Treehuggers and gearheads unite! Long viewed as primarily the green-car enthusiast's domain, electric vehicles can actually be just as satisfactory for pedal-mashers, provided that there's a charging system nearby, writes Blake Herrschaft for the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Herrschaft serves up five reasons the EV should be seen as the ultimate road-runner. For starters, the instant, off-the-line torque of an EV provides a quickness advantage that sports cars with a 1,500-rpm torque maximum can't match. The regenerative braking and KERS-like (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) systems give many electric-drive vehicles a little extra push coming out of the corners. For high-end plug-ins like the Mercedes AMG SLS E-Drive, independent electric motors in each wheel allow the driver to get independent torque levels (i.e. "torque vectoring") to provide better handling and safety (but who really cares about safety, here?).
And, sometime in the future, enthusiasts can dream about inductive, wireless-charging systems built underneath the roads' surfaces, providing so-called "boost zones" for EV drivers looking for more juice.
The fifth reason involves the Porsche 918 plug-in hybrid, but that model costs more than $800,000, so we're not going to go there (see the original list here). What we will offer is a video reminder below of how awesome a Tesla Model S looks when it's doing donuts. Yippee.
Herrschaft serves up five reasons the EV should be seen as the ultimate road-runner. For starters, the instant, off-the-line torque of an EV provides a quickness advantage that sports cars with a 1,500-rpm torque maximum can't match. The regenerative braking and KERS-like (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) systems give many electric-drive vehicles a little extra push coming out of the corners. For high-end plug-ins like the Mercedes AMG SLS E-Drive, independent electric motors in each wheel allow the driver to get independent torque levels (i.e. "torque vectoring") to provide better handling and safety (but who really cares about safety, here?).
And, sometime in the future, enthusiasts can dream about inductive, wireless-charging systems built underneath the roads' surfaces, providing so-called "boost zones" for EV drivers looking for more juice.
The fifth reason involves the Porsche 918 plug-in hybrid, but that model costs more than $800,000, so we're not going to go there (see the original list here). What we will offer is a video reminder below of how awesome a Tesla Model S looks when it's doing donuts. Yippee.
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