Are we headed for a world where petrol is only the fuel of the rich, powering their hypercars and luxury super SUVs? It certainly appears that way. And I don’t like it…
This week the car world achieved a major milestone – the average global price of electric vehicles fell below that of hybrids for the first time. And before too long we’ll see the average price of EVs drop lower than the price of petrol cars.
There’s nothing wrong with that – we’re watching the evolution of the motor car, and a change in buying habits and taste in real time.
What could supercharge this process and fundamentally change what fuel we use, however, is the volatility of petrol prices which have spiked dramatically due to the conflict in the Middle East.
High-end carmakers doubling down on fossil fuel
Covering car news each day is revealing a trend and I’m not too sure I like it. High-performance and luxury car brands are doubling down on their fossil fuel focus, while mainstream brands are pushing the limits to make the most affordable electric cars.
At the start of this year BMW announced it would reverse its decision to pivot away from petrol and return to producing V8 and V12 units due to their customer demands.
Rival brand Mercedes-Benz did the same thing and scrapped its plan to go completely electric by 2030 and dived back into making V8s.
Porsche, too, changed its mind after receiving a walloping from customers who made it very clear that Porsche to them meant power from petrol, not power from the electricity grid.
Lamborghini also did an about face on EVs at the start of this year and went back to petrol, adding a hybrid system but only to make more mumbo.
Yep, Lamborghini replaced its V10 Huracan which made 470kW with the V8 Temerario which makes 588kW plus another 220kW from its electric motors.
Then there’s the mysterious case of Ferrari giving us the breathtaking 12Cilindri with yes a V12, which was closely followed by the even more gorgeous V8 Amalfi, before giving us the all-electric Luce which hurts to look at directly. It’s as if the brand was sending us some kind of message coded in ugliness about being asked to do something against its will.
Of course the super high end brands appear completely unconcerned by prohibitively high petrol prices affecting sales or the climate.
Bugatti announced an end to the reign of its enormous 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 engines in its cars like the Veyron and Chiron, but before we could even think it was going green trumpeted in almost the same breath that it was doing V16s instead.
Which it did with its current Tourbillon hypercar that houses a monstrous 8.3-litre V16 engine. Yes it has a hybrid system with electric motors but it’s not to save fuel, it’s to make more power.
If you were to ask bespoke high performance vehicle maker Hennessey if it had electric cars the response would almost certainly be, “never heard of her.” The brand just unveiled its US spy plane-inspired Blackbird hypercar with a naturally aspirated V8 and positioned it as the kind of vehicle that allows drivers to cover 1300km a day.
Just days ago Aston Martin ran into the room boasting it was delaying its EV plans because it had found a loop hole which meant it could keep making V12s. The loop hole being that the brand had to keep V12 sales under 1000 a year.
The multi-car garage factor
Low volume sales aren’t a worry for brands like these – not when an Aston Martin Vanquish costs more than $700,000. And unlike you and me, that’s not the owner’s only car… it joins a garage with five other cars in it… at least. Yes we’re talking millions of dollars and all petrol-powered.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to work out how we can get into an electric car for less than $40,000 because chaotic fuel prices are hurting us and we’re worried about the future resale value of petrol cars.
I’m also highly concerned about the air that my children breathe and the thought of having a car powered by burning oil that just to drives to shops, school and work sounds more and more preposterous to me. It’s like having kerosene lanterns in every room of your house rather than light bulbs
To be completely clear, though, I love petrol performance cars and detest electric performance ones. Petrol has a place.
My fear is that petrol’s happy place in performance cars will eventually exclude me as the fuel becomes more expensive, rarer and the food of exotic beasts I can’t afford.
So what’s left? There’s the Cupra Leon VZx, Ford Mustang, Honda Civic Type R and Prelude, Hyundai i30N, Mazda MX-5, Nissan Z, Subaru WRX, Toyota GR Yaris and GR Corolla and VW Golf R.
Watch these models closely, because they are the final ‘affordable’ petrol performance cars and they are all now endangered.
Extracted in full from: https://www.examiner.com.au/story/9330952/petrol-cars-will-just-be-for-the-rich/
