10 March

Had to take back roads home tonight, because of an accident on the highway. The way the car ate up those roads reminded me why hybrids are the ultimate car for driving, though they’re mostly seen as ways to save fuel. The torque curves for an engine show where maximum engine performance happens, which depends on revs. Red and blue graph typical petrol car. At low revs (i.e. from a standing start), very low power and torque. Whereas for an electric motor (green) torque is maximum right from 0 rpm, from stopped. Why EVs annihilate petrols/diesels in 0-100 times. But electric motor torque starts to drop away at higher revs (due to a back-emf), see the green line dropping. And this is why hybrids rock, because they use the EV torque at lower revs, and then blend the petrol engine in at higher revs to access that higher torque. Then the two feed into each other, the electric supplementing the petrol and vice versa. It makes the drive amazing, you’re in the peak power band the whole time, at every speed. Sports car makers like Porsche make their supercars hybrid for this reason. I talk about them a lot because my sense is the dominant perception of hybrids is as granny cars, good on fuel consumption but a bit puny. But nothing else drives like them, if you want maximum power at every moment. They’re monsters. None of that whining up through each gear to try to stay in the peak power band. You’re in it the whole time. And as a brilliant bonus, you’ll need hardly any fuel.