Why I was ignorant, foolish and just plain wrong about Electric Vehicles – a former Wheels editor confesses

So, let’s say you’re a huge movie buff and one day you’re stunned to hear that a few radical studios are talking about bringing back the silent film, because apparently all the extra carbon dioxide being exhaled by wheezing actors was a danger to the future of the planet. 

Worse still, eventually, at a much-argued over future point in time, all movies would end up being silent, You can just imagine all the hipsters fully embracing the idea and mumbling into their beards about how whatever is good for the environment is fine by them, can’t you?

Well, personally, this is how I felt, for a long time, about electric vehicles. Yes, they’re still cars, notionally at least, but without the brimstone burbling of engines or the operatic trumpeting of exhaust pipes, surely they’d be just soulless simulacrums actual motoring?

Personally, as a professional motoring journalist with a job to do, I had absolutely no interest in finding out. Not only did I refuse to get excited about Teslas, I deftly managed to avoid ever driving one. Much like silent films, I thought a switch to EVs was a retrograde step, not far from riding horses or jogging everywhere in bare feet while grunting.

At some point, many moons back, I was forced, for work, to drive a Mitusbishi i-MiEV, and was reassuringly disappointed by the whole experience and happy to stick my head back in the sand.

And then a few people I respect at the car bible Wheels magazine, where I used to work, got in my ear about how well Tesla’s Model S had done at their annual Car of the Year testing. Like, staggeringly well. As in, they were genuinely excited about this thing – making noise about the lack of noise, if you will.

Sure, American magazines had already showered Elon Musk’s giant baby with praise, but these were people who I trusted, telling me I had to take this seriously, and so, with some regret and much trepidation, I booked a press car for a week.

I know for a fact that I’m not the only person to have been completely turned around on the whole EV thing by a Tesla, but the Model S truly was a transformative experience for me.

Yes, there were things about it that were disappointing, and even a bit rubbish – like the borrowed switch gear, and panel gaps so large that you’d find families of possums living in them – but all of it was entirely overshadowed by how much fun it was to drive.

Tesla had done an unfeasible job with the dynamics of the car (and building something this good, first time out of the box, for a company trying to take on some of the world’s biggest brands from a standing start, was a staggering effort), but the real benefit, as I’ve now realised, comes from the way EVs accelerate.

There’s something deeply moving, and shallowly exciting, about the way an electric vehicle can provide you with 100 per cent of its torque from, effectively, zero rpm. This is fun from a standing start, of course, hilarious even, but it’s also just so handy everywhere else, all the time, as well.

Having so much instantaneous grunt at your disposal puts the kind of accelerative joy you perviously had to pay Ferrari money for into the hands of the many. Or at least the relatively many.

As good as the obviously sport focused Model S was – the new Model 3, which, lets not forget, looks and feels like a small family sedan, not a Porsche competitor – is even better. The Performance version is stupidly fast, and fast in that very particular EV way. 

I took a slightly older neighbour of mine for a very short drive – she threatened to evacuate her bowels on the spot if I took her any further – and her description sticks with me. “It’s not like a car, it’s not like anything I’ve ever been in, it’s like a space ship, like you’re jumping into hyperspace”.

The suggestion that a Tesla, or any quality EV, is a leap into the future certainly seems apt to me, now that I’m a convert to the idea (so much so that I’m deeply bitter I haven’t driven Porsche’s Taycan yet).

And it’s not just Tesla, of course. I was also most impressed by the original Nissan Leaf, and even more so by the new one. It’s not an excitement machine, but it is a very good city car, and the sense of peace and quiet one gets from silent running feels far more at home in one of these than it does when firing along a twisting back road in a sports EV.

More recently I drove a prototype of Mazda’s new MX-30, a small SUV that’s the company’s first EV, and which deals with one of the other weird things about electric vehicles, all that engine braking you get when you lift off the throttle, in a new and clever way. You can find a review of that car here on our site.

Let’s be clear, however, that I still have issues. Give me the choice between owning that new Taycan and the 997 version of Porsche’s 911 GTS, and I would surely struggle manfully with the options, before going for the petrol-powered classic, with its raspy, rorty soundtrack every time. Probably (I need to drive a Taycan to be sure).

And I will cry when I drive my first entirely silent Ferrari, if that ever happens.

But I’ll admit it, I was wrong to fight against the sensible shift to an EV future, particularly because I believe in and am worried about climate change, and I have children who will have to live with my choices.

I can say, though, that I’m glad those kids of mine will still get to drive cars that are hugely enjoyable, even if they are silent.