Just musing about the end of "a fast car."

Electric cars and hybrids, whatever your take on them, are undeniably fast. 

So, when soccer mom's SUV (looking at you, Mach-1) can toast your "fast car" (like my C7), or Junior borrowing the Tesla pickup to take to the prom, and local rich boy with his fancy 800hp Shelby (next years model!) gets smoked by Junior - what is the next frontier?

I am not predicting "the end of gasoline cars" or whatever. It's just that you're going to need a stout pro-street rig or something to even have a chance. The way I see it is whatever you are driving (ala GRM standards) is just cooler. You wanna blow my doors off? Fine, I'm so cool I don't need that. But...

Or we can start scavenging AWD setups and learn about increasing battery discharge rates and tweaking software. We've learned about engines, now lets get into the electric age and do the same old thing, just with new technology! I think it's awesome!

Well, going fast has always been pay to play. New cars are faster than old cars has been true in all but one decade so far. So in any given era the kid driving around his daddy's money is going to be faster than the poor kids (or adults..). It will always be more about money than it is about tech. There will still be people out there doing more with less, and we'll all feel like we relate to that even after we grow up and buy our kids new cars with 450 electric hp.

High-lift cams, blower whine, BOV's, Flowmaster, Borla. You may beat me off the line and to the end of the track but you won't sound as bad ass and that's good enough for me. 
 

I think this new technology is amazing but I'm always disappointed hearing "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzssssssssssssssssss" during the burnout.

In what realm are EV's beating ICE sportcars on the track? Who cares about 0-60. This is grassroots motorsports, and I'd assume most people here are less concerned about straight line street pulls and more concerned about trackwork. 

I've driven every single EV for sale currently in the US, and many more pre-production EV's. The story is the same... Impressive power from 0 mph, but after 60 you can feel it running out of steam. No ICE noises, no drama, nothing. I'll take an EV for dd commute, as long as I can have my ICE cars for the track. 

In reply to goingnowherefast :

To play devil's advocate a little bit, didn't the Model 3 Performance beat an M3 on track? 

Loved trying to explain to the Shelby Mustang guys why the 4-door GLHS was faster than their cars.

They didn't get it until they got their butts handed to them on the track.

Technology advances and there's not much you can do about it, except learn to enjoy your chosen vehicle for what it is and what it can do.

NoPermitNeeded said:

In reply to goingnowherefast :

To play devil's advocate a little bit, didn't the Model 3 Performance beat an M3 on track? 

Over the course of a lap,sure. But can I easily do 5-6 full sessions over the course of the day? Can I refill the "tank" in a matter 1-2 minutes with the on-site gas pump or from the jugs I brought with me?

1.6 Miatas are way more fun than 99% of the vehicles faster than it.

Numbers don't make the experience.

z31maniac said:

NoPermitNeeded said:

In reply to goingnowherefast :

To play devil's advocate a little bit, didn't the Model 3 Performance beat an M3 on track? 

Over the course of a lap,sure. But can I easily do 5-6 full sessions over the course of the day? Can I refill the "tank" in a matter 1-2 minutes with the on-site gas pump or from the jugs I brought with me?

To be completely fair, most new vehicles regardless of powerplant or fuel type aren't going to handle track sessions well. Heck, C7 ZO6s  went into limp mode after heat soaking in a couple of laps and that's a car that's targeted at hardcore performance guys and gals.

I think you need to look less at the premium end of electric cars and more at the pedestrian end to see what the roads will look like in 20 years. The Leaf, Bolt, Kia Niro EV and so on. None are especially fast, but they're plenty for the average driver.

Look at gas engine cars for example. Lots of Civics, Corollas and the like on the road, not so many Merc E63's, BMW 550's and such. Premium has always been associated with power and in EV's, it still is.

STM317 said:

z31maniac said:

NoPermitNeeded said:

In reply to goingnowherefast :

To play devil's advocate a little bit, didn't the Model 3 Performance beat an M3 on track? 

Over the course of a lap,sure. But can I easily do 5-6 full sessions over the course of the day? Can I refill the "tank" in a matter 1-2 minutes with the on-site gas pump or from the jugs I brought with me?

To be completely fair, most new vehicles regardless of powerplant or fuel type aren't going to handle track sessions well. Heck, C7 ZO6s  went into limp mode after heat soaking in a couple of laps and that's a car that's targeted at hardcore performance guys and gals.

I understand the overheating issue, but that can be solved. 

There is no solution for when the battery pack is dead at the track...........unless that track happens to have a supercharger on the premises.

To diverge a little, I think that moving forward horsepower will be less interesting than feel or experience, at least on the enthusiast front. When all manufacturers will be making some kind of EV that does 0-60 in 3s, then the differentiation will be on how organically communicative the vehicle is on the street/track and boast suspension prowess. I mean, sure, commuter cares will always be commuter cars and may not be that fast or precise, but that's always been the case regardless of the flavor of tech.

In reply to z31maniac :

Even a supercharger can take hours. But the ev-phile answer is swappable battery packs... which are still (commercially) vaporware. 

But this is all beating around the bush. EV is not (yet) 'better'. The elephant in the room is physics. Namely, energy density. IIRC, Gasoline currently stores almost 10x energy per lb. For energy storage, electric has a long way to go for parity with hydrocarbons. 

EV's advantages, low rpm torque, larger operating rpm range, packaging flexability, and tailpipe emissions (overall emissions are mostly from manufacture and brake/tire debris, evs do not change that appreciably for the better, but thats yet another argument) are a big deal. 

I want to build an ev, have since I was a kid. But its still not very grassroots friendly (yet!), particularly if you want to go fast. A time will come when truck ev drivetrains are cheap to throw into old hatchbacks. I fear it is still a decade or more before it becomes cost-competitve with ICE for high-energy-expenditure activities (road racing, road trips, heavy towing, endurance). In the meantime I look forward to all the tricks and hacks that will make a used leaf a dragstrip and commute monster. 

I think the locomotive model might be relevant for cars again. ICE engine, ev propulsion. Plug-in for commutes, ice for when you want spirited, or long distance drives. Seems a good trade-off, despite complexity. Id imagine the generator units could be swapped easily for more battery, storage, etc. 

For me, the weight kills the fun. For all the power, I can't seem to use it in the mountains. I like a CRX, a Miata, something that feels alive. All the evs I have driven in feel like an S-class with crappy interiors. Big, stable, powerful, but lacking the feel, articulation, and spirit that brings me automotive joy. Admittedly, I am a dying breed. 

To each their own. Someone has to buy them now for us to hotrod later after all... 

This is an extremely interesting discussion. A Honda Minivan, back in the early 2000's, pretty handily can beat a 1960's supercar. GRM proved this. But I think we're coming close (or are already past the point) of useable performance for 99% of drivers, including those on this  board. On the street, it just doesn't matter - we have speed limits and such, the fastest that I'll go on the highway is about 90 in extremely rare cases and 75-80 otherwise. On the autocross or road course, frankly I don't think I have the reaction speed to handle these extreme EV's. At least on the real estate afforded to us. If we could have gigantic road courses, it wouldn't be an issue, but I just don't see it. 

My own opinion, I'm not a road racer and barely an autocrosser anymore so it doesn't really matter to me. Just some observations I'm making without any data. 

I'm with you.

I drove a rowdy Camaro that I built with a friend in high school, and it was a high 12 second 1/4 mile car. It was amazing, because in a sea of 80-110 hp Tauruses and Monte Carlos, it was a very different car.

Today, it would be a good bit slower than a lot of new cars. And it was rowdy, which could be annoying.

I'm not sure what this means. It costs a lot more to build a high nine second car and drive it every day, even now. Plus, I'm old. I just want to get in and drive.

Years ago I saw a guy leaving a drive through with a Dodge muscle car with a tunnel ram sticking through the hood. It looked and sounded amazing. Of course, it was probably slower than a lot of street driven cars, and it probably went through valvesprings more often than a model S needs a full battery charge.

My mini van has a 300hp v6. And it's not a special model or anything. The era of "a fast car" is kind of already over, from a practical standpoint. Everything is so fast.

Sorry, but the future isn't that way. It's eventuality is electric cars>self driving cars>children that no longer have interest in driving. 
we are the last. 

Going fast on the street is all about how stupid you want to be, and that's been the case for a long time. Worrying about how fast the cars around you are has always been a losing game.

I drove to work today in a 1985 CRX Si, ran errands on the weekend in a stock 1.6 Miata, worked on the classic Mini (old gas and SUs, sigh) and have both very shouty V8s as well as less shouty V8s in my garage. And a good EV is still interesting to drive and can emulate an M5 pretty well. In fact, it makes all that noise and drama feel a little unnecessary at times. Like, why are you making such a big deal about this?

We haven't seen the EV version of a Miata yet, partly due to the small market for inexpensive impractical toy cars and partly due to the current cost of the hardware. But one will eventually happen, and I'll bet it'll be pretty darn entertaining with that low CoG and intelligent torque vectoring. It won't make ICE noises and it won't drive like an ICE, but an ND Miata makes very different noises and feels different than an NA Miata which is different than a Midget and we enjoy all of those.

The track scenario is still one where the ICE will rule for a while. Not forever - install some fast chargers at the track (like the gasoline pumps that are at most but not all) and charging between sessions becomes plausible. If you're going for the experience instead of sheer speed, then use your EV truck to tow a Miata to the track and enjoy that. I already do that with a diesel truck that's a great workhorse but not exactly a bundle of driving joy.

As for an onboard ICE as generator - I want microturbine generators. It won't sound anything like an ICE, but ICE as generator won't sound like a current sports car either.

Nugi said:

I think the locomotive model might be relevant for cars again. ICE engine, ev propulsion. Plug-in for commutes, ice for when you want spirited, or long distance drives. Seems a good trade-off, despite complexity. Id imagine the generator units could be swapped easily for more battery, storage, etc. 

Everyone I've spoken with who owns/owned a Chevy Volt loved it.

What is fast these days, any ways? Accords and Camrys are knocking sub 6 second 0-60s and I see a Mustang/Camaro on the road multiple times throughout the day.

What was fast in the 80s/90s/00s is  either average or slow these days. We're seeing cars go 7 seconds in the 1/4 and people being able to DD cars that have 500+hp like it's nothing.

Keith Tanner said:

Going fast on the street is all about how stupid you want to be,

One-hundred percent this. 

I'm glad that the performance envelope of every day cars has largely equalized at a fairly high level. The days of having to stand on the gas pedal the minute to hit the top of the highway entrance ramp in order to have a hope of merging at the mandated 55 MPH are long gone. 

Brett_Murphy said: I'm glad that the performance envelope of every day cars has largely equalized at a fairly high level. The days of having to stand on the gas pedal the minute to hit the top of the highway entrance ramp in order to have a hope of merging at the mandated 55 MPH are long gone. 

Now it's just "get to the end of the ramp, stand on it and merge 2 lanes at once into a gap in traffic because the moron in front of you didn't bother to accelerate on the ramp and tried to merge at 40 into 70 mph traffic"

rslifkin said:

Now it's just "get to the end of the ramp, stand on it and merge 2 lanes at once into a gap in traffic because the moron in front of you didn't bother to accelerate on the ramp and tried to merge at 40 into 70 mph traffic"

Ah, but you CAN do that. It's a great time to be alive.

Brett_Murphy said:

Keith Tanner said:

Going fast on the street is all about how stupid you want to be,

One-hundred percent this. 

I'm glad that the performance envelope of every day cars has largely equalized at a fairly high level. The days of having to stand on the gas pedal the minute to hit the top of the highway entrance ramp in order to have a hope of merging at the mandated 55 MPH are long gone. 

That was me as late as 2014.  And it took three upshifts to get to 60, too.

It amuses me when people claim to want manual transmissions so they can shift for themselves, and then lust over engines that require a minimum of shifting 

As Keith said, going fast on the street is all about how stupid you want to be, and the great equalizer right now is incredibly stupid high-speed roll racing. A Tesla Model 3 Performance takes about 7 seconds to go from 100 MPH to 120 MPH. A W220 S600 Biturbo takes about 5 seconds to do the same. Just a reminder that quick =/= fast.