In these parts, we reckon car people are dreamers – whether it’s sitting on the couch considering which exhaust combination you’d pick if money weren’t an option, or deciding what route you’ll take on your weekend drive.
There’s always something happening in the mind, and it’s invariably car-related. Or maybe it’s just us. Recently, this writer had the pleasure of driving a high-performance sedan for a week. It was a plug-in hybrid, and as mad as a cut snake.
Weighing in at a whisker under 2.5-tonnes with eye-watering outputs of 534kW of power and 1000Nm of torque, BMW’s M5 will carry four in complete comfort. We reckon it didn’t affect the 3.5-second 0-100km/h time either.
But this is where things take a turn. You see, in this writer’s eyes, a hybrid car has always been like an Amazon delivery vehicle. Busted bumpers, wheels scratched up to oblivion and piled to the roof with brown cardboard boxes.
It’s the golden retriever of the automotive market, doing what it’s told in complete and utterly boring frugality. There’s also the fact the automotive industry is in a forced flux, with governments pushing change under the veil of environmental responsibility.
Try and source a single non-partial report that proves that going all-electric produces better long-term environmental outcomes, and you’ll understand why we call it a veil too. It’s left the automotive world a complete mess.
There’s the notion of replacing millions of perfectly roadworthy vehicles with new ones that run on batteries, made from materials dug out of the ground, that are manufactured in countries that don’t care about the environment and are powered by coal power plants.
It makes no sense, and this writer is happy to be proven wrong, but please, no reports from car manufacturers, government agencies or environmental groups. The result is legacy brands carrying three lines of vehicles during this transition.
Having to have internal combustion, hybrid and fully electric vehicles comes at a cost and complexity. This article isn’t about environmental protection, nor is it about the challenges that car manufacturers currently face. It’s about cars that blow one’s mind.
BMW’s M5 absolutely obliterated my mental construct around hybrids. What I experienced and loved about the M5 as a plug-in hybrid is that it provides phenomenal performance. Exciting, grin-inducing, toe-curling performance.
The extra power and torque offered by the electric motor, in concert with a performance-biased internal combustion engine, is simply intoxicating. It combines all the aural drama and get up and go, with the ability to improve fuel use when driven carefully.
Hybrid drivetrains in performance cars aren’t a new concept, but they’re usually confined to the upper echelon of the market, in vehicles like the Ferrari F80 or Lamborghini’s new Temerario super sportscar.
Imagine then if a legacy brand, or even a new player, decided to only build cars that were exciting to drive. Stay deep in your dreams for a little bit longer and think about those cars only being available as hybrids.
Models could range from small hatchbacks to SUVs. But with electric motors that are paired with exciting engines and a capable chassis. Think of the SR20DET from Nissan, the F20C from Honda, or even the humble LS1.
They’re all engines that had character and provided excitement. These are archaic now and couldn’t be marketed in today’s environmentally conscious world, but you get the drift. Let’s focus on one of those brands, in this case, Nissan.
Currently struggling and said to have 12-18 months left in them, think about what would happen if they decided to flip the script and only build exciting cars. We’re talking the rebirth of the GT-R as a hybridised performance model, or the Z NISMO in the same guise.
In Australia they’d be taking on the myriad of EV-only Chinese brands, as well as a few that have stepped into the hybrid space (albeit not with performance options). That’s alongside heritage brands like Volvo now planning to opt out of their decision to go fully electric.
The reasons for the backflips are varied but ultimately unclear. It could simply be that people aren’t buying their products, or it could be that the new brands are just able to market cheaper, pushing legacy brand profit margins to the limit.
Or maybe, just maybe, it could be that consumers aren’t purchasing EVs as readily as everyone thought. In the absence of a regulatory backflip, a far cry away in this writer’s humble opinion, someone should hone in on people who are enthusiastic about motoring.
There are quite a number of us. We reckon we could create a car company if money were no object, and create vehicles that had sharp looks, delivered aural excitement and outstanding driving dynamics at a reasonable price. It’s good to dream, isn’t it.
