I've noticed more and more electric cars reviews appearing in car reviews and now we have a TV show specialising in e-car reviews too. It made me wonder what the future of the traditional car show and magazine is. Bear with me while I digress a little.
Once up on a time...
The traditional heart of any car is the engine. Most of us on Brisky love the internal combustion engine and have a long and intimate relationship with it - you can read into that what you will, but with the onslaught of the electric motor, this relationship is sure to change I feel. I genuinely can't see people raving about the Tesla 'whizzywoosh' motor being more evocative than the BMW 'whirrrthweep', the attraction of these engines all comes down to the numbers imho. However, with combustion engines, Is the straight six preferable to the V6? Which sounds best, which is smoothest? Which is evocative of the marques pedigree most faithfully? The scream of the V12, the discordant howl of the V10, the bark of a Pinto engine with big carbs, all to be consigned to the dustbin of evil things. There is the smell of mechanical things, the character of the beast as it warms up, the visual allure of multiple cylinder banks, the miles of plumbing and belts, it's all part of the living breathing, organic core of our cars.
As we have a liquid fuelled car, we need a gearbox, this too has its own appeal, or if you have certain British Leyland products, then repulsion. The 4 speed snickity Ford gearbox in the early Escorts to the 7 speed manual of a Porsche, these are the most tactile of things, we connect with our engine in a sympathetic way. We ask the engine to accelerate us and in turn, to assist its task, we listen and feel our motors increasing urge, so with mutual rapport, we change ratios and await the next symbiotic moment where in perfect unison, we enjoy the synchronised dance again and again. The amount of pleasure that can be gained from timing a perfect gear change is ridiculous, but it's part of the process and the reason we connect with our cars on a human level. Even the DCT and Automatic can be controlled and used to great effect in the enjoyment of driving our cars Of course the compromises that having a combustion engine mean even more mechanical items are required, prop shafts, drive shafts, differentials, even the bonnet shape is partly dictated by the machine beneath it.
This brings me to electric cars and heading back to being OT I suppose. There is no getting away from the fact that electric cars are coming and in the short term at least, these will be battery powered devices. They are green, generally fast in a straight line and futuristic in their interiors. But the 'heart', where is it? I fail to see how I will ever be enthralled or excited by a set of electric motors, no matter how fast they can fire me down the road, pure straight line speed is a nice party piece, but there is no interaction at least for me. I've only driven one electric car and I'll admit it was only for 20 minutes. I've also only been a passenger in a couple of them, but any initial wonder when stepping on board a 4 wheeled space ship is soon dispelled once we are on the move. Yes they are fine cars and fulfil their brief admirably. Comfortable, quieter than Boris when questioned about Brexit and potentially spacious. I can't really fault them as modes of transport, they seem generally excellent. Personally I hate touch screens, especially in cars and the large display in cars like Teslas, I truly detest them. Perhaps it's because I played piano in my younger days and got used to being to feel my way around the keyboard without the need to look down from the music and without accidentally playing an unintentional note, owning to a certain amount of force being needed to activate a key stroke? Electric cars leave me cold I'm afraid, no matter how fast they are. I won't mention range anxiety as for me in my job, it's potentially a real issue, even with some cars being able to cover 300 miles (or perhaps 250 in real world winter conditions and sitting in motorway jams with the heater on), however I know it's not really a concern for the vast majority of people, or at least it shouldn't be.
So, at last the media side of it...
Well, I have now read many reviews of electric cars and by and large they talk about the things that don't excite me. Handling of many of these cars is fine, often thanks to the low centre of gravity caused by extremely heavy battery packs, ride quality if OK and acceleration is good to outrageous. They talk about electronic doodads, connectivity and charging rates, but it leaves me with an empty feeling in my stomach. It's like reading a mobile phone review. Phones reviews seem to be mainly about battery size, screen quality, processor speed, and storage and that now seems to be pretty much maxed out. Screens have extreme resolutions that few can discern, they are more than enough storage for 95% of people, batteries are pretty much the same spec across the board and processors are a marvel of modern engineering. I've had the same phone for 3 years now and I looked at the latest version and could perceive no real difference when compared to my own. I know the newer version has superior specs, but the biggest difference was the OS version. That's how I see electric cars if you will excuse the generalisation. I'm now more interested in the software of my phone than the device itself. Phones are almost all the same size and shape, similar speed, similar storage, similar facilities such as camera, in fact the manufactures are desperately throwing crazy specs at us to entice to buy something with a wow factor. 100 megapixels camera anyone? Phones that can bend in the middle? No, for me phones are becoming white goods and I fear that to a large degree, cars will become that too.
Will car media survive this transition? Will a 'Which' test of electric cars become the norm, rather than the 'CAR' magazine giant group test? Maybe Top Gear and its ilk will continue with their, "how can we drive something totally inappropriate for the conditions and do ridiculously unpleasant things to it" standard template, but ultimately I fear this too will die. I have stopped reading electric car reviews, at least for cars that I may well be forced to drive one day and possibly only am interested in something a bit different, an electric Bowler might be a laugh, but the latest Mustang-e or Tesla Jetson mode doesn't float my boat. I'm not knocking the electric car as transport, it's magnificent at doing that, but I think the death knell of the petrol car will mean apart from what will become 'classics', the car scene and myself will become estranged and no longer BFFs 😞
Will car reviews online and in print survive in the current form? Will even Brisky ultimately be consigned to the dustbin for worshipping the devils juice? Will only middle-aged and old men huddle in the corners of pub car parks for a covert mini meet of their pride and joy Fabia 2.0 petrol? If anyone actually has read this far, perhaps you'd like to pitch in with a thought on the matter. Please don't use this thead to knock either petrol cars or electric cars as such, I was only setting a scene for what I think means the potential end of car related interactions as we know them.
Do I get a badge for the longest post/rant in quite a while?
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