dropping the stick in favor of paddle shifters haven’t driven a paddle-shift Ferrari. There will always be the older models to give you that hands-on experience while the new cars redefine high performance, so don’t get all cranked over the advent of technology.
What does any of this have to do with electric cars? Simple - they’re another link in the chain of automotive evolution that enthusiasts generally don’t want to accept. Never mind that electric cars have been around since before the first petrol-powered cars, technology is finally progressing to the point where they make sense. By that I mean they have all the features and amenities we look for in a car, with good performance and acceptable range. And Tesla is showing the world they can literally be ludicrous when it comes to serious speed and acceleration.
And folks, it’s only going to get better from here. So for the purists out there who’ll have their petrol engines and manual gearboxes pried from their cold, dead hands, here are six reasons why you needn’t die for the cause.
Remember the article I shared with everyone a few weeks ago about torque? Electric motors don’t need to achieve certain revs to create gobs of power. It hits as soon as you press the go pedal, and in case you haven’t yet seen Tesla’s P90D sprint from 0-60mph in the same time as million-dollar hypercars, that’s a very good thing for performance. And electric motors are far more efficient with the power they produce - specifically 90 per cent efficient as opposed to an average of around 35 per cent for petrol engines.
2. Consistent horsepower everywhere you go
This is a huge deal for anyone living in or near mountains, because petrol engines lose performance at higher altitudes due to thinner air. Taking a spin on the twisty mountain roads near my home in western South Dakota generally means I give up as much as 15 percent of my Mazda’s 220bhp, and it sucks. Temperature also plays a role in horsepower, which is why petrolheads spend their hard-earned money on cold air induction kits or upgraded intercoolers for boosted systems. Electric motors are completely unaffected by such issues, though cold weather does affect battery life. Then again, race cars aren’t exactly known for their stellar fuel economy either.
3. No more petrol stops
Speaking of fuel economy, is there anyone who actually likes to dump liquid money into their cars on a daily basis? Spending money to make your car go faster is fun. Spending money to just make it go is rage inducing. Yes, recharge times can be hours rather than minutes to refuel, but hey, this is all still a work in progress. There are already companies testing new battery technologies to triple and quadruple their capacities, and as both batteries and recharge times improve, I think most people will forget about petrol power pretty quickly.
4. Low maintenance powertrains
I could type a fabulously detailed paragraph about how a petrol engine works, but I think most people get the point. Very many moving parts versus very few, and oh yeah, no more oil changes. No more radiator leaks. No more transmission flushes. No more complicated timing belt replacements. No more oxygen sensors, or EGR valves, or valve adjustments. I’m not saying electric cars are trouble free, but there’s certainly much less to go wrong.
How can this be a plus? Enthusiasts crave feedback from the car. They want to feel what the engine is doing, the tyres, the suspension, and how it’s all interfacing with the road. What if I told you that a smooth engine would actually give you more feedback? Just ask anyone who’s driven a proper race car how that big lumpy engine feels when it’s bolted directly to the frame. Eliminate that vibration and noise, and you can concentrate on the actual act of driving. And for those who love cars that just keep pulling, trust me when I say you’ll love going all electric.
6. Electric cars won’t kill petrol cars
Even if you disagree with every single point on this list, here’s one to make you happy. Petrol powered cars aren’t going away any time soon, so don’t worry. Here’s a completely true story: Car Throttle’s ancestor publication Bike Pedal received a strongly worded letter-to-the-editor in 1904, condemning the “atrocious driverless carriages” as terrible inventions compared to bicycles because they took the manpower out of the machine. And yet here we are in 2015 where bicycles are better than ever.
I think that’s what electric cars can do for their petrol counterparts. There are all kinds of benefits to electric power, and as the technology progresses I think we’re going to be positively amazed and properly entertained by what electric performance machines can do. But they will also improve the petrol performance we all still love, despite their inefficiency, high maintenance and nasty emissions. Any way you cut it, the future for all us CTzens looks pretty damn good.
Comments
Clickbait article is clickbait. Even just point number 3 is completely speculative and doesn’t take into account that Moore’s Law (If you’re not familiar, please look it up. It’s a cornerstone of Elon Musk’s speculations about how to overcome electric car range problems) applies only to transistors, not battery size/capacity (batteries aren’t circuit boards, they’re chemical containers of electric energy). Why do you think smartphones keep getting more and more powerful, yet their batteries have not at all caught up with the battery lives of pre-smartphone models? It’s a simple adaptation to make for hand-held devices that they’ll run out of juice more often than older ones, but not so easy with large vehicles we can’t just put away in our pockets and charge on a desk.
In fact, current speculations regarding Moore’s Law are giving more and more conservative predictions as to how far we can take the ability to stuff more and more computing power into a smaller space. Digitalization cannot overcome mechanical physics and chemistry. Once you realize this, you just know that the mad dash for full electric cars is really a bubble waiting to burst. Short of a miracle discovery, it’s going to end up crashing real bad.
And less things to go wrong with less moving parts? The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (one of my favorite games of all time) has NO moving parts, and yet was pretty much broken throughout its lifespan if you didn’t mod it. The nature of moving parts has nothing to do with reliability. Electric cars may be simple mechanically, but far more complex ELECTRONICALLY (like DUH). What more cars that drive themselves? Knight Rider is science fiction for a reason…
And F16 and Eurofighter pilots not caring about the dependence on electronics? You talk about how we’ve never driven a paddle shift Ferrari, so how about you prove you’ve talked to actual F16 pilots? Or better yet, how about you try and ask the pilots of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501? They crashed because the the over-automated Airbus A320 pretty much shut down because they tried to fix the electronics. Having a grasp over the bare mechanicals of a vehicle’s controls counts for A LOT. It saves lives, not kills them. That human control is inherently dangerous is straight up Silicon Valley propaganda.
So stop with all the morally superior self-righteous polemics about how electronificaiton and EV’s are here to stay and that they’re a force for good. Most of what we know about electric cars are regurgitated from constant hype and speculations made on very shaky grounds, complex systems will always have the potential for unreliability whether electronic or mechanical, and overreliance on automation can kill just as much as the lack of automation. It’s EV cksuckers that need to live with the facts, not us.
Prius or i8 ori3or model s or Nissan leaf?
if the reharge is more faster and less expensive then buying one is first priority for me
I know that I’ll be attacked by some brainwashed Tesla people (almost all the people on CT) . But there are some pretty big problems with EVs. Batteries aren’t reliable and very long lasting yet. It’s very dirty and toxic to create and dispose them. Batteries are very expensive. I could fully rebiuld my motor once in every 80 000km and it would still cheaper than to buy a new battery pack every 300 000km (I doubt that batteries can last that much yet). For the instant and consistant power and torque delivery I’ll say that it is a bad point for me. Not all petrolheads want constant burnouts all the time. Can you imagine what would be like to drive these things on a wet or snowy road with all that torque. Electric cars are better than petrol powered ones only in acceleration to a certain speed, but petrol is better and faster in anything else. And for my last point I should add one small thing. EVs aren’t that “green”. Remember where the electricity comes from.
people jut like to be politically correct thi days , they dont realise that lithium i rare and that the grid just can handle that many car being charged .
To me it’s not about the fact that they are electric, it’s the fact that the manual gearbox is going away and cars won’t sound as good as they did before. Some may argue that it is the looks, but I think they are looking better with time.
More electric cars = more petrol for me 😂
Pedestrians lives just got a whole lot worse
And now 6 reasons why you should not love Electric cars as a petrolhead.
I could give more why they shouldnt
I have three problems with them:
1:No Exhaust noise
2:Range is bad
3:It takes to long to charge.
And as a bonus of sorts, they don’t have many mainstream performance versions, but that can obviously be remedied.
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