with tesla and now porsche offering electric vehicles that can go 0-60 in under 3 seconds, and others likely to follow, or nearly as fast, what will 'performance' vehicles mean in the future?

will even faster cars emerge? imagining an electric Bugatti that does 0-100 in under 3 seconds

at what point do such cars be considered dangerous and regulation perhaps put in place so that inexperienced people have to get trained to drive such land missiles?

not being up on EVs enough, does accelerating an EV fast vs slow make much difference in range consumption? if it does (slow accel providing more range) then perhaps some EVs will be limited on acceleration to provide more range?

it also comes back to cost too since i assume a nissan leaf isn't that fast 0-60?

and besides acceleration, 'performance' involves handling, steering, brakes, so those things will factor in.

but i wonder about self-driving capability too. tesla's 'ludicrous' mode today may be about performance, but imagine an "F1" mode where the car is not only fast, it drives itself like a formula 1 race car driver.

 

yes, stepping on the accelerator, the range will definitely drop faster. more juice=more faster

I can attest to my daily commute that the model S and X drivers I encounter are S...L...O...W....esp. in the #1 lane
range anxiety and probably relying on auto pilot

model 3 drivers on the other hand

 

You have been able to go out and buy pretty much any middle-to-large displacement motorcycle and run off 3-second 0-60 times for decades. When I was in my early 20's, great fun. After doing it a number of times, I moved on.

EDIT: Brain freeze, meant "0--60" but wrote "quarter-mile."
A quarter-mile in 3 seconds would truly be memorable.

 

EV's are very simple, so the standard deviation ie average spread from slowest to fastest will be very narrow.

If we do lots of full throttle blasts, the battery will rapidly deplete.
It will also degrade more too, hence Porsche set a lower limit to range despite its 93+ kWh battery capacity.

Handling and in particular the interior also counts, because most people don't go hooning around, and it is particularly dangerous to hoon around in civilian streets.
Immature young hoons should be forced to take their activities to the track.
There's more to life than just hooning around.

 

The biggest range consuming activity is fast highway driving (80mph+). The wind resistance at that speed makes the EV really inefficient. Accelerating up to a speed doesn't do much unless all you are doing is speeding up and speeding down constantly. If you put the battery on the bottom of the car and have all the center of gravity way low, the driving dynamics should be easy to do. The Model 3 Performance handles like its on rails and the AWD system is incredible so you never slip. Its a $50k car so its only a matter of time before other OEMs produce similar results.

 

A video over the past couple of days showed the first test between the Taycan and a Model S (P, but non-Raven). The "tests" were done in the wet, so hard to draw too many conclusions, but the Taycan was faster. The big thing, though, was a handling test with a reasonably high speed lane test via a cone chicane. The Taycan was much more composed, the Model S wasn't really in same ball park.

And that's where the differences will be. Easy to go fast in a straight line, not so easy to build a car than genuinely handles.

Edited to add video.

 

Full throttle blasts aren't directly responsible for battery degradation. Heat is the primary killer of batteries. If the car is setup (like the Taycan) for battery mgmt between a certain temperature, then full throttle blasts won't cause battery degradation. The reason constant supercharging is bad for the older batteries is because the heat wasn't managed well. The newer cars have improved on this but haven't fully eliminated it so its still better to charge your battery at home where the level 2 charge doesn't really heat up the battery much.

 

Every track a car? Engine sucks back major fuel.

 

I wonder why they keep comparing Model S to Taycan?

Model S is sedan [liftback], while Taycan is a Gran Coupe.

Model S is a good deal taller with roomier interior, such that Model S is only good for an immature 0-60 Sprint; most people grow out of this 0-60 business.

The lower roofline, lower C of G with squeezy interior of Taycan will ensure far greater dynamics for faster lap times on track.
Normally, only a small group of people purchase this type of motor vehicle.

Two very different types of motor vehicles.
.

 

True.

EV's need to be on the market for a good 10 to 15 years, then we will all know how the battery packs behave long term.
Right now, appreciable numbers just haven't been on the market long enough

 

because the model s has been a straight line performance king and the taycan is the new kid on the block. both are sleek 4 door cars.

yes not the same but that doesn't stop all sorts of other comparisons. until something more similar to tesla models come along, the slightly askew comparisons will continue.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if some measure of a combination of performance/range will evolve to differentiate models at each price point.

 

Having test-driven a Tesla Model 3, IMO, even the AWD non-performance version of that vehicle is very close to that point now. It is definitely not a car for careless or inattentive drivers...as I stated in my review.

The simplest and easiest way to deal with this is probably to put torque-limiters on the electric motors and/or limit the amount of air/fuel that can be burned in ICEs for power output. Yes. there will be some scofflaws that try and override the electronics/limiters, but they can at least be made a tamper-proof as possible.

 

The next Tesla Roadster claims it can do 1.9sec 0-60. Rimac is known for powerful electric motors, and their own Concept One is pegged at 2.5sec 0-60. Wait till Ferrari, Lamborghini, Chevy (Corvette) etc.. make their own performance EVs. It's easy to make a fast car. IMO eventually straight line performance will hit a ceiling that most can attain. The difference will come to the reflexes of the vehicle, weight, range that define EV performance

 

With the (eventual) kind of G-forces that that kind of acceleration could subject the driver and passengers to, you could possibly have people graying out or even blacking out from temporary loss of consciousness. That is like being in a military fighter, a stunt-plane doing sharp aerobatics, or a catapult-shot off an aircraft carrier. Pilots who endure that kind of G-forces not only wear special anti-G-suits that keep the blood in their bodies from pooling, but undergo rigorous training from Day One. Same, to an extent, with drag-racers in the fastest NHRA categories.