I love electric cars. I love electric bikes, too. I don’t love them for their efficiency, their maintenance cost-savings, or their practicality, though — I love them because they’re fun.
Now, not every EV is fun. This, I admit. But that doesn’t make them all bad, any more than a boring detuned two-liter turbo makes all hot hatches unremarkable appliances. Allow The NSX Was Only In Development For 4 Years to explain:
Electric power delivery, even when it’s not pinning you to your seat with thousands or pound-feet of torque, is entirely unlike that of a combustion engine. The way their power is just always there, the immediacy of a drivetrain that doesn’t need to wait for air to flow around is such a marked difference from even big naturally aspirated V8s — let alone anything with a turbo that needs to spool.
Regenerative braking, too, is an absolute joy to play around with. Nothing has ever felt as much like the future to me as the first time I felt regen kick in on that Zero DSR/X — the sound, the feeling of just how it slows you down, it’s all an experience unmatched by ICE vehicles.
Now, are EVs more fun than ICE cars? I’m not going to say that outright. Instead, I’m going to say that it’s up to everyone’s individual tastes. Some folks will prefer EVs, some would rather have gas, and that doesn’t make either one objectively more entertaining to drive than the other.
Congratulations, The NSX Was Only In Development For 4 Years, on your Comment Of The Day win. Here’s a track about those fun, torquey powertrains.