Electric Cars
Where are we in the race to turn our vehicles green? jq qiu navigates the maze of EVS
you wouldn’t think of outrunning a bolt of lightning, so it’s amusing that some of the main issues plaguing electric vehicles (and petrolelectric hybrids) include the perception that they are slow and sluggish, and even worse, boring. Let’s put it another way: When you flick a light switch, the light comes on instantly. It’s an “Eureka!” moment when you discover this is no different with an “electrified” vehicle, be it a pure electric (EV) like the BMW i3 or Hyundai Ioniq, or a petrol-electric hybrid like the popular Toyota Prius.
In the spurt-and-stop of city driving, outright horsepower and torque figures are less important than the point in the engine’s rev band at which you have access to them, since this determines how quickly you can get moving quickly. Although the modern turbocharged petrol engine has been tuned to deliver close to 100 percent of the engine’s torque from around 1,500rpm, nothing much happens from your engine’s idling point at just under 1,000rpm till then and it’s this very “gap” that the electric motor is able to, erm, “plug”. The accelerator pedal in pure EVS (and petrolelectric hybrids) works like the light switch in our example above, but instead of light, you get loads of forward propulsion from the moment you put your foot down.
Unlike its fiesty performance, an EV’S low emissions nature, on the other hand, is hard to appreciate — until you’re literally on foot, be it walking out to lunch in the city, or escorting your child to school alongside waiting cars.
Traditional petrol or diesel cars compromise air quality and harm the environment. With “going green” a big thing, the major car manufacturers have indicated their plans for “electrification” as we approach 2020 and catchy terms like “electrified” (hybrids) and “all-electric” are being bandied about. Toyota, for instance (which includes Lexus in the tally), wants to sell 5.5 million electrified cars worldwide by 2030, with more than 10 battery electric models to be sold globally from the early 2020s. Volvo has an even more ambitious timeline and promises that by 2019, every one of its car models will feature some form of electrification, including those from its performance-oriented diffusion brand, Polestar.
Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle to owning an EV or plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle in dense urban cities in Asia, such as Singapore, is the availability of public charging infrastructure. At the moment, it is very much a payto-play scenario, with the audience for pure EVS a niche one that is unlikely to only have the one car at its disposal. For instance, some owners of conventional petrolpowered sports cars maintain a compact EV like the BMW i3 for use on daily errands in the city due to its quirky looks, zippy performance and manoeuvrable, compact proportions, with the sports cars reserved for more special occasions.
Many in the electric car enthusiast and owner circles regard Tesla as the Big Cheese. Even in Singapore where only a handful of self-imported mid-sized Model S sedans can be found on roads — unlike in Hong Kong or Japan where the brand operates stores and service centres — there is plenty of buzz about Tesla and its latest Model 3. The brand’s founder, Elon Musk, attracts the same kind of adulation as Apple did during the Steve Jobs epoch, because, well, he talks up an electrical storm.
Tesla’s strongest selling points are the huge travelling range, as well as a Ludicrous Mode, which in the highest performance Tesla models, delivers super car-beating straight-line performance with little effort, no fuel burnt, no sound and no smell. In case you’re wondering, the pure-electric
four-door sedan will zap from zero to 100km/h in around 2.5 seconds. To put this in perspective, the latest V12-engined Ferrari 812 Superfast takes 2.9 seconds to get from standstill to 100km/h. Telsa demonstrates that it is possible for a car to be eco-friendly, yet look smart and offer gritty, sports car-baiting performance, as opposed to the squeaky clean image of EVS from a decade-plus ago.
It was only natural then that the sports car manufacturers would begin dabbling in petrol-hybrid high-performance machines, which exploited the petrol-electric powertrain with superlative results, as evidenced by the Holy Trinity of hypercars — the Ferrari Laferrari, Mclaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder, all produced between 2013 and 2015. However, such “hybrid” technology is now considered passé in this rarefied segment of super-sports car as the focus has shifted to allelectric powertrains. Even in motorsports, more manufacturers have gravitated from traditional racing platforms like Formula 1 and World Endurance Championship to Formula E, an FIA-sanctioned class of car racing that sees the use of only electric power.
Singapore’s Vanda Electrics, for instance, has created the 320km/h Vanda Dendrobium, a full-electric hypercar with a wild design inspired by Singapore’s national flower, the orchid, and we’re sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. Porsche’s Mission E will be the brand’s first all-electric offering, a sexy 2+2 seat, fourdoor sports “sedan” with over 600hp and a comfortable range of 500km on a full charge, with the trick Porsche Torque Vectoring dynamic system endowing it with the sporty handling characteristics that enthusiasts have come to expect from the brand.
So far though, the EV hypercar benchmark has been set by the NIO EP9, which is an offshoot of China brand Nextev and touted as “the fastest EV in the world”. Boasting four motors to power each wheel, the EP9’S combined power output is 1,341hp and the full carbon-fibre construction keeps weight down so it tips the scales at under 1.8 tonnes — an advanced torque vectoring system allows it to adjust the amount of power going to each wheel for dynamic handling traits tht befit a super-sports car. Earlier in 2017, the EP9 set a time of 6 minutes 45.9 seconds around
the legendary Nurburgring — it’s the fastest lap ever for a production car!
However, as far as real-world “electrified” applications for regular folks are concerned, BMW has introduced its iperformance range of hybrid vehicles, which sits alongside the more experimental and adventurous i range that comprises i3 and i8. The iperformance models are plug-in petrol-electric hybrid derivatives of regular BMW cars (such as 2 Series, 3 Series, 5 Series and X5), serving to ease folks into the paradigm shift. Also in on the race to go green is Jaguar, with its first all-electric SUV, the I-pace, finally revealed at the Geneva Motor Show in March. Said to be inspired by the brand’s C-X75 supercar (featured in James Bond film Spectre), it reaches 100km/h in 4.8 seconds and delivers 696Nm of instant torque. At the more wallet-friendly end of the spectrum, Hyundai has its Ioniq Hybrid and now a full-electric Ioniq model. In the luxury sports segment, Porsche has continued its electrification onslaught, with the top-tier Turbo S models of its Panamera Sport Turismo range proudly plug-in hybrid.
As lines between transport and technology blur further, the automotive industry is experiencing hitherto unheardof leaps in development, as manufacturers go all-out to chase “firsts”. But with electrification spreading like chain lightning, it’s wise not to forget that the fundamental quest is for sustainable mobility solutions.