MIKE SPINELLI: So what if the
apocalypse happened, and every
internal combustion engine on
earth disappeared overnight?
Would you still love cars?
Could you learn to
welcome your new
electric motor overlords?
It's the big, scary EV question
for car enthusiasts.
That's today on "AFTER/DRIVE."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MIKE SPINELLI: So how does one
go about re-learning how to
love cars, to go from getting
high on the smell of a
Weber-carbureted Ferrari V12
that's running a little rich
to extracting equally sublime
enjoyment from a car that
sounds at best like a power
drill buried under a pile of
mattresses?
Let's pretend it's all over
and electric cars won.
What now?
To help us figure out what to
do in this fictional suck,
squeeze, bang, blow-pocalypse is
Tim Stephens, former editor
of "Engadget," a technology
writer and editor and EV
advocate, but also a guy who, in
his spare time, races both
cars and full-sized cars,
often on ice.
Tim.
TIM STEVENS: Good
morning, Mike.
MIKE SPINELLI: Thanks
for coming by.
TIM STEVENS: Certainly.
Thanks for having me.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah,
no problem.
So let's just say gasoline
engines are gone.
What is the post-gasoline
landscape look like?
TIM STEVENS: Obviously, there's
going to be some
pretty boring cars out there,
cars that are made to be
lightweight and highly efficient
and get you from A
to B safely and efficiently,
but really
without a lot of fun.
But there are plenty of cars
like that today, too.
The exciting thing is there's
a lot of opportunity for
really high-performance cars.
We're seeing some
of those now.
The Mercedes SLS is
pretty exciting.
A lot of electric race cars
we're going to talk about,
too, which is pretty exciting.
There's a lot of engineering
challenges that are kind of
new and exciting that electric
power brings to the table, but
a lot of advantages, too.
You can envision a really,
really damn fast electric car.
MIKE SPINELLI: So most
automotive enthusiasts, when
they think about electric cars
that they actually love, they
think about something
like this, right?
TIM STEVENS: I've seen quite
a few of those in shops in
Tokyo, as a matter of fact.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, exactly.
TIM STEVENS: Different
shapes and sizes.
MIKE SPINELLI: And a lot
of us started here
at the RC car level.
So there is a place to
start for loving EVs.
But we have to first get the
top five reasons why
automotive enthusiasts probably
don't love EVs.
The first one, no revving.
So what's a tach without
a red line, right?
There's the drama of
the possibility of
blowing your engine.
You don't have that with EVs.
TIM STEVENS: There's also no
need to shift, because they
rev so high that you can just
go as fast as you want to,
effectively.
I mean, that's definitely
something that's taken away
from the experience.
I think a lot of us lament
the lack of a clutch and
that sort of thing.
But no revving, yeah, means
no motor blowing.
That's not the end of
the world, right?
MIKE SPINELLI: That's true.
And there's not a lot of drama--
although extracting
power through revs is something
that I guess
everybody's going to miss.
TIM STEVENS: Takes some skill
away from the game, for sure.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yes, exactly.
Also, no smell.
I mean, there's a reason why
people hang around gas
stations, and it's not for the
bathrooms, although it might
be for the bath salts,
perhaps.
Ah, that's a bad joke.
TIM STEVENS: Eh, that
sounds rough.
MIKE SPINELLI: But also about
the smell, I mean, it's the
rich-running V12, that smell
of burning, carbureted--
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, there's
nothing like the smell of race
gas when you go to the
track in the morning.
It's a very, very nice
smell, for sure.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah,
race-- it's a
heady kind of the fragrance.
But also nitromethane has
a nice, sweet smell.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, absolutely.
MIKE SPINELLI: All right.
So no smell, and then
no touching.
So the tactility of tinkering
with an internal combustion
engine in some fashion, not
there with EVs, or maybe--
TIM STEVENS: I think there's
even more opportunities for
tinkering, but it's definitely a
different sort of tinkering.
I mean, your tinkering would
probably entail a laptop going
forward rather than a set of
tools and getting your
knuckles bloody in the garage,
which I'm pretty adept at both
side of things.
And ultimately, I don't know
that one is actually more
accessible than the other
at this point.
I mean, if you've got a laptop
or a smart device of some sort
and a way to connect to your
car, if anyways, that's more
accessible for people than
having to go out and buy a
full set of tools and
have a garage and
have a lift or a jack.
I definitely enjoy that side
of things, but I think
tinkering with settings on
a laptop is nice, too.
MIKE SPINELLI: And actually,
that's true, because there are
lot of people into ECU
hacking and stuff.
So they're already there.
TIM STEVENS: It's already
getting there now.
Yeah.
MIKE SPINELLI: So it's just
taking the kind of carb screw
adjustment stuff away.
TIM STEVENS: And a lot of ECU
hacking is really trying to
trick the mechanical bits
into doing what you
want them to do.
You're kind of lying to the
sensors to get the amount of
fuel that you want,
for example.
Now, sort of lying to the
sensors, you just tell the
computer exactly what
you want, and
you'll get exactly that.
MIKE SPINELLI: Right.
So a little more coding,
I guess, involved.
All right.
So number two, no history.
There is no Fangio, there's
no Shelby, there's no Stig
Blomqvist in EVs right now.
TIM STEVENS: No bell-bottoms,
no rally lights, no Saabs.
But if you go all the way back
to the beginning of the car,
though, a lot of the first
cars were actually EVs.
In fact, there were
steam-powered cars.
There were gunpowder-powered
cars back in the day.
MIKE SPINELLI: That's
interesting.
Yeah, you were telling me--
quickly, what was the
gunpowder-powered car?
TIM STEVENS: It didn't go
anywhere, obviously.
It was just a concept.
But basically, it was an
internal combustion engine
that was running based
on gunpowder.
And of course, it had to be a
giant engine to put up with
the concussive forces
that you'd get from
trying to burn gunpowder.
But yeah, that was back in--
I think it was around 1860,
1870, back when they were
trying to figure out what was
the best way to make cars.
And the reason that they went
with gasoline is just because
it was cheap, and it was
all over the place.
Nobody knew what to do with
all this petrol that was
coming out of oil refinery.
They wanted the kerosene.
They wanted the oil,
the lubricants.
They didn't even want
the gasoline.
So because that was all being
stockpiled and just burned
off, the automotive industry
came about to use it because
it was cheap.
MIKE SPINELLI: What was the
price of a gallon--
it actually went down.
TIM STEVENS: It was, I think,
about $0.25 a gallon back in
the late 19th century.
And then it progressively went
down to the point where I
think it was around $0.17 a
gallon at its lowest point,
which in modern dollars is, I
think, about $2 a gallon,
something like that, or
$1.50, $2.00 a gallon.
Then it kind of steadily,
progressively climbed, but we
haven't seen anything like the
expense increase we've seen in
the past couple years.
It grew more in the past 10
years than it did over the
past 100 years.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah,
that's true.
TIM STEVENS: It's accelerating,
for sure.
MIKE SPINELLI: But
it's interesting.
So wasting a lot of that
on motorsports was no
big deal back then.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, sure, because
there was just so much
to go around.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.
So looking back, there's
nobody to look back on.
I mean, part of the cool thing
about being into cars now is
looking at the history of it.
So EVs need to have some time, I
guess, to build up that kind
of history.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, we've got
Monster Tajima now, who's at
Pikes Peak, and he's
racing EVs.
Maybe he'll be the
next generation.
And I spent a little bit of time
talking with Rod Millen,
and he raced an EV this year.
And he's raced a lot of great
gasoline-powered cars in the past.
And for him, it was
the same deal.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.
So we'll see if that happens.
And finally, no velocity
stacks.
That's the worst thing about
EVs is no velocity stacks.
Look at those things.
TIM STEVENS: Beautiful.
MIKE SPINELLI: Is there going
to be an EV equivalent of
velocity stacks?
TIM STEVENS: That's actually
hard to say.
If we go to supercapacitors,
we could see, maybe, those
sticking up through the hood.
That'd be kind of interesting.
MIKE SPINELLI: That would be
kind of-- actually, supercaps
could be sort of cool, because
you just think about the
amount of voltage going
through there,
that could kill you.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, and they
need some cooling, too.
So hang them out in the air.
There's your proxy, perhaps.
MIKE SPINELLI: Cool.
So let's go to the commenter.
So we went out to Facebook and
Twitter and asked them how
they would deal with a kind
of internal combustion
apocalypse.
TIM STEVENS: And everybody was
happy and merry and thrilled.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, they
were like, no problem.
TIM STEVENS: It was like, this
is going to be amazing.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, exactly.
Some were into, and
some weren't.
The Jeepist says, "I'd miss the
monstrous sounds, and the
way it delivers power, and the
mechanical-ness about it, but
I'd still love cars."
Positive.
That's positive.
TIM STEVENS: Absolutely.
MIKE SPINELLI: Kyle Johnston.
"I'd find a way to make
electric more fun and viable."
See, another positive
individual.
"I'm never going to lose the
urge to use a wheel and
accelerator." So you
can't keep me down
with your EV business.
TIM STEVENS: Absolutely.
MIKE SPINELLI: Jason Williams,
"It would be sad, but
we would move on.
It would change driving, forcing
us to focus on the
sensation rather than
the sound."
TIM STEVENS: I think that's
a very important thing.
I've actually ridden a lot of
electric motorcycles, and for
me, it's actually a bigger
difference there than in the
EV cars I've driven.
Because on an EV bike, a lot of
people like the really loud
noise and shaking the windows
as you're riding by.
But on an EV bike, it's so
incredibly quiet, especially
because a lot of them
are belt driven.
So there's really
no noise at all.
And it's just like you're kind
of flying through the air, and
it's such a nice experience.
It's really, really peaceful.
It's very different than
riding a motor--
I have a Triumph.
It sounds amazing.
I love it.
But riding an EV is
a lot of fun.
MIKE SPINELLI: Interesting.
So it's just getting used
to that new experience.
"The lack of explosions and
weight--" I guess weight of
the batteries, I would imagine,
"--is why I will
never like electrics as the
primary power source.
I like electronic KERS and
complementary electric motors,
but don't touch my internal
combustion."
So that's kind of where
we are now.
We had a show a couple of weeks
ago, we were talking
about some of the new
hybrid super cars.
So you've got the LaFerrari,
McLaren P1, and that coming
from Formula 1 incurs being a
support system for internal
combustion.
Yeah, that's fine, but we're
sort of in the apocalyptic
show stage here.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, I
think people just
want that turbo button.
We've had it since "RC Pro-Am"
back in the day, and I think
people really want
it in real life.
And the 918 and the McLaren
and everything else are
finally going to give
us that on the road.
MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly.
So Luke Sullivan says--
oh, this is sort of interesting.
"I'd hop into my
team's electric FSAE car--" the
Formula SAE that's sort of
the school teams
building cars.
It's actually a very
cool program.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, it's a really
cool program, indeed.
It's usually great performance
and tons of
grip, really good cars.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. and these
guys come out knowing how to
be motorsports engineers,
which is a cool thing.
"Team Swinburne, Australia,"
represent, "and light up some
tires in memory of our
fallen comrades.
So already involved in
electric motorsports.
TIM STEVENS: You're still
polluting the atmosphere by
smoking the tires, so
covering both bases.
MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly.
So the drama that you lose by
burning fuel and causing
explosions you make up
for in burn-outs,
TIM STEVENS: Which will
be the next thing
they get rid of, probably.
We'll save that for
the next show.
MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly.
John Robert Burrow. "Passion
is more than
just an engine note.
Passion is in purpose and in the
sheer nature and character
of a car as it was intended and
designed to have by its
creators."
TIM STEVENS: Beautiful.
MIKE SPINELLI: Very eloquently
stated love for engineering
and the kind of taking the
engineering brief and seeing
what people can do with
an engineering brief
as kind of art play.
TIM STEVENS: And this really
gets me excited about EVs,
too, because if you give an
engineer a new set of
problems, engineers who are
given the world tend to kind
of get lost.
But an engineer who has a very
strictly defined set of
problems and an area that they
need to work in, they tend to
do amazing things.
And EVs, you know, have got this
big, heavy battery pack
you need to worry about.
You've got range you need
to worry about.
You've got passenger safety
you have to worry about.
You bring all those things
together, and if you throw the
world's brightest minds at it,
I think we'll see some really
exciting stuff.
MIKE SPINELLI: It's true.
I mean, the engineers will
always come up with the best
solution if the problem
is defined right.
And if enthusiasts are defining
the problem, they're
going to come up
with something.
So that's very hopeful.
And of course, I Am A Bot
expresses an opinion that I
guess a lot of car enthusiasts
have in the face of an
internal combustion
apocalypse.
"I would build my own.
[BLEEP]
eco [BLEEP]
hippie mother [BLEEP]." So not
a lot of faith in the motives
behind EVs, right?
It's all about this sort
of hippie, save the
world kind of stuff.
TIM STEVENS: And I think that
despite perhaps not putting it
very eloquently, he does have a
bit of point in that at this
point, EVs don't make a lot
of sense in a lot of ways.
They're very expensive
to produce.
The overall energy required to
produce them is very high.
So whether or not you're
actually saving energy in the
long run is a little bit
questionable right now.
But ultimately, this is
something that is going to
take a while to get right, and
we've got to get started at
some point.
And we can't wait to run out
of gas before we start
worrying about building EVs.
We've got to start there now.
And this also helps to encourage
the industry to
produce more renewable energy
and help to improve the grid
as a whole, too.
So there's a lot of good reasons
to be building EVs.
But there's also a lot of good
reasons to be building fun
EVs, because we car guys
are not going anywhere.
MIKE SPINELLI: No, it's true.
And there's got to be a halo
over whatever it is.
And if there's a halo over
efficiency, there should also
be a halo over performance,
if that's
something that we demand.
I mean, this is the way we want
it to be, so we have to
force them to build it by
wanting them to build it.
Anyway, so very quickly, let's
go through the reasons to love
EVs, because we were just
talking about that.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah.
MIKE SPINELLI: Torque.
TIM STEVENS: Torque.
Absolutely.
MIKE SPINELLI: Torque!
TIM STEVENS: Available
from zero RPM,
which is the best part.
Yeah, EVs make incredible
torque.
They do tend to peter out
a little bit in terms of
horsepower, so it's kind of
different from your average
big displacement, small block
engine, that kind of thing.
But yeah, amazing torque right
off the line, because you
don't need any gearing.
Well, we'll get there, too.
So great torque.
I just drove the Toyota thing.
We'll talk about it in a bit.
But 900 pound-feet of torque
and 600 horsepower.
MIKE SPINELLI: That's
pretty serious.
TIM STEVENS: That's
a lot of torque.
MIKE SPINELLI: And
no twin turbos.
It's just all in the
electric motor.
TIM STEVENS: As soon
as you start.
MIKE SPINELLI: So tuning that to
be driveable is all in the
software and the controller?
Is that right?
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, so at that
point, what you need to do--
I mean, obviously there's an
aspect of traction control.
But definitely, you need to
be very fine tuning the
responsiveness of the throttle
to make sure that you're not
getting instant torque all
the way as soon as you
put your foot down.
So you've got to be making sure
that the power curve is
applied correctly and looking at
the speed of the car versus
the amount of torque that you
apply to make sure you don't
just smoke the rear tires all
the time, as much fun
as that would be.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.
Although it's kind of
interesting to think of car
guys being hackers eventually.
So it's like sort of giving up
the greasy hands for a laptop
and coding.
TIM STEVENS: Right.
And I Am A Bot mentioned
building his own internal
combustion engine car.
You could imagine building your
own EV much more easily
because it's so much easier
to bolt one together.
There's fewer parts
to worry about.
MIKE SPINELLI: That's true.
Very cool.
All right.
Well, number two, torque
vectoring.
So Chris Harris recently drove
the SLS AMG Electric Drive.
Let's take a look at a quick
clip of Chris driving that and
enjoying the torque vectoring.
CHRIS HARRIS: The torque
vectoring that's going on is
massively complicated.
It's unbelievable, because
we've got four electric
motors, one at each corner, and
all of the torque is being
monitored the whole time
according to your steering
angle, lord knows what else.
As a calibration exercise,
this is unprecedented.
So let's go into Sport mode.
So now, I've got a slightly
more responsive throttle.
I've got a chassis which is
trying to make things a bit
sharper for me.
Car feels--
yeah, it certainly feels
a bit more responsive.
This is just freakish.
This whole torque vectoring
thing is freakish.
I think torque vectoring might
almost be more interesting
than the fact that this car
is electrically driven.
It's the new snake oil of
chassis design, isn't it?
I mean, it almost gives
infinitesimal possibilities,
the fact that you
can put negative
torque into one wheel.
So the wheel that's moving the
slowest in the corner, if you
want, you can drag that
wheel back to nothing.
I mean, that's incredible.
You can make the
car just turn.
And this car does feel very
agile for something so heavy.
MIKE SPINELLI: So to me, it
sort of feels like torque
vectoring is like a killer app
for EVs, that you could fine
tune the way that torque is
directed to all the wheels so
specifically and finely.
TIM STEVENS: Especially with
the SLS when you've got
discrete motors for
each wheel.
You could also do it with just
a rear-wheel-drive car with
two motors at the rear end.
But it's so much easier than
trying to do it now.
There's systems like--
Porsche will kind of do this,
but effectively, they're
applying the brake on wheels to
really slow down one wheel.
So you're getting torque
vectoring, but it's kind of a
lossy, wasteful-- you're
converting energy from the
engine into heat in the
brakes, which just
seems like a waste.
But here, you're actually
speeding up one motor, slowing
down one motor.
And yeah, you can enable
really, really
great handling cars.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, and when
we can get down to the point
where a car could sense a
condition and immediately
adjust every wheel
at the same time.
And so that's kind of cool.
TIM STEVENS: It's amazing.
MIKE SPINELLI: So also,
zero maintenance.
No engine rebuilding after
a day at the track
or a couple of days.
TIM STEVENS: I've got a full set
of tools in my garage, and
I enjoy tinkering in
there, for sure.
But it also would be nice to
not have to tinker, to not
have to pull the motor to pull
the water pump and do the
timing belt.
These motors are kind of evolved
from motors that are
used in industrial
applications.
So they're used to running
all day, every day.
And these are largely sealed
things that you pop in the
car, and in theory, you'll
never need to touch it.
No coolant changes, no--
MIKE SPINELLI: I mean, all that
stuff just goes away.
TIM STEVENS: It's all gone.
MIKE SPINELLI: Interesting.
I think the flip side of that
is I think people would feel
that they're less connected
to it--
I mean, some real tinkerers--
and people that are at the
track, and like yourself, of
course, would feel a little
bit less of a connection.
And you have to make up
that in other ways.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, there's
definitely a sense of
attachment that you get to
something when you've spent a
day in the garage replacing
the brake pads or changing
your oil or doing whatever.
At the end of the day, you
feel like you've invested
something in that car.
So yeah, there would have to be
some other way of doing it,
whether it's tuning
it and tweaking it
yourself in the software.
Or maybe it's more
personalization when it comes
to the look of the car, the
colors, graphics and
everything.
Maybe there are other
opportunities
to make up for that.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.
True.
No drivetrain losses.
This is pretty significant.
TIM STEVENS: I think so.
Yeah.
So your average car, you're
probably looking at about a
15% power loss just from sheer
friction within the
differentials and the
transmission.
Everything that is spinning
and rubbing against each
other, you're losing a
little bit of power.
You're basically turning the
gasoline engine into heat, and
you're using that to grind away
your gears, which at some
point will need to
be replaced.
A lot of that goes away.
MIKE SPINELLI: You make
it sound so dirty.
TIM STEVENS: It's a little
saucy at times.
There is some of that in EVs.
But really, it's rare that
there's a traditional
transmission in an EV.
Because the engine spins so
high, you don't really need a
six- or seven- or eight-speed
gearbox.
There might a reduction set of
gears to kind of slow things
down a little bit.
But just that one set of gears,
you might have a 4% or
5% drivetrain loss, versus
the 15% or more--
I mean, I've got a Subaru WRX
at home, and the drivetrain
losses, they are--
because I've got three
differentials and a
transmission and everything
else, and they're all sucking
down some of my engine power.
But with the SLS, it's just four
motors on each corner, no
differentials, nothing.
MIKE SPINELLI: That's true.
So there's no more arguments
about at the crank or at the
wheels, what's your--
TIM STEVENS: Certainly becomes
insignificant.
MIKE SPINELLI: It will
definitely reduce the number
of flame wars on the average
fan [INAUDIBLE].
TIM STEVENS: Less bench
racing, for sure.
MIKE SPINELLI: And number one,
less unsprung mass, which I
made all caps because
we made the velocity
stacks one all caps.
TIM STEVENS: Nice.
I think that's fair.
MIKE SPINELLI: But that's pretty
significant, right?
So talk a little bit about that,
and just notwithstanding
the extra weight from
the battery.
TIM STEVENS: Sure.
So obviously, the cars right
now are heavier, for sure.
But ultimately, when it comes
to making a car handle, the
unsprung mass, which is the
stuff within the wheels,
basically, anything that's not
bolted to the chassis, that's
really, really important.
And with EVs, there's actually
the potential to reduce that
significantly.
I spent a lot of time talking
with Peter Rawlinson, who was
the former chief engineer at
Tesla, a while back about how
they made the Model S
and the engineering.
And he said because the battery
pack is so low in the
car, they could have actually
positioned it below the roll
center, which would have made
the car roll into the turns.
They decided to raise
it a little bit
because it felt weird.
But they were able to use a
really, really thin anti-roll
bar because of that.
Because the weight is
so low, that helps
reduce things as well.
They can also go with smaller
brakes because they can use
engine braking to help
slow the car down.
And you can envision a future
where maybe you don't even
need physical brakes, because
we showed the EV little toy
car before.
A lot of the EV toy cars
don't have brakes, but
they stop just fine.
With a little more engineering,
you can envision
maybe getting rid of friction
brakes altogether, which
would, again, be a lot less mass
in the wheel and again, a
lot less weight for the
suspension to sling around.
MIKE SPINELLI: So again, with
the engineers, they'll be
thinking up new suspension
architectures to use all of
these strengths.
So even if right now it's not
optimized, eventually all
these things, with enough
engineering tech put behind
it, could actually make
for some really
good handling cars.
TIM STEVENS: Even the Tesla
Model S, which was designed
clean sheet as an EV, that has
still got a lot of lineage
back to traditional engineering
for internal
combustion engine
production cars.
You can envision a future
where cars are radically
different from what we have now
in terms of suspension and
chassis layout and
everything else.
And I think there's a huge
opportunity there for really,
really great handling cars, even
if they are heavier than
the cars we have today.
MIKE SPINELLI: So let's look
at a couple of cars.
So other than performance appeal
that enthusiasts love,
there's car nerd appeal, also.
So looking at a couple of the
new efficiency-based--
these are not both EVs, but
they're cars that use sort of
the same cutting edge carbon
fiber tech that's used to
lighten up a supercar.
But this is in the service
of efficiency.
So BMW showed its
i3 this week.
TIM STEVENS: The final
production version, finally
after teasing us with it for so
long and leaving that camo
on there for what seems
like years.
They finally ripped it off.
MIKE SPINELLI: Even with the
camo off, I mean, it's
basically-- we knew what it
was going to look like.
But this is a car that
uses a lot of carbon
fiber, a fair amount.
TIM STEVENS: The CFRP stuff,
which is a little bit cheaper
to produce for them but still
has a lot of the benefits of
traditional carbon fiber,
out of the kiln stuff.
But it's something that they
can actually mass produce,
which is great.
MIKE SPINELLI: So that
means lighter cars.
I mean, this is an EV, and
then you can add a range
extender on it.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, which is very
interesting to me, that
they can actually
offer that as--
I don't think they said what the
cost would be to add the
range extender on there, but I
assume it will not be cheap.
MIKE SPINELLI: They did say it
was going to be few grand.
I mean, it could
be four grand--
or at least in euros.
The US price is around $42,000,
which is before tax--
TIM STEVENS: Prohibitive,
for sure.
MIKE SPINELLI: It's
a lot of money.
And I mean as a BMW, not exactly
the ultimate driving
machine yet.
There's no i3 M yet.
TIM STEVENS: No, and it's
debatable whether they'll
actually make one.
But the range is, they're
saying, between 80 and 100
miles of real-world driving,
which means an EPA rating will
probably tend toward the 70 or
80 mark, which is right in
there with the Leaf
these days.
And those cars are a lot less
expensive than this guy.
I'm sure this will be
much more luxurious.
It's certainly much more
dramatic looking.
That's for sure.
But yeah, for BMW to spend all
this time and put all this
investment into technology and
carbon fiber and everything
else, and then to come out with
a 100-mile range is a
little bit disappointing,
especially at $42,000.
MIKE SPINELLI: What's next,
the i8 is going to be the
sports version, right?
So then we're actually going to
have a car that's a little
bit closer to the BMW ideal
of sports-car-ness.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, that's
pretty exciting.
I'm curious to see how
that thing drives.
That one does have a range
extender built in, so it's
more of a hybrid EV Volt
kind of thing.
But it definitely looks like
they did spend a lot of time
making the handling right.
We've seen a lot of videos of
that around handling tracks
and that sort of thing as
they were testing it.
So it does look good.
I'm excited to see how
that comes down.
MIKE SPINELLI: So
promising stuff.
TIM STEVENS: I think so.
MIKE SPINELLI: Also, the
Volkswagen XL1, which is a
diesel hybrid.
So it's not an EV, but uses a
lot of, again, the carbon
fiber monocoque.
It's probably going to
eventually be the cheapest
carbon fiber monocoque
you can get.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, I think so.
This is a very interesting
car.
I mean, obviously it's not going
to be fun to drive in
the traditional, put
your foot down--
MIKE SPINELLI: It's not fun.
I drove it.
TIM STEVENS: --and open your
eyes kind of thing.
MIKE SPINELLI: Did you
drive this thing?
TIM STEVENS: I didn't have
the chance to drive this.
No.
MIKE SPINELLI: It's interesting,
because it's got
a lot of supercar-type
features.
It's got carbon ceramic
brakes.
It's got this very light body.
And it's got a Sport mode.
But it's really not a
lot of fun to drive.
I mean, those brakes, you hear
them crunching and stuff, and
it's very, very raw
an experience.
But the steering is great.
It's like driving an old
car with a hydraulic,
non-power-assisted steering.
It's really got an interesting
feel to it, steering-wise.
But the rest of it is
very hybrid-like.
So it's not exactly exciting.
It does use a lot of high-end
sports car technologies.
TIM STEVENS: And I think that
there is a potential for even
eco-friendly focused cars like
this to be fun to drive.
I've driven a lot of EVs, and
they tend to be enjoyable to
drive, even if you're in
traffic, because you've got
lots of things to
be looking at.
There's lots of gauges to
indicate how efficiently
you're driving.
So it becomes a game of
efficiency at that point,
which is definitely different
from the game of hitting every
apex on the highway on-ramps.
But ultimately, it can still be
a rewarding thing to try to
best your own efficiency
scores from before.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.
OK, so after this, we have
the car that you drove.
TIM STEVENS: Yes.
So this is the Toyota P002.
This is in the Pikes Peak
configuration with the giant
wing on the front and the back,
which they added in.
This is the car that owns the EV
record at the Nurburgring.
But that was last year, so
they've actually made some
tweaks to it, including
the big wings.
And they moved to a central
seating position, too, which
they didn't have in the
Nurburging spec.
Yeah, I think it was a 7:22 at
the Nurburging, which is
almost as fast as the Radical
that this is based on, which
is pretty impressive.
Yeah, this is Rod Millen's
car for the Pikes
Peak Climb this year.
Toyota thought they were
going to go and
break the record again.
Unfortunately, some other
big guns showed up, too.
And unfortunately, they got
rained on while they were
running, which in a
rear-wheel-drive car is not ideal.
600 horsepower.
900 pound-feet of torque, which
is pretty unbelievable.
MIKE SPINELLI: Serious, yeah.
TIM STEVENS: And just
a ton of downforce.
So the day after the race, I got
to chat with Rod Millen a
bit and drive the car,
unfortunately only for a
couple of laps around the
Pikes Peak International
Raceway, which is a little
road course just south of
Colorado Springs.
But yeah, the power
is unbelievable.
You put your foot down, and
you're at the speed that you
want instantaneously.
No shifting, of course.
Just a single gear.
And I thought it actually
sounded pretty cool.
It's got that kind of--
it's more of a transmission
whine than anything else.
MIKE SPINELLI: It's
very sci-fi.
It's sort of '70s sci-fi,
if you like that sound.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, but I like
the sound of a straight cut
gearbox, and that's pretty
much what you're
getting out of this.
MIKE SPINELLI: Oh,
you're right.
It's like the straight cut
gearbox without the
engine behind it.
TIM STEVENS: Right.
I always thought that was
a cool sound, anyway.
So that's what you're getting.
When I drove it, it was still
on rain tires, which was a
little bit unfortunate.
In fact, as I was going around
the corners, little bits of
rubber were flinging off the
tires and hitting me in the
helmet because there
were so soft.
And it was actually set
up for understeer,
which I was very surprised.
They like to go with a very,
very understeer focused setup
for that hill climb because it's
such a dangerous course.
And especially in the rain, you
don't want any surprises
going around corners.
So it plowed in every
corner, absolutely.
So handling on a tight little
road course, not its forte.
Again, it was for
the rain setup.
But the power was just unreal.
MIKE SPINELLI: Well, talk about
Pikes Peak a little bit.
I mean, Pikes Peak is becoming
the proving ground, the kind
of ground zero for
EV race cars now.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, the fastest
bike this year was an electric
bike, the Lightning.
MIKE SPINELLI: Bikes
too, yeah.
TIM STEVENS: So that's a pretty
strong testament to the
engineering that's going in.
And ultimately--
I spoke with Rod about this a
little bit about his thoughts
on the future of the class
EVs versus gas.
And he thinks we're only a
couple years away from EVs
being the fastest class
on the mountain.
Which is pretty exciting,
because at Pikes Peak, one of
the big challenges is you're
gaining, I think, about 5,000
feet of elevation
over the run.
And some cars lose up to 40% of
their horsepower along the
way, which is probably why they
need these big wings,
because the air is
so thin up top.
But if you're losing 40% of your
power, even if you've got
a heavier car, an EV will make
exactly the same amount of
power at the top as it
does at the bottom.
MIKE SPINELLI: Without a turbo
the size of a garbage can.
TIM STEVENS: Exactly.
The only challenge for them is
cooling, because as the air
gets thinner, it's harder
to cool the engine down.
This is actually pretty cool.
So they've got this box.
It's basically a refrigerator.
They plug it into the car, and
they run the coolant through
it before the run.
And it drops the temperature
of the car down
to just above freezing.
And then they disconnect that,
and they go up the mountain.
And of course, the thing gets
insanely hot on the way up.
But cooling is really the only
thing that you need to worry
about in an EV in that
sort of situation.
But you've got full power
from bottom to top,
which is pretty exciting.
MIKE SPINELLI: It's exciting,
and it's perfect because it's
within the range of what
the batteries can do.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, that's
the other thing.
They did have a dual
charger setup.
And they actually had a giant
van that was basically a
massive battery pack that they
would just pull up next to it
and plug it in to recharge it.
Yeah, they had, I think it was
20-something kilometers of
range that they programmed
this to set to to get to,
which was just enough to get
to the top of the hill and
have a little bit extra
if they needed to.
There wasn't really much
more than that.
Yeah, it's, again, a
very defined set,
a very short course.
So it's a perfect sort
of thing for this.
The same with the [INAUDIBLE]
that they've been running
in EV II.
That's another example of
a very defined course.
And again, it's a direct
engineering challenge that you
can throw at an engineer
and expect
them to do great things.
MIKE SPINELLI: So I mean,
motorsports, again, also with
the FIA's Formula E, which seems
a little hacky at the
moment, because the pit stops
are you jump into another car.
TIM STEVENS: Which seems utterly
ridiculous to me.
So I'm trying to figure out
the logistics of this.
Do you then need four cars
for race weekend?
Because you've got to be able
to-- if you write a car off.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, you
do need four cars.
You need four cars for
the race weekend.
TIM STEVENS: That just seems
like a huge investment.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, or if
you do three cars and--
TIM STEVENS: Hope your driver
only crashes once.
MIKE SPINELLI: Hope your
driver-- yeah, exactly.
I don't know.
TIM STEVENS: It does seem
a little weird.
But I mean, Andretti Racing
just signed on.
So that's a great kick in the
pants for those guys.
That should really get them
off on a good set.
But I really wish there was some
sort of battery swapping
technology, because it just
seems crazy to buy twice of
everything.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.
Right.
I mean, eventually, you could
picture them kind of pulling
out a battery and putting it
back in, like the pit crew
would be doing that.
TIM STEVENS: And them all
throwing their backs out as
they're lifting this 300-pound
thing to back.
MIKE SPINELLI: Eventually, we'll
see, if this takes off,
then the engineers will show
up and fix things.
And they could actually
[INAUDIBLE].
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, it's
basically going to be like a
feeder series for the--
not a feeder but more
like an exhibition
series before the races.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, exactly.
TIM STEVENS: And I'm a little
bit worried that people won't
see it, because I think a lot
of people will be kind of
wandering around the track.
And then they'll hear the sound
of the engines, and then
they'll kind of wander
to their seats.
They'll need some kind of a
siren or something to let
people know that the
race is starting.
MIKE SPINELLI: Well,
that's interesting.
We hadn't mentioned that.
And we didn't put that in
the top five things
to hate about EVs.
But the sound, it could be
great, but at a race, you're
just not getting that
earth-shattering,
eardrum-shattering race sound.
TIM STEVENS: I still remember
my first Formula 1 race, and
standing next to the course and
just feeling the shifts in
your chest, like--
just hit the mic, so
now everyone else
is hearing it, too.
But feeling like you're being
punched in the chest every
time they shift.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, of the
first time I ever went to a
top fuel drag race.
I mean, it's like the
world ending.
It's amazing.
So the sound is definitely
part of the motorsports
experience.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, it is.
MIKE SPINELLI: And that's
something to be considered.
I mean, I don't know if they're
going to play a tape
of an engine in the
car or something.
TIM STEVENS: We've already got
plenty of cars that have
internal augmentation for the
engine noise as it is.
So it's not a huge step from
that to actually a fully
synthetic engine noise, which
would be a little bit sad.
But--
MIKE SPINELLI: You could have
a mariachi band playing.
TIM STEVENS: Lots
of good things.
MIKE SPINELLI: I mean, not
for any reason, but--
TIM STEVENS: Van Halen
going, too, maybe.
MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly.
So let's go talk a little bit
about the cars that are now
the sort of enthusiast cars,
rather than the motorsports
cars, the enthusiast EVs.
You have to put the Tesla S in,
because everybody who's
driven it, including you,
really liked it.
And I haven't driven it, but
the numbers don't lie.
I mean, it's pretty quick.
TIM STEVENS: It is
a quick car.
MIKE SPINELLI: It is, like,
5-Series V8 quick.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, and it
handles a little bit more
directly, I think,
than your average
5-Series or larger Mercedes.
The only thing that I didn't
like about the handling was
transitioning in
smooth corners.
Because it is a very heavy car,
and it's got those thin
roll bars, it does seem to
meander a little bit.
But direct turning is great.
The ultimate handling
is great.
The grip is great.
The throttle response is, of
course, really, really great.
And it's, again, a really
quiet, comfortable ride.
You can really easily have
a nice conversation with
somebody at highway speeds.
Really, really nicely
engineered car.
And one of my favorite features,
which is kind of
dumb, is the pull handles
on the doors.
When you walk up, it
detects the key.
It extends the handles to you.
It's just like this very
welcoming gesture to you.
Here you go, Come on in.
And it turns the lights
on for you.
It's a very welcoming thing
for a car to do.
Overall, yeah, a really,
really nice car.
MIKE SPINELLI: So If you're
into sort of German-style
sports sedans, this has the
potential to evolve into
something that could
maybe be an M5
competitor at some point?
TIM STEVENS: The question is,
does the car need to evolve,
or does everything around
the car need to evolve?
Because ultimately, this
could very much--
I mean, if you put it back
to back with an M--
I mean, not an M5, but a
higher-end 5-Series, anyway,
it would compete pretty well.
The problem is the
range, of course.
But as Tesla's building out
its Supercharger stations
where you can get an 80% charge
in a half an hour, that
gets you a pretty good ways.
And Tesla wants to connect the
East Coast to the West Coast
by next year.
And then they're also rolling
out their battery swap
stations, which will make
it even easier.
As the infrastructure builds
out, this car becomes a lot
more compelling than it is right
now, without the car
itself having to change.
But I'm sure there will be
special editions and more
power and things like
that, too, coming.
MIKE SPINELLI: And again,
it's a six-figure car.
So eventually, we're going to
want to see the Focus ST of
electric cars.
TIM STEVENS: Exactly.
And unfortunately, Tesla's
pushed that back
by a couple of years.
The Model X is becoming the
engineering priority, which I
think is smart for them.
They're going to make a ton
of money on [INAUDIBLE].
MIKE SPINELLI: Business-wise,
sure.
TIM STEVENS: But the 3-Series
equivalent is coming.
But it's probably going to be
2015, 2016 at this point,
which is a little
bit unfortunate.
But it should be $30,000,
$40,000.
And that should be a great
little car, too.
MIKE SPINELLI: Cool.
Well, we'll keep an eye on
Tesla, because the Roadster
was fantastic.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah,
it was fantastic.
Lot of fun.
MIKE SPINELLI: It was
a lot of fun.
So speaking of a lot of
fun, there's the SLS
AMG Electric Drive.
TIM STEVENS: Which you just
cannot replicate that car in
the real world.
MIKE SPINELLI: You cannot.
That's their electric
baby [BLEEP]
green, I guess.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah.
I was watching "Top Gear"
with my wife.
And she goes, is that really
what that color looks like?
I said, it's much louder
than that in real life.
You can't not look at it when
you see it in person.
MIKE SPINELLI: But just again,
the problem with it is that
you open the hood,
and you see that.
TIM STEVENS: This subtract
bit of artwork.
Yeah.
MIKE SPINELLI: I think that's
part of it, isn't it?
Like getting used to not seeing
the things that you're
used to seeing-- the
velocity stacks.
Or even just--
I mean, modern cars, again, you
open, it looks like Boba
Fett's breast plate in there.
It doesn't look like
anything, anyway.
So it's not like EVs are
taking away from--
I mean, it may take away from if
you have an '84 Ferrari 308
at home, yeah, it's going to
look a little bit different.
TIM STEVENS: I don't have an '84
Ferrari 308 at home, I'm
sorry to say.
MIKE SPINELLI: Nor do I.
TIM STEVENS: I do have an MR2
with a very rusty, ugly engine
compartment, which honestly,
this looks more
appealing, to be fair.
It's definitely changing
expectations, changing what we
know of cars, and changing the
driving experience, too.
But I think if you can get past
the loss of sound, which
is unfortunate, the driving
experience a lot more pure in
a lot of way, because a
traditional car, especially
carbureted car, you put your
foot down, you open a
carburetor, which means it's
sucking in more air, which
means it pulls in more fuel,
which then goes into the--
there's a lot of steps involved
before you actually
get that combustion, which
actually gives you the power,
which goes to the
transmission.
It's a long string of events--
MIKE SPINELLI: If you really
think about it, it's a lot of
inefficiencies.
TIM STEVENS: With an EV, you
put your foot down, it's a
potentiometer or some sort of
analog sensor, which says, OK,
sends power down the
wire to give more
energy to the engine.
And badda-bing, away you go.
So if you just think about
it, you are actually more
connected to the car than you
are with a traditional
internal combustion
engine system.
Doesn't mean it's not
different, though.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yes,
that's true.
And actually, one proving
ground-- of course, the
proving ground is
the Nurburgring.
And your lap time is your
bond, as they say.
Well, I don't know
if they say that.
But did 7:55, which isn't bad.
It's about first-gen
Nissan GT-R.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, I think the
Ferrari 430 F1, I think, was
around there, too.
MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, the
430 with the F1 box.
And probably, what was it, maybe
the 997 Turbo, also.
So in good company.
Not cutting edge company, but
it is definitely only a
couple years out.
OK, granted, it's a
half-million-dollar car.
TIM STEVENS: Yeah, it will only
do two laps, which is a
bit of a problem.
And I would guess that at the
end of the second lap, the
driver is probably going to be
spending a lot of time looking
at the range gauge.
The range anxiety on a track
would probably be very
distracting.
But again, it's a very
pressure thing.
And two years ago, they
wouldn't have
been able to do this.
MIKE SPINELLI: That's true.
TIM STEVENS: In two years,
what's it going to be?
And that is also very
exciting for me.
We're starting to enter in the
digital age with these cars.
And while that is going to
mean buyer's remorse--
I mean, people who buy a Model
S now are probably going to
have a little bit of buyer's
remorse in a few years when
there's Tesla's hot new thing
that's cheaper and faster and
got better range.
But the sort of progression of
technology that we're starting
to see is very exciting,
because that level of
acceleration of technology is
just going to keep continuing
and keep accelerating.
MIKE SPINELLI: It's true.
And you're going to
keep watching it.
And I have to say, you are a
brave man to face down the
automotive intelligentsia.
TIM STEVENS: Hey, I love--
MIKE SPINELLI: Or
un-intelligentsia, depending on--
TIM STEVENS: They're
all very--
they're very passionate
individuals.
MIKE SPINELLI: Very
passionate.
The passiongentsia.
TIM STEVENS: I love
the sound--
like I said, I've got a Triumph
motorcycle at home
that sounds amazing.
I love the sound of it.
And I love my old MR2 that's
got a great sound, a great
throttle response, too.
But I've driven a lot of EVs,
and I'll tell you, man,
they're pretty exciting.
MIKE SPINELLI: Cool.
Well, we'll be looking out.
Thanks for stopping by.
TIM STEVENS: Absolutely.
Thanks for having me.
MIKE SPINELLI: That's
"AFTER/DRIVE." Don't forget,
/drive.tv, @drive on Twitter,
Facebook.com/drivetv, and
we'll see you next week on
"AFTER/DRIVE." Later.
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