Opinion: The changing face of 0-100km/h Times

Who remembers when toppling 0-100km/h times were a heralding of automotive progress? A sign of the times, a one-up on the competition, and the ultimate driveway bragging rights for the enthusiastic car owner.

Is the 0-100km/h sprint still relevant?

There was a time when a 7 or 8 second sprint was a big deal – yes, you’re reading the perspective of a mid-forty’s car-tragic. I have no issue lamenting on the “good old days" of flicking to the back of a monthly motoring magazine to ogle the stats.

Everything from engine capacity, horsepower and torque, the standing quarter mile and sprints to the magic tonne featured. It added to the romanticism of being a car person and factored in the determination of “the list”.

Flicking to the back of a Motor Magazine to check stats was such a fundamental part of motoring

The dream garage that would forever change each month with representation from each type of motoring, for each purpose one might have on a given day.

It made for significant bragging rights and marketing fodder for local manufacturing giants such as Ford and Holden, when they could do so anyway.

Each model would bring incremental improvements in the forever “one-upping” across all aspects. The performance variants weren’t the only ones subjected this emotional contagion, because it still meant something if mum’s Berlina could outsprint your mates’ mums Fairmont.

As a driver, the number was a sense of pride. Forget the fact that it would oft be unachievable, because the impossibly perfect conditions where these tests would take place were non-existent on the street.

Nowadays it’s not uncommon for a far more vanilla appliance to have a headline 100km/h sprint in the 4’s. Some will do it in even less – I recall reviewing a MG4 XPower that claimed to be able to do it 3.5 seconds.

This MG4 X-power can deploy the sprint to 100km/h in 3.5 seconds. As fast as a 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia.

Cool stuff that garnered a giggle, but once you’ve done it once or twice it’s like unwrapping last year’s Christmas present.

To be clear, I appreciate the engineering side of it all. It’s incredible how the endless computer trickery reads the conditions thousands of times a second, sending power and cutting it to maximise the sprint, while relaying everything you’re doing back to the manufacturer.

It’s no secret I’m not an EV fan, so I won’t hide it. That may change somewhere down the track, but for now I simply don’t see the value of switching, and I hate the bandwagon.

That’s ignoring the total lack of emotional involvement in driving one. Although if I was far younger and unmarried, I may have seen value in the crackling campfire sounds accompanying the faux-fire on the Teletron-sized screen in the Deepal E07.

But I digress. Let’s think about the current buyer of an EV. I would caution a guess that the minority would be traditional “car people” – let’s call it 20%

Then let’s say the rest either believe that EV’s are cheaper to run or feel that they’re better for the environment. I still cannot fathom how relegating old cars to landfill, then digging up the Earth for batteries, while charging off coal power plants can prove this point. Finally, there will be a cohort that just like EV's more.

The point is, do these people care how fast their Westinghouse is going to sprint to 100km/h? I’m certain they will scream it from the rooftops given the state of EV enthusiasm. But do they really, truly care?

I would caution a guess that most don’t. So why do we have EV’s that can, and is the marketing working to attract these people?

Then there’s the capability required to control this level of performance. This is a far, far bigger burden to carry. Higher performance EV’s thankfully fall out of the reach of younger drivers under the power-to-weight ratio rules. But they aren’t the cohort I’m worried about.

A 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia could deploy the sprint to the tonne in 3.5, the same as the MG XPower noted above. See what i'm saying about driver capability? You don’t throw anyone into a Ferrari at full noise, but anyone of the appropriate licensing age can have access to this level of performance unchecked.  

Yes, there is endless safety trickery in these cars – to the point where it can almost take all the fun away.

That didn’t stop a Porsche Taycan coming unstuck a few months back. It unceremoniously slid across 3 lanes of a 6-lane major arterial, before crashing head-on into oncoming traffic. It came to rest across the median, with an innocent drivers' car on its lid closeby.

The Porsche Taycan crossed 6 lanes and ended up in peices in Sydney North Shore. The driver was en-route to picking the kids up from school.

The driver of the Porsche was on her way to pick the kids up from school. It’s beyond me how no one was killed.

I’m all for choice, but I can’t help but feel things to be a little inequitable given the constant blowtorch on traditional motoring enthusiasm.

Manufacturers need to watch how they market their performance vehicle on TV, and have had to do so for many years. Where are the controls on marketing vehicles that can sprint the way EV’s now do? Why is it OK to market a vehicle so capable to the masses with no controls whatsoever?

Or does fact that your traditional car person isn’t behind the wheel mean that it doesn’t matter?

It's not just inequitable, it's downright irresponsible.

Or am I just getting a little old and jaded?

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