Ferociously fast cars: Acceleration is not enough fun factor | Opinion

I’ve been driving a lot of electric cars lately. As colleague Richard Berry observed recently, the CarsGuide team is living in 2025, a few years ahead of the consumer curve in terms of broad exposure to EVs.

And at this stage, manufacturers are leveraging the natural attributes of an electric powertrain to great effect. They’re quiet, smooth, and… rapid.

In cushy, luxury vehicles, that extra, inherent refinement enhances the premium drive experience. It’s brilliant.

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But what about performance and sports cars? This is where I’m struggling to bond with the zero-tailpipe-emissions future.

The best analogy I can come up with is, a microwave will cook a burger really fast, but wouldn’t you prefer one from the barbecue? That is, it’s not just speed that makes for an enjoyable experience, be it driving or dining.

A perfectly barbecued burger might take a little longer, but over a medium heat, the emulsified fat keeps it tender before rendering out, and caramelising over a more intense flame to finish. With apologies to non-carnivores, I call that perfect!

A microwaved burger is cooked in an instant, but just sits there on the plate looking like a hockey puck that’s seen one too many slap shots.

Don’t get me wrong, a car that launches hard enough to narrow your field of vision is exciting. But if that’s all there is, the experience is relatively thin.

The mechanical elephants in the room (or not in the room) are things like engine noise and the physical engagement of a gearbox or multi-ratio transmission.

Toyota has filed patent applications in the US for simulated clutch pedal and gearshift functions for EVs, but I’m kinda shaking my head at that. 

And paddles on the wheel to adjust the level of regenerative braking in an EV are entertaining in their own way, but I’d prefer to be flicking through ratios in a well-tuned dual-clutch.

The ND Mazda MX-5 remains one of the sweetest, most involving sports cars of them all.

It’s not only leccy performance cars that are suffering from this narrow-band focus on outputs and raw speed.

Mercedes-AMG recently unveiled its new C 63 S E Performance, an obscenely powerful and accelerative sedan and wagon.

Its combination of a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine and a single, two-speed, electric motor, marks the beginning of the end of AMG’s love affair with the V8.

Look at the pattern. In the early-teens the C 63 was powered by a 6.2-litre, naturally aspirated (M156) V8 producing 336kW/600Nm. 

The 4.0L twin-turbo (M178) engine that replaced it upped those numbers to 375kW/700Nm. And now the new (M139) four-banger is pumping out 500kW and no less than 1020Nm. Mein Gott!

But will driving it be a more enjoyable, smile-inducing, and here’s that word… visceral, experience?

I’ve got nothing against four cylinders. The ND Mazda MX-5 remains one of the sweetest, most involving sports cars of them all. 

It boasts (very) roughly one fifth the power and torque of the new C 63, but it’s hands-down the car I’d pick for a weekend B-road run.

Mercedes-AMG recently unveiled its new C 63 S E Performance.

Zero to 100km/h acceleration? Who cares? It's the broader sensory experience I'm there for.

Mercedes-AMG says the new C 63’s hybrid powertrain borrows key technology from its Formula 1 racing program. But I’m no fan of the relatively low-revving, quiet as a mouse, turbo 1.6-litre V6 ICE / Energy Store / MGU-H / MGU-K “power unit” combination. Bleh…

In the same way I’d prefer a screaming, but markedly less powerful V8, V10 or V12 bolted into the back of an F1 car, the atmo 6.2-litre C 63 is the Merc C-Class hot rod I have the fondest memories of.

But as F1’s Managing Director - Motor Sport, Ross Brawn, makes clear, no manufacturer is going to get into F1 if a V8 is the engine of choice. Even one that runs on the synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel the category is aiming to introduce from 2026.

Efficiency, designed to lower emissions and fine-tune performance, is the future. And in some ways the rocket-ship acceleration a highly developed electric motor delivers is the ultimate expression of that.

But if speed is the only performance car trick you’ve got, sorry, at this stage, I’m not hooked.