I shudder as I write this piece, as it goes against every fibre of my being to argue for anything other than unfettered access to performance motoring for anyone that wants it. The idea of a nanny-state overseeing drivers in their daily motoring or cobweb-clearing weekend blasts is one that strikes fear into the hearts of keen drivers anywhere, myself included. And yet, here we are.
The Lotus Evija X’s crash at last month’s Goodwood Festival of Speed showed just how fast things can go wrong in one of the new breed of hyper-powerful electric supercars. Spearing into the haybales while setting off in a dead-straight trajectory seconds after starting, the incident was put down to ‘asymmetric grip’ and an ‘overcorrection’ by the driver - in layman’s terms, the car pulled itself into a wall, and it could be the car’s fault, or it could be the driver’s, we don’t know.
A thought has lodged itself in my mind, much in the manner of that £1.8 million hyper car into a haybale. While the Evija X was a racer based on a road-legal supercar, near 2000bhp electric cars are becoming increasingly common. Have we now overstepped the limits of sensible power in production vehicles?
Now, before you throw tea at the computer screen and tell me I should get a life, I’m not one of those who argues that since the national speed limit if 70mph, no one should ever need more from a vehicle. The desire to push boundaries and break through previously accepted limits is a useful human trait, added to which the freedom to enjoy a car’s performance - when legal and safe to do so - is one of life’s great pleasures.
That said, the rapid advances in power and speed available from even mundane EVs over the last five years means that extremes of performance which were once the preserve of the committed few have now become far more mainstream.
While the Lotus Evija and its 1800bhp electric output are hardly daily transport, the latest Hyundai Ioniq 5 N hatchback comes with 641bhp, and even the MG4 XPower comes with over 400 bhp and a 0-60 time of less than 4 seconds. For context, back in 2015, a keen driver in search of such daily performance would have needed to spend nearly £110,000 in today’s money to purchase a BMW M5, but in 2024, the MG will keep up for just £34,000.
“So, what’s the problem?” I can hear you cry. “Just because these cars have the power, it doesn’t mean it will be used.” And I might be inclined to agree with you, except that the Lotus crash proved that even in the hands of a professional driver on dry tarmac, such high performance can become untameable, and fast. If an ever-greater percentage of cars on the UK’s roads end up boasting such explosive performance, then how long will it be before mistakes are made by the unsuspecting?
With the never-ending arms race to produce retina-shredding0-60 times all-too easy to achieve in EV family cars, are we approaching the limits of sensible performance for production vehicles sold for road use?
In the same way that German manufacturers had an agreement to limit top speeds of their standard cars to 155mph, and Japanese manufacturers had an unofficial 276 bhp cap on their performance vehicles, are we now at the point at which a similar agreement for EVs might be a wise move?
Let the discussion begin.
