Midweek Motoring with Gavin D’Souza
Behold the electric car – humanity’s current poster child for a bright future.
The silence it emits as it rolls gently along is symbolic of the guilt-free serenity it brings to the minds of the smug folk who think they are doing you a favour by driving them.
Little does Joe Hippie know, the electric car, along with its precursor, the Hybrid, is just a rushed response to the frantic cry for help which has been echoing across the planet for the past few years.
As we rush, blind with fear into 2011, the technology is still far from feasible and automakers seem to have found it easier to simply make paying customers the trial-and-error test bed (not to mention the funding) for the development process, by essentially selling them prototypes with number plates.
It is genius, really, simply because everybody suddenly feels they are dooming the planet by not owning one.
Infrastructure, safety, production ethics and efficiency, component recycling, truly sustainable range – these are only some of the issues which have not yet fully been resolved by the electric car. But sales are strong nonetheless.
What seems to have happened is manufacturers were forced to silence the crying child that was a panicking human race by waving a shiny gimmick in their face to convince them that everything would be alright.
Thankfully, behind every marketing Iron Curtain sits a team of skilled and dedicated engineers which knows the combustion engine has a long way to go yet.
It has been proven time and time again by the best in the business that modern small-capacity diesel engines are cleaner, more fuel-efficient and more conventional to operate than the best hybrids.
They also let you drive incredible distances between fill-ups, which makes a compelling case against the all-electric vehicle; and that is before you have even considered the cost of buying one.
A classic case in point is the brand new Porsche Cayenne which, aside from its big, thirsty (and popular) petrol engines, offers a diesel and a hybrid as ‘conscience’ models.
While the hybrid system is exceptionally well applied to the Cayenne and will undoubtedly be a success in its main market, the United States (which won’t even get the diesel), most testers agree that the much cheaper oil-burner is a better real world contribution to any rainforest saving endeavour you might want to be a part of.
But hybrids and electrics are now filtering their way down the food chain to everyman brands like Nissan with its Leaf and Honda with its CRZ, but their size and specification are far from proportional to their price.
Trouble is, they have their work cut out for them in the efficiency stakes too, as little cars have little engines, petrol or diesel, which are loaded with little innovations of their own.
As you would expect, much of this ‘innovation’ has come from those persistent perfectionists in Germany, but a few months ago Italy, of all places, may have delivered the solution we were all waiting for.
Fiat has taking downsizing to an all new high (low?) with its Twin-Air engine.
The principle is simple: shrink an engine to as small as can be – in this case 900cc and two cylinders – and apply to it all the world-saving technology that would otherwise be reserved for the more expensive premium fare.
Turbocharging, stop-start, hydraulic tappets, dual-clutch transmission and a host of other tech means the Fiat 500 in which this engine debuts is as powerful (up to 78kW) and fun to drive as the mid-range 1.4-litre model, but miles cleaner and more efficient than even the base model.
To put it into perspective, the Toyota Prius starts at $48k, does 4l/100km and emits 92g/km of CO2 and makes people look at you sideways at traffic lights (admit it).
The Twin-Air puts out the exact same figures but will cost an estimated $29k and will almost guarantee instant and undivided attention from the opposite sex.
Sure, it isn’t the cheapest Cinquecento, but it isn’t the most expensive either. This is guilt-free motoring at its very best.
So why do we persist with these so-called saviours of our generation, if a formula we’ve been familiar with for over a century can offer as much and more?
Maybe we should wait a few more years until they are actually ready.
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