Really?? The instant torque, one pedal driving, constant acceleration from 60-100+ mph, quiet performance, etc? What happened to your Tesla? I’ve been driving Tesla’s since 2013 because they are the most fun to drive.
I know it's not gonna be a popular opinion on here, but it's just how I feel. The first EV I drove was an e-Golf, and I was surprised how well it drove for a practical car. EVs instantly made perfect sense for basic transportation (even if the range on that particular first gen e-Golf was pretty low).
I then Turo'd a P100D with my cousin for a trip down in Florida, thinking that it was gonna be as great for a fun EV car as that e-Golf was for a standard car. But after a weekend driving it, I was actually confused when I didn't find it that enjoyable to drive. Was it as fast or faster than anything I've ever driven (this was before the Plaid)? Absolutely. Could my cousin and I take turns trying to snap eachother's heads off with instant and surprise acceleration? To my neck's dismay, yes. Was it basically my idea of the perfect car? Yes: it was silent (not a big fan of noisy cars), had no gears it needed to waste time shifting between, had no clutch to engage, every launch and acceleration run was perfect, and it had perfect traction. And it turns out that a lot of that made it less enjoyable to drive (I was reminded of the phrase "never meet your heroes").
I spent the entire plane ride home trying to figure out why I had more fun with my old gutless ICE car than the P100D. While the instant acceleration was there, that was the only thing I found fun (and more painful than fun...and I can't always be flooring the pedal, so the fun times are few and far between.) The best I could come up with were these thoughts:
- The partial throttle tends to be very sluggish, despite the huge power these things make--it's not near as fun as a light car or an overpowered one that keeps "jumping at the bit" when you give just a little push on the throttle. I understand why they wouldn't tune an EV that way (so as to keep the range as high as possible), but you use partial throttle in driving a lot more than full throttle, so this really has an effect when a car with 600+ HP feels like a 150+ car that's reluctant to move when you give her a little pedal. This also brought up another issue with EVs: you can't really tune anything on them. Normally you could tune a car to change/improve its performance and behavior to what you want. However, since a lot of the power and performance is locked away behind software on EVs, the tuning is going to be that much more protected and encrypted and unmodifiable, which was kinda a bummer to me.
- Repeated acceleration really dropped off--After a few acceleration runs, the car really felt slower and slower and less fun. I thought that maybe I had just quickly gotten used to the acceleration fast, but I later found out that the car just really lost acceleration in repeated runs (I believe one of the car magazines saw a P100D drop down to 7+ second 0-60 runs after a few acceleration runs). I think they fixed the cooling in the Plaid and haven't experienced this since.
- Acceleration after the initial thrust is...kinda boring--While the initial thrust from flooring the pedal really throws you in your seat, the acceleration after that is not that exciting. Does the speedometer go up faster than pretty much anything else? Yeah. But all you really do is just watch the speedometer. The torque curves of EVs are pretty much always decreasing, which is what the human body notices. Compared to the old combustion engines, which tend to increase in torque until you get to redline, then you shift, get another thrust, and get to go through another range of increasing torque and acceleration again several times. Plus you get the sound (which I agree can be overrated, but it still adds to the experience), and often the possible additional 'jerk' from turbos or cams. Is it as fast or anywhere near efficient as these EVs? Not at all--the rough edges really are something that the human body learns to enjoy, and when they're missing, so is some of that joy.
- Turning and cornering and just feeling heavy in general--I mean, most of them are 4000+ lb cars. The battery is at the bottom of the car, but that only really helps it when compared against other 4000+ cars. What's better than a 4000lb car with 3000lbs at the bottom? A 3000lb car. Or 2000lb car.
Driving a light car is really something else, and I don't think we'll see that for a while with EVs, unfortunately.- Just feeling at one with the car--Sounds completely cliche, I know. But three-pedal driving seems a lot more fun than one-pedal driving to me. And having a car that feels like it needs you to drive it, responds to your slightest wheel adjustments, lets you know how fast you're going by simple feel and sound, and wraps around you still seems more exciting than a car that will drive itself and doesn't know or care if you are there, which is how I feel with the EVs I've driven. They're great for cars that get you from A to B, and even for luxury cars, and especially for flexing (all reasons I got the Model S
), but that was after I came to accepting it's not the gonna be the most exciting car I'm going to ever drive.People keep saying that their new EVs are the most fun car they've ever driven and get confused when I suggest otherwise with my experiences....They ask me the old question "but have you ever driven an EV"...and I find myself asking them if they've ever "driven a fun car".
I mean, compared to an average Camry, late-model BMW, or even maybe some of the new/automated exotics, the average EV is probably going to be a lot more fun. But I haven't driven an EV that comes close to an engaging and fun experience of some of the fun, small, powerful ICE cars I've driven. Atom, X-Bow, Mono, Super 7, Murtaya, AC Cobra, or even an old WRX are still--for me--in as much a different league for fun cars as EVs are in a different league for practical regular cars compared to ICE cars in my opinion. (pause for flaming).The Plaid reminds me that fast does not necessarily mean fun. In fact, I think the fastest cars and the most fun cars have diverged over the last few decades: In order to get the fastest cars, you need computers to control everything. However, the more the computers control, the less fun a car is because you don't get to interact and drive as much. It's probably also why I don't really like using autopilot.
I know, I know: I'm some cranky old guy who "likes the good old days", "likes the analog records better than these new fangled CD things", and can't get with the new stuff. I remember getting upset reading old car magazine comparisons where they awarded the winning spot to a car that didn't get the highest numbers, but was "just the most fun to drive". I always thought they were getting kickbacks from that car's maker (and maybe often times they were...). But now I do realize how numbers and being the fastest thing out there isn't always the most fun.....but hey, I'm trying to still enjoy it with the Plaid. And it's not something I'm gonna be able to change anybody's mind on (since it's a feel and experience thing)--So I'm just hoping to try and explain myself. And probably get flamed to high-h#ll on here.
Or maybe my Plaid is broken after all?
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