I’M A PETROLHEAD BUT THIS IS THRILLING
REMEMBER when you went to a funfair as a child and drove a dodgem car? Remember that feeling of smooth acceleration when you gunned it? Well, that’s exactly how it feels to drive an electric car.
The transmission of power is what the experts call linear, so there is no need for a gearbox – the harder you press the pedal, the faster the car goes, seamlessly and with none of the lag you expect from a standard manual or automatic transmission. And, boy, can electric cars be fast. Some years ago, on the Grand Prix circuit in Brands Hatch in Kent, I raced a BMW i3 electric car against a 3 Series M Sport and, from a standing start to the finish line one kilometre away, I beat the high-powered petrol car to the tape.
Indeed, maybe my favourite car of all, the BMW i8, is even better. It might have an all-electric range of just 37km (the petrol engine takes up the slack for a total range of 440km between fuelling), but what it lacks in endurance, it makes up for in speed. From a standing start, the i8 hits 100kph in just 4.4seconds. It’s eye-wateringly good, though also a bit of a cheat, because the delicious engine sound you hear is simulated. It sounds like a V8, but is really rather quiet.
At over €140k, that car is Lottowin aspirational, and most who buy electric cars will be fishing around at the far cheaper end of the pool. But even here, the acceleration is extraordinary. Just this week, I drove the Volkswagen eGolf (from
€44,890), which delivers all the performance of a GTi without any environmental guilt. On the hilly, twisting back roads around Saggart and Kill in Dublin and Kildare, it was thrillingly adept, with pin-sharp steering and boundless power on tap. If anyone tells you electric cars are milk floats in disguise, this is the car to disabuse them of the notion.
The Renault Zoe (the ZE stands for zero emissions) is another cracker, though not quite in the same league for performance. As an everyday car, though, it offers the best range of any massmarket EV, or electric vehicle, at 300km in summer and 200km in winter. A couple of months ago, I drove it from south Co. Dublin to Athy and back (170km round trip) on a single charge, and there was at least a third of the battery life left over. That was reassuring, because my own return commute from north Wexford to Dublin city centre is 200km, and I wouldn’t need to stop at the charge point in the Applegreen services centre at Coyne’s Cross in Co. Wicklow, something I often have to do when I test drive other electric cars.
On Friday, I drove the Zoe (from €23,490) to Glencullen in the Dublin mountains, and again I was hugely impressed by the smooth power delivery. Yes, I’m a petrolhead, and nothing in the world beats the sound of the 5.0-litre engine in a Ford Mustang – it reverberates through your core like a pneumatic drill, but without the blood – and I will miss that after 2030.
The simple fact, though, is that we have to move on. Climate change cannot be denied, nor can the effect of combustion engines on health in big cities. We had fun while it lasted, but the future is electric – and, from my own experience, that promises new, albeit cleaner, thrills.