BEYOND HYBRIDS

The trouble with hybrids tends to be the component we are so fond of championing – the internal combustion engine. So should we ditch that part altogether and go fully electric?

HYBRID POWERTRAINS are a stopgap technology. By and large hybrid cars are less satisfying to drive than full EVs, hindered as they so often are by their limp, laggy engines and meagre electric-only ranges. All too often they don’t match their claimed fuel economy figures in the real world, either, unless you can stop to plug in every 15 kilometres. In fact, it’s not unusual to drive a hybrid car and think, ‘This thing is being let down by its combustion engine, not its electric motors…’

Of course, there are one or two petrolelectric sports cars that marry monstrous engines with some form of electrification to devastating effect – the Porsche 918 Spyder would seem to be the prime example, mating a screaming race-derived V8 to a plug-in hybrid unit – but that’s little comfort to those of us who don’t earn a footballer’s pay packet.

BMW’s i8 demonstrates the frustration better than most. Its three-cylinder, 228bhp combustion engine is unresponsive and unsatisfying to wring out. Its soundtrack is so dismal BMW actually had to fake the exhaust note using the stereo. Like a lazy, disinterested bass player who drags the rest of the band down with him, that charmless engine is what stands between the otherwise brilliant i8 and greatness. With the weight of the engine and the gearbox and the fuel tank and whatever else given over to motors and battery packs, the i8 would surely be better to drive, and perhaps even faster. That said, I have often thought the i8 would be faster and better to drive if its entire drivetrain was replaced by a whacking great V8, but that seems unlikely these days.

The Honda NSX isn’t saddled with such a miserly combustion engine as the i8, but even its twin-turbocharged V6 is unremarkable at best and entirely flat on the ear, too. The new Porsche Panamera 4 E-Hybrid, meanwhile, is a particularly guilty offender. Its V6 is coarse, the calibration between the two power units is clumsy at times, and the electric-only range is pretty limited at a claimed 25-50 kilometres.

When you drive a really good EV you simply don’t miss the petrol engine, not even in something fast and exotic. The strange, relentless power delivery and sci-fi soundtrack of an electric performance car are so compelling that you just don’t pine for pistons and spark plugs. And if the EV in question uses a single motor on each wheel, as Rimac Automobili’s Concept One does so effectively, it can pull off moves that few petrol-powered cars could hope to keep step with.

I don’t wish to sound the death knell for the four-stroke performance car. Being a terrible Luddite I would basically prefer it if all highperformance cars did without any form of electrification at all. But if they absolutely must – and these days it seems that they must – let’s be smart about it and get rid of the noisy, oily, smoky, smelly bit altogether. ⌧