Electric supercars at Goodwood. Fast… but are they fun?
Huge power, monster torque, record-shattering acceleration and eco credentials. Little wonder established and startup car brands have embraced electrification to propel their unobtanium hypercars.
Yet for all their positives, last weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed brought into sharp focus the entertainment limitation of these machines. Sound. Or lack thereof.
This isn’t a Hold the Front Page moment. Of course battery-powered electric motors aren’t going to sound like a wailing V12.
But for those of us watching the live stream of the world’s most exclusive, exciting and expensive hill climb, it’d take a brave soul to suggest the electrified super/hypercars thrilled in the same way fossil fuel-burning ones did. Take a coffee break and watch the ten minute Goodwood video below and you’ll see my point. There’s some incredible footage.
Emotional noise
These sounds are guilty pleasures indeed in increasingly anti-fossil fuel times. The throaty W16 rumble of a Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport. The screaming naturally-aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six of a Porsche 911 GT3 Touring. Delicious.
Then there’s the Aston Martin Valkyrie’s atmo 746kW V12 Cosworth with 11,000rpm redline (backed up by a 120kW electric motor) – it sounds like a cross between an old F1 car and something from Star Wars. Up next, a Lamborghini SCV12 with eardrum candy lifted directly from the Bathurst 12 Hour. Those downshifts bring aural heaven.
Putting petrol vs. electric aside for a second, yes there’s the pleasing McLaren Elva speedster’s twin-turbo V8 note, but this part is worth watching purely for Kenny Bräck’s otherworldly car control. The man’s insane, in a very exciting way.
While the visuals remain spectacular with the arrival of the EVs, it all goes a bit quiet after that.
There’s the rather bizarre electric GFG Style Kangaroo, penned by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro – the Alfa Romeo 105, VW Golf Mk1 and DMC DeLorean are among his noted works.
The Kangaroo’s an all-wheel-drive carbon fibre EV able to run in Racing mode with a 140mm ground clearance, or, in Off-Road mode, with 260mm of air beneath its sleek body. It offers 360kW from two electric motors, has a 90kWh battery pack and – rather wonderfully – both gullwing doors and scissor doors.
No noise though. Even something this visually arresting seemed a bit tame as it just whooshed rather than roared past.
Fast but silent
A Lotus Evija prototype looked as bedroom wall poster fantastic as expected – a gold and black colour scheme paying subtle homage to the Brit brand’s most evocative livery – but it was hard to appreciate how quick this hypercar was travelling with only a faint zooming noise as it flew past.
Seems like the planned 1968 F1 V8-apeing manufactured sound wasn’t switched on in this instance.
Finally, the Rimac Nevera. Twice the power of an F1 car with 1408kW and a bonkers torque figure of 2360Nm. It claims a 0-100km/h time in 1.97 seconds, and a top speed over 400km/h. This new benchmark for World’s Fastest Car should melt your senses.
But, hmmm. It twitches past – obviously rapidly – with chirping tyres grappling for grip and the sound of the air being rapidly displaced. If you were looking the wrong way, you wouldn’t have known it was coming.
That said, we recognise the Rimac as an electric product, just as we do a Tesla. A silent electric Lotus will take a bit more getting used to.
The fans have their say
Electric hypercar buyers and certainly such brands’ PR teams will tell you the very fact you can move at such velocity in near silence is of huge appeal. It’s a benefit you’re not being deafened by an exotic V12 or some such over your shoulder, they’ll say.
Some of the commenting Goodwood fans disagreed.
“When I see an electric hypercar I remember the 2012 (Maserati) Quattroporte GTS and Alfa (Romeo) 8C sounds, get in a foetal position and cry myself to sleep,” was one gem.
Of the Lotus Evija: “It lacks any emotion: I’d rather have a second-hand Elise.”
“I’d rather go fishing that watch golf carts.”
“It’s sad to imagine a future of silence or of an old PC turning on”
“The Evija and Rimac give you no feeling at all. It’s like watching slot cars.”
“When the electric cars go by, it just makes me sad.”
“Friendly reminder: get rid of the electric cars. People won’t pay for watching something this boring.”
For the Goodwood faithful at least, there’s work to be done to win hearts and minds. And ears.
There is another electric hypercar positive however. Without those pesky screaming exhaust notes, you can at least hear the Goodwood race announcers over the loudspeakers.
When all’s said and done, despite the traditionalists’ protests, it’s an electric car that has proven to have the most speed at the Festival of Speed.
Record time at Goodwood was set in 2019 by Romain Dumas in an electric Volkswagen ID.R: just 39.9 seconds to cover the 1.89km climb.
That was almost two seconds clear of the fastest Formula 1 time, set by Nick Heidfeld in 1999 in a McLaren MP4/13.
You get the feeling if and when the record is next broken, petrol is going to have very little to do with it.
