Electric = no driving pleasure?
02/16/2026
In discussions and forum comments, electric cars are often denied the ability to provide driving pleasure. It may be difficult to make a neutral assessment, but of course an electrically powered car can also be fun to drive on winding roads, for example. The immediately available propulsion and the usually abundant torque can make climbing mountain passes very enjoyable. When cornering, an electric car hardly behaves any differently than a modern vehicle with a petrol engine, and in cases of doubt, even more sportily thanks to the usually low center of gravity.
But, and now we come to the important point for many, there is a part of physics missing that can also be part of the driving pleasure. The electric motor cannot replace the intake of mixture, the pounding of the cylinders and the combustion of air and gasoline. Nor can it replace the associated background noise and the much more analog form of power delivery that typically accompanies gear changes.
Those who love the gasoline engine and its noise will certainly have less fun with the electric car. However, we are talking here about a spectrum that is occupied at one end by today's electric car, while the other end begins with the very beginnings of individual motorization. A modern PHEV car, i.e. a car with a hybridized petrol engine and automatic transmission, is probably closer to the electric car than, say, the SS100 of the 1930s. And which car do you think has more driving pleasure potential, the modern petrol engine or the pre-war car? Exactly!
It can be endless fun to drive a 1940s MG TC with a manageable 54 horsepower up a hill, constantly shifting between gears and getting on the brakes early, with the sporty four-cylinder engine in your ear and struggling with the over-directed steering and the rear rigid axle. In comparison, the fun of driving a modern Mercedes-Benz AMG GT or a Porsche 992 is perhaps even smaller, but certainly less adventurous and surprising.
At the end of the day, it's all a question of perspective. What is driving pleasure is defined by the driver and everyone sees it a little differently. That's why we would also say that the "equation" defined above is wrong, even if we would always prefer the pre-war sports car to the modern electric hypercar ...
