I drive about 200 hundred cars every year. Some go 0 to 60 in about 6 seconds flat… others take as long as 10 or 12 seconds. Even the slowest of these cars are amazingly fun to drive when you are in the right place and time. As for the fastest? Well they offer sport and convenience, and more opportunities to feel a Baruthian thrust.
There was a time when acceleration truly sucked. The late-70’s to late-80’s was an era laden with double nickels, turbo lag, and enough environmental regulations to make Ralph Nader jump for joy.
Then things changed. A plebian Camry with a mere 91 horsepower back in the Reagan era, now offers 268. The 1995 Dodge Neon completely obliterated the horspower rankings back in its release with 150 horsepower (and a 0 to 60 time in the mid-7’s). That was about double versus the average a decade ago.
In today’s market everything well short of a the defunct Aveo can go pretty fast. Even diesels. Now that we’re at a point where most everything can go ‘pretty fast’, does acceleration have any major importance? I’m sure that tomorrow’s engineers of muscle cars and other performance vehicles will always have an eye on the spec sheet. But what about Hyundais, Camcords, and other mainstream vehicles that are mainly used for commuting?
Should new car reviewers emphasize the interiors and the multimedia features more than ‘acceleration’? Do 0 to 60 times really matter? What says you?
I have said for a long time that any 0-60 time less than around 10 seconds is irrelevant to reasonable driving in North America.
If everyone drove reasonably, I’d agree with you.
As it is, people hog two lanes along Sunset Blvd., due to their utter inability to comprehend how to go around a bend without crossing their lane markers. They play monkey see, monkey do at every traffic light, blindly waiting for the car in front to accelerate before figuring it’s time to contemplate moving themselves; in the process dropping the number of cars getting across on any given green light in at least half. And even the remotest understanding of moving to the right in turnouts on single lane twisty mountain roads, regardless of how many cars pile up behind them, is seemingly washed away (along with any knowledge of anything else, admittedly) in the deluge of publicly funded progressive indoctrination that is the norm these days.
Given that, reasonable drivers are well advised to select cars that allows them to dispatch of their unreasonable inferiors in as little time and distance as possible, leaving the rabble to wallow along in their own muck, without holding up the rest of us.
(Just got home after a battle with the idiots in LA traffic. Mad at the world as usual after such an excursion.)
I guess you haven’t tried to merge from stop sign onramps in eastern Pennsylvania during rush hour?
Or the beltways of DC and Baltimore, or the Lincoln Tunnel viaduct in NJ, or any of the short, inclining merging ramps in many interstates.
@Volt
Had two of those short ramp merges in New Jersey this weekend. While I had enough acceleration, a second’s improvement on my vehicle’s 0-60 time of 8 1/2 seconds would have made it less of an adventure.
I concur with Norm. When you get stuck behind someone who thinks yield means stop on an on-ramp for 202, 30 by-pass or 76 (no climbing lanes here) you’ll be thankful for every second less your car takes to get to highway speeds. And don’t get me started on construction-zone merging.
We also have a number of 2-lane highways popular with truckers as they are the most direct north/south routes in many places. You get a handful of passing opportunities for them and if you don’t have the power to take those opportunities you can find yourself doing 35 mph up a hill behind a convey in a 50mph zone.
So, in eastern Pennsylvania, do people actually try to make it up to freeway speeds before merging? On the south side of Houston, anyway, most people just blindly drive into the rightmost lane going about 40-45 (speed limit is 60-65) and everyone in that lane is forced to jam on their brakes to avoid hitting the merging car. Of course, this is usually fairly irrelevant during rush hour, as everyday, one of the first cars to try this merging procedure ends up getting into an accident and causing freeway gridlock anyway.
0-60 times are irrelevant in this situation as well because usually the jerks merging at 40 are driving something pretty fast, they just refuse to put their foot down.
10 seconds 0-60 is a little gutless for merging onto freeways in the Seattle area around rush hour. 8 seconds is a lot better. Our current cars hit 0-60 in about 6 and 9 seconds.
Ha! Where I live, an eleven horsepower riding lawnmower is all you’d need to manage in rush hour traffic.
In my opinion, if your car can reach 60 in about 9 seconds, you should be able to merge safely pretty much anywhere.
Seattle? You know about those wretched metered on ramp things then. So you finally make it to the freeway, give it gas, and have to promptly stand on the breaks (OK I am still getting used to them) to wait in line for your turn and then have to wait again to get onto the freeway because the freeway is stop start slow… Not much need for power there sadly. My 4 pot mid sized, stick shift sedan is way over powered here. Actually, the truth is that said 4 pot is stock standard with VVT, twin cam, 16 valve and can do 90 MPH in 3rd gear. Needles to say, the car has no problems merging, even in off peak times.
I know about the metered onramps that litter the Puget Sound region, but the ramp I use most frequently isn’t metered and traffic typically moves at 60-70 mph, with rare exceptions. It’s short and uphill, too.
And I’ve had to deal with those NJ ramps driving a 68 Beetle with all of its 60+ horses, some cojones and a little hail Mary.
I agree that anything under 9 to 10 sec 0 to 60 is the acceptable range for most driving in the US today after all in the 60s and 70s any car that could do better than a 9 sec time to 60 was considered a performance car (perhaps not high performance but still performance….)
I still consider myself a driver that enjoys a sporty car but I am quite satisfied with the car I bought back in feb of 2004 a MINI CooperS and after 140000 miles I think I am still seeing sub 7 sec 0 to 60 if I stand on it but more important to me is the total dynamic package… that is what delivers the fun, not just the 0 to 60 time.
Mini’s are awesome!
Agree 100%
I have a ranger with the 3.0 six and a G8 GT. One does 0-60 in to and the other in 5. While the G8 is much more enjoyable to drive, I have never felt that I needed the ranger to accelerate faster. Would it be nice, yes, necessary, no.
My 1955 Studebaker Coupe with V-8 , duals, and 4-barrel carb would do about 10 seconds on a good day. My Genesis approaches half that time. I never felt slow in the Stude, even 56 years ago when I was a hot young fighter pilot.
The big thing I notice is that heaps of power require a sensitive foot when starting off at normal speeds to get a smooth takeoff where in lower powered cars, you can simply put the hammer down without thinking much about it.
A good ESC does wonders. Try driving an SRT8 with RWD and scorching off the light each and every time.
So youv’e had that same Stude for 56 years? Could you email me offlist at dholzman1776@gmail.com?
Pahaska,
Thank you for your service. What did you fly?
BTW, if you look at my Jaguar reviews you’ll see that they map the throttle and transmission to keep things smooth off of idle. I don’t like it because it almost feels like a stumble.
This is a good point. However, When we, the car buyer, want to buy a new car that gets great gas mileage, we will look at a smaller engined car. Now lets consider that 1.2 litre Audi A3 tfsi that is available in Europe. The acceleration time becomes very important now because that is a very small engine. That car does 0-60 in about 12 seconds, not quick, but good enough for the average commute and just look at the gas savings.
That said, when you are stuck in stop start traffic the only difference between you in the sub-compact and the person infront of you in the V6 sedan is that the V6 will use more gas…
Acceleration matters when it’s inadequate, like in a Mercedes 240D or old Volkswagen bus, maybe a Geo Metro. With 0-60 times in the 18 to 20 second range it can make driving frustrating and attempting to overtake genuinely unsafe.
There are no cars on the market that are anything like that anymore. Regular economy cars and entry level family sedans all have well beyond adequate power for normal driving on city streets, so I’d go with no, the difference between them are largely no longer relevant. I guess it matters in the sports cars and muscle cars, but at this point we can classify all the regular passenger vehicles as having more than adequate power, with the differences being irrelevant noise.
0-60 is the wrong measurement. The time you can eke out with a clutch dump or power braked launch with traction control off shows very little about real world responsiveness. C&D’s 5-60, 30-50, 50-70 numbers are a better showing of useable power. 5-30 would be even better.
But by any measurement there’s no arguing with the point that nearly everything is quite fast enough now.
What you’re really buying with a fast commuter isn’t going faster. It’s the refinement of going the same speed without pushing the car.
The comments here are a breath of fresh air. On other car blogs, this question would be met with a chorus of “ARGGGGH! MORE POWWWERRRRR ALWAYS GOOD! HOW DARE YOU EVEN ASK? YOU R NOT AN ENTHOOSIAST!” But here people seem to actually think reasonably about it before they type. Amazing.
As for C&D’s passing times, I agree that they mean more in the real world than 0-60 does, but I’ve always been baffled by their insistence on using top gear for manual transmission cars. Who goes 30-50 in top gear? It’s like asking a house painter how much he would charge to paint your house with a toothbrush. Sure it’s possible, but isn’t there a better way?
“As for C&D’s passing times, I agree that they mean more in the real world than 0-60 does, but I’ve always been baffled by their insistence on using top gear for manual transmission cars.”
Yeah that is pretty silly. Who trained you guys to pass? The EPA? That might work in a torquey V8 but not the way to test a Corolla.
Some places, where a manual is normal, (like the whole of Europe) it’s sometimes nice to know you can pass a car without downshifting. And I agree, most 4 bangers struggle with the 30-50 or 50-70 in top gear. Some German 6 cylinders, or Swedish turbo cars, just love to do that :)
If I am trying to save gas, I will often shift into 5th early.
However on a two lane road I would never pass another vehicle without downshifting at least one cog.
I think it does matter, even in the manual. One of the things I’ve always admired about my dad’s e36 328 was its ability to pass on the highway in top gear without ever downshifting, especially considering its rather modest 2.8 liters and 190 hp. What I think C/D needs to do is modify the procedures when comparing cars with different transmissions (autos vs manual vs CVT) so that the slushbox/CVT’s ability to downshift doesn’t give it an unfair advantage.
I’ve always appreciated C&D’s 5-60 measurement, which I’ve found a much more accurate indicator of how fast a car ‘feels’.
I do think the 0-60 competition has gotten ridiculous lately. I remember reading a recent comparo that described one car as ‘sluggish’ for pulling 0-60 in the high 5-second range. The irony being that many of today’s 6-second cars (think Camry V6) are less fun to drive than several stick-shifted 8-9 second cars from 10 years ago.
It’s like asking a house painter how much he would charge to paint your house with a toothbrush. Sure it’s possible, but isn’t there a better way?
Good line! I’ve always thought that they valued those “top gear acceleration” tests too highly. I downshift when I need to accelerate quickly.
I’ve never been lacking for power in my 0-60 in 7.3 second car, though I’ve lacked traction many times, and most of the time in winter. Are LSDs really that expensive, Mazda?!!!
On the other hand, the 3.3L Pathfinder I had always had plenty of traction but, when loaded up for work, occasionally struggled to get to speed by merge-time on the on-ramps.
It does not matter.
Yes, new car reviewers should stop emphasizing acceleration. The frequency with which most car reviewers pull “underpowered” from their toolbox pisses me off.
Car reviews are always relative to the current competition. Car A is only “underpowered” in relation to B and C.
Yes. Which leads to cars one-upping themselves or the competition in the next iteration, with myopic reviewers happily obliging to the unnecessary hp war.
You know, for all the crap that domestic V8 sleds from the ’70s get. In day-to-day traffic, at least mine is perfectly adequate with a 0-60 time of 10 seconds (’77 Chevelle- 145hp 305 and automatic) There are few times when I want for more power out of the un-touched engine (chasing cars far out of it’s class on a winding road ala M3s)
Even my gutless wonder ’95 Explorer does fine. Even at altitude it’s soggy but still musters a reasonable acceleration rate. I grew up on hairy-chested V8 powered cars, have started looking at four cylinder cars to replace the tired and most ancient Explorer, after finding that even my 2.0 four powered Contour was entertaining enough to drive hard when pressed, but docile enough and tractable enough to be ok in traffic with an automatic.
I guess we’ve reached another nadir of the automotive world.
I’ve learned that I like having the extra power under foot when I needed it. I can get better fuel economy by babying it around town but I need the power when on the interstate and when passing or trying to merge and I appreciate it being there. Although I’ve realized that my feelings of having “inadequate power” usually have to do with a specific rev bands. My old Iron Duke Celebrity and 307 Quadrajet equiped Cutlass ran out of power above about 55mph, which annoyed me. From a stop? Things were good till you hit top gear.
EofD, I agree with you. A great example would be my ProbeGT. Kind of the opposite of your cars, off the line there is no torque at all. Yet once you hit 3500 RPMS, the engine comes on rapidly. So for me, the rolling start rating is much more meaningful than a 0 to 60. Like most posters have said, most cars have more than enough power. Most folks would rather have a couple of extra MPGs instead.
The zero to sixty time is less important to me than the sixty to zero distance. While the former may give bragging rights, the latter may save my life.
+1
The cars are fine, for the most part. Many drivers, though seem to have trouble accelerating.
We have a winner! I am firmly of the opinion that the average American driver cannot find full-throttle with a GPS. Thus the preoccupation with having way more engine than they have any need of, so they can accelerate into traffic at 1/4 throttle.
That is true. The worst example I saw recently was someone in a Hemi 300 who wasn’t pushing the throttle hard coming down the on ramp. Actually slowed way down intead of getting on it and getting ahead of a trucker. Seriously man? Why the heck did you get the V8? That is one of my big pet peeves.
My personal favorite is people who don’t accelerate before merging on to a highway. It’s so much easier merging when you’re going the same speed as traffic. It’s called an acceleration ramp for a reason!
Which is why I’m more interested in 30-60 times and 45-60. In regular driving, the only time I’ll feel a modern, 4-cyl med sized car is inadequate is the on-ramp. Dead stop to 60 is almost a completely irrelevant metric for modern American driving.
Wait, Wait, Wait, You guys mean you aren’t supposed to go 15mph on the on ramp, cut in front of a guy going 65-70 in the right lane and cause a 4 mile traffic back up on the freeway. We need a PSA or something about this because this is something that is just not known here in MI.
Agreed…even I have no idea how many times I find myself talking out loud to the drivers in front of me to go faster. Just today I was on a local divided 6-lane with traffic rolling 5 under the limit (forcing us to catch red light after red light instead of riding the “green wave” you catch by DOING THE FREAKING SPEED LIMIT) and I’m saying “come on, come on” to which my almost-7-year-old daughter replies “uh, the gas is on the right!” I guess I must say that a lot.
My personal favorite is the person who slams on the breaks on the highway shoulder (maybe) and reverses slowly back to the off-ramp they missed because they were too busy palying with their cell phones, eating a cheeseburger, or applying makeup.
Here in Ontario almost by default, the “merger” expects the traffic in the far right lane to move over to the left one lane to let them in. Completely ass-backwards IMO, and I refuse to take part in it. It results in a lot of dirty looks and horn honks directed to me. Now if flow has reduced to a crawl, then I drive differently. I’ll make room for a merger as long as they didn’t accelerate to the end of the merge lane to get ahead of everyone else.
Moving over to make room for merging traffic is just common courtesy in traffic. Doesn’t really happen in typical 401 traffic where all lanes are busy, but on smaller highways many people do move to the (empty) left lane to allow the merging traffic in. I’ll do it myself, too, and I see no reason not to.
On Ontario’s four lane highways the words “driving courtesy” do not exsist. Poorly policed that they are, the 400 series highways are dog, eat, dog.
Oh yeah,you can survive driving a low powered, and slow to respond beast. Pesonally I prefer a few extra cookies,when its needed.
In the Greater Toronto Area, I agree with you. But drive a bit further out, and it’s really a different world. And the same goes for city driving, it’s much more courteous and less aggressive outside the GTA.
Yeah I agree with the courtesy part of the equation. But it has now set a precedent….the merger EXPECTS traffic to move over. So you’re saying that all traffic including trucks should move to the right to allow merging traffic to enter the highway? Doesn’t make any sense at all. The merger has to adjust speed (accel. or decel.) to safely join the flow. Of course that’s assuming that traffic is keeping a proper distance for speed. But I’ll bet this vital manoeuvre isn’t even on a driver’s test.
I agree with BigDuke6. It shouldn’t be made into an expectation. Merging traffic should wait, period. If they don’t want to wait, call municipal or provincial government for a free flow lane.
There was an article on allpar.com (must have been 10 years ago) where a Chrysler engineer was flabergasted by people complaining about how much slower the Dodge/Chrysler/(Plymouth was still around?) was than their Toyota (likely a Camry). Turns out that Toyota did there research and found out that their customers never push the accelerator down more than 50%, so that is where you get WOT. I can’t remember if Chrysler copied them or not.
Personally, from learning to drive on a manual ecobox and a V8 powered battlewagon with a 3-speed slushbox, I have to admit that I don’t think I ever floor an automatic (not that I drive them that often). I wonder what perverse reasoning is behind the typical Toyota driver?
“…I wonder what perverse reasoning is behind the typical Toyota driver?”
A wild guess that I have is that there are a number of drivers out there who think that revving the engine anywhere north of 3,000 will kill it. I don’t want to get into the debate about Toyotas being bland boremobiles, but I’ve noticed this a lot.
A couple weeks ago I went somewhere with my mom and she was accelerating onto the freeway. We made it to the freeway doing 55 mph, rush hour was starting, but we were against traffic luckily. On the way back she was having trouble seeing signs in the dark, due to some old eye injury, and had me drive back. Since I like to try and match prevailing speed when I merge I kicked it down, it being a 2011 Focus auto, and the engine starting screaming, but I was only up to about 4500-5500. I think her car redlines at 6500, but she still gave me the dirtiest look ever because she thought I was killing it.
This is just a guess though. In my own car, I usually rev to 4k, then change gear, getting onto the freeway. I can do 80-90 if I rev higher than that, but it is rarely necessary.
Of course acceleration matters. I am confused that the enthusiast community consists of people who spend most of their time parked in commuter traffic; it does explain the preoccupation with interior “soft touch” plastics and the feel of the dash cover.
Take a road busy enough to be a “highway” but not a limited access expressway — Meridian in Oklahoma City, Central or Louisiana in Albuquerque, M-59 in lots of places in northern Oakland County, US-23 across large parts of Ohio — and try to get out of a driveway. If you cannot accelerate, turn out, and get up to speed — you are going to be sitting there cursing your unrealized fuel savings while you idle waiting for a break or have that F-150 driver tailgate you for another five blocks to teach you a lesson for reducing the flow of traffic by 20mph.
Big stinker in that regard: The previous Hyundai Accent. I had that as a rental too many times. It had a shortage of power, except when it came to torque steer. I think they actually delivered all the usable power on acceleration against the steering column.
Meh. I have driven 114hp Volvo 740 and 940 automatics all over the Northeast, where we have both MANY roads as you describe, and drivers with the aggression levels of a pissed off bull. Nothing like onramps with stop signs at the end of them… Never had a bit of trouble – pull out, plant right foot firmly to floor, and let that might Swedish steed loose. The transmission will upshift at the redline as needed. Anyone coming up astern too fast will just have to brake a bit, poor them. Or hit me, I’m driving an old Volvo and need the money!
Of course the above manuever is certainly that much easier in my BMW 328iT or Volvo 965 with 230 and 201hp respectively. But it is not a problem in the 945. Ditto passing – you only really need a 5mph or so difference to get by another car fairly quickly and safely. The 50-80 zoooom pass is fun, but it is highly unnecessary.
I understand and appreciate the beauty of the 740 as you described; one slight note: from what I can find published, your Volvo 740 auto would have at least a 2 second 0-60 margin over the Hyundai Accent I drove.
I wasn’t thinking of the cars that do as you described — work up to the redline and shift promptly. Everybody is a born-again fan of Hyundai, but I find them to be better on paper than the actual experience. The Honda CR-Z looks under-powered compared to some of the Hyundai offerings on paper, but the CR-Z transmission keeps the engine in the power band, and when I’ve driven them, you can pull off the 65-80 zoom pass without issue. The Hyundais tend to choke with the transmission as you get to the redline and/or have horrible and uncorrected torque steer — “bad old” Hyundais or “new good” sub-Sonata Hyundais.
The raw power number of the engine is fairly useless if you don’t know that the delivery is competent. An acceleration metric — and more metrics the better; break out 0-30, 30-50, 50-60, 60-70, whatever — is far more of a realizable number than knowing if the 120 hp engine vs. 140 hp engine is going to have less parasitic loss or more time in the power band by a better or worse transmission combination.
My late father had the 940 with–I’m guessing–the 114 hp. Slushbox. You could really flog that engine when you had to, and it didn’t complain.
Regarding the question Steve’s asking, I do want some idea of what sort of puissance we’re talking about, and I suppose I want to know a little about what the interior is like, but I don’t give a damn about the multimedia crap. I wish they’d legislate that stuff out of the personal transportation appliance. I AM interested in the details of how the car handles. And what the projected reliability is like.
I don’t know how Volvo used to measure their horsepower, but they can’t possibly have been correct. They are way to fast and use way to much gas to have as little power as they are claiming. Even my ’78 242 with the 90 bhp b19 (2.0 liters really) could easily keep up with traffic, unless going up a long steep hill (it probably weighed 3000lbs), and it revved like a Honda.
Volvos hp rating is spot on. To claim otherwise in Europe would result in some rather impressive fines. The Germans in particular take that sort of thing VERY seriously. Actually, is there anything Germans DON’T take seriously? Humorless bunch, really.
They do “OK” because they have relatively plentiful torque, relatively short gearing, and they are light by modern standards. They are relatively inefficient due to the engine design being older than dirt, the aerodynamics of a brick (heh, heh) and that short gearing. Though they are not terrible, with a light foot I can get high 20’s out of a 940. Call it 25mpg in mixed suburban usage.
Note that in Europe it was possible to get the non-turbo redblock 2.3 with up to 140 or so hp, but in that tune it did not meet our emissions standards. THOSE are rather more fun to drive. If you had a B19 I am sure it was a rev-happy thing. The US-spec B230s are definitely not – they are all done at 5K rpm.
90hp in a ~3000lb car is plenty, given a decent amount of torque. I have no trouble keeping up with traffic in my 77hp/120lb-ft MB300TD after all. I usually leave most traffic for dead at the lights actually, and it will happily run 80mph+ all day long. Or the 62hp Peugeot 504D I had for many years. The Pug had the advantage of a manual transmission, but was a bit undergeared on the highway, I did not like to take it over 75mph.
Volvo engines from he 70’s weren’t to bad to be honest, but 3000 pounds wasn’t considered lightweight in Europe back then either. (not surprising that only Volvos and Mercs were considered safe then either…) The b200/230 series from the 80’s felt a lot slower, and had no throttle response at all, which may have helped mileage though. I once drove a b21 245 too, and that also really surprised me compared to other European cars with similar power to weight figures. I guess gearing matters a lot though, as most German cars are geared more for the Autobahn than for twisting Norwegian mountain roads.
interesting. i have a 2002 v70xc with a t5 turbo and a 5 spd automatic that’s rated at 198 horses. i’ve never come close to flooring it. i have been wondering why so many cars have much higher horsepower ratings. i would much rather have improved gas mileage than more power.
“… to feel a Baruthian thrust.”
Steven, are you qualified to gauge a Baruthian thrust? I’m led to believe they’re reserved for the girls on the hoods of magazine cars.
The comments above are spot on. Most every car I’ve driven within the past ten years has had “enough” power to safely merge (merging and hills being the only time when someone might need more power than usual, I think). I have found that many V6 midsize sedans are now in dangerously over-powered territory. I doubt most people will need 270+ hp in a FWD sedan to merge onto a highway. The issue with power is that it used to be a luxury, but now power is available in even the cheapest cars available. I would say that reviews are more valuable when the reviewer notes whether or not a car is comfortable to drive, such as at cruising highway speeds (high rpm, wind/tire noise, etc), and whether or not it is a smooth commuter. Discussions of power are also interesting when the reviewer compares a particular car to its direct competitors, which makes it easier for the consumer to form an opinion based on their own wants and needs.
Hell yes it matters! If it didn’t matter I wouldn’t be hanging out at an auto enthusiast site. I’d be hanging out at Consumer Reports site talking dish washers. I don’t want or need the multimedia crap. I just want a decent radio and easy to use knobs and buttons, no touch screens and internet crap.
Regarding acceleration times, in my 40+ years of driving; under normal driving condition on public roads I’ve never encountered a situation where 0-60 times were relevant. Of far more value, I feel would be say 30-60 when merging onto a freeway and 55-75 when passing a slower vehicle on a two lane road.
I’ve found them relevant when doing 0-60 tests in rental cars.
On empty country roads, of course.
A car with a 0-60 time of 6 seconds will probably offer a more refined experienced when using 12 seconds to reach 60 mph than would another car with a 0-60 time of 10 seconds. Both cars can reach 60 in 12 seconds, but one of them will have to work a lot harder.
It’s a bit like having a high-wattage home theater system. Mine has about 1,000 watts. I’ll never use the 1,000 watts, of course — run the amp at full power, and it would literally destroy your hearing.
Most of the time, I probably don’t use more than 20 watts. But its sound quality at 20 watts is far better than it would be for a system that has a peak of 50 watts.
It isn’t about hitting the limit, so much as it is about the path that it takes to get there. Acceleration is nice to have, even if you aren’t using 100% of it.
That being said, it takes energy to produce power, and energy production consumes resources. If we want or ultimately need to consume resources, then we’ll probably have to give up some power. Acceleration is a nice-to-have, but it’s not a must-have.
That’s the thing about the Volvo 940. It may not have much power to weight, but it feels a lot more refined than a lot of cars with more power, even when you’re flogging it.
“That being said, it takes energy to produce power, and energy production consumes resources. If we want or ultimately need to consume resources, then we’ll probably have to give up some power. Acceleration is a nice-to-have, but it’s not a must-have.”
It’s a must have for some people. If I’m going to part with $40,000+ of my hard earned money, the car better do more than play music in mp3 format. Do you suggest we ration resources like the nation did in WWII? This is supposed to be a free market. If people are willing to pay for more power, than more power to them. Powerful cars aren’t killing the planet.
It’s a must have for some people.
You’re confusing “want” with “need.” I like power, but I could survive without it. And so could you.
Do you suggest we ration resources like the nation did in WWII?
I didn’t suggest anything. I’m pointing out that resources are limited. If they become so limited that they are hard or expensive to get, then we may find ourselves with no choice.
It’s naive of you to believe that oil is a free market commodity. Much of the world’s oil comes from dictatorships that aren’t exactly friendly to the west. We found out what happened during the 70’s when they decide to make us pay dearly for it. How quickly we forget how vulnerable we are.
You have a 1000 watt home stereo system?
My tube system is putting out 35 watts per channel.. 2 channels baby. I doubt I ever, and I mean ever use much more than 1 watt…
I don’t think you are using anywhere near 20 watts.
*******
I understand the point you are making with comparing watts to HP.. However a well engineered 50 watt stereo is going to have much better sound quality than a piece of junk put together with a 1000 watts of parts scrounged from radio shack.
Thank you for mentioning this. Not the place to get into audio, but low-powered systems work just fine.
My tube system is putting out 35 watts per channel. 2 channels baby.
A home theater isn’t directly comparable to a stereo. For one, the home theater has six, seven or eight channels, including a subwoofer. More wattage is required for the home theater, all things being equal.
But for another, a home theater is optimized for film, not just music. The dynamics of a Hollywood film are usually much greater than they are for music, which is where the wattage is helpful.
(While I can’t claim to be an expert on audio gear, I find tube stereo amps to be the manual transmission diesel station wagons of the audiophile community. But that’s a whole different argument…)
“(While I can’t claim to be an expert on audio gear, I find tube stereo amps to be the manual transmission diesel station wagons of the audiophile community. But that’s a whole different argument…)”
That’s actually sort of funny.
You can’t compare tubes directly to solid state. It is literally like comparing apples to oranges.
Tubes can be pushed a lot harder before distortion gets so bad that all you hear is noise. I believe that is what is known as “headroom”. Whereas with transistors, they can only be pushed a very tiny bit before the sound you want turns to noise.
So because of that, a quality solid state setup literally needs 100s of watts of power on reserve (minus some very notable Yamaha solid state amps from the late 70s and early 80s).
I primarily use my stereo for movies and it has much better sound quality as what you hear at the movie theater.
However, for music for some reason it generally sounds really good for Jazz and just about anything that was recorded with tube based studio equipment from the 60s and 70s. But most music, especially rock music from the 80s is unbearable to listen to on it. The tubes in my gear are like a magnifying glass for the crap solid state recording equipment used in the 1980s.
But take that 80s Metallica or GnR CD and put in a solid state amp and it doesn’t sound too bad..
It could be partly my speakers though. I think they were probably designed for Jazz and Classical.
And I’m not an audiophile. I put those people in the same category as “foodies”
dynasty – you are basically right about the analogue vs. solid state audio issue but your info is a little dated. modern digital amplification is shockingly pure. a company called tripath developed some circuitry that makes almost perfectly linear amplification possible at very low prices. it’s built into all kinds of consumer stuff now.
Safe as milk:
I’ll look into Tripath and see what they are doing.
One thing to keep in mind though, is distortion is not a bad thing. Even a real live piano or guitar being played is distorting.
It just depends on what type of distortion it is. Whether it is even ordered harmonics, or odd ordered harmonics. I.E., 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc, vs 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.
The human ear hears even ordered harmonics as music, whereas odd harmonics are percieved as noise.
While tubes do produce “some” odd harmonics, they primarily produce 2nd and 4ths, which also decay themselves to produce more even harmonics. The result of this is a richer sound.
Transistors primarily produce odd order harmonics.
Real musical instruments produce even harmonics.
I’ll be curious to see if Tripath mentions this or if they will just quote their total distortion as being something like .0000000001 THD or something like that.
Its just the nature of the beast. Unless they have developed a new technology, odd harmonics are inherent to transistors.
But transistors are much less expensive to manufacture. And the really good American and W. European tubes from the 60s and 70s are quickly disappearing.
The dynamics of a Hollywood film are usually much greater than they are for music, which is where the wattage is helpful.
Because somehow films have a greater audio dynamic range than a symphony orchestra, or real life for the matter, has, eh?
Please explain just how the dynamic range of film audio tracks would be any greater than that of real music.
And people think that I’m a know-it-all. Sheesh.
You probably can’t hear the difference between 1% distortion and 0.1% distortion.
Whereas with transistors, they can only be pushed a very tiny bit before the sound you want turns to noise.
Again, not my area of knowledge, but it seems to be me that you’re overselling tubes. Distortion with modern audio equipment equipped with transistors is not an issue, and today’s media (CD’s and DVD’s) have more capacity for dynamic range than do the old vinyl albums.
Please explain just how the dynamic range of film audio tracks would be any greater than that of real music.
A typical feature film can have dynamic range of about 70 db. The range may include low voices and ambient noise at the low end, and effects and a loud score at the high end.
Modern popular music has a typical dynamic range of about 10 db or less. (With the “loudness wars” as of late, that has been reduced even further, because even the “quiet” passages of modern pop records are frequently recorded loud.)
The amp needs to be able to support both the peaks and the lows with a minimum of distortion. The film usually provides more of those to worry about.
And people think that I’m a know-it-all
Trust me. I would never accuse you of knowing too much.
dynasty – i’m a led zeppelin fan so you won’t get any argument from me about the beauty of analog distortion. tripath went out of business but there desgin has been incorporated into most digital amps and probably improved since they folded. a lot of it is junk because people use cheap capacitors, etc. however, there is a cottage industry of small builders and diy types who are devoted to this technology. it’s not for everyone. some people find the sound too cold/crisp but i’ve grown to like it. sorry, back to cars…
Absolutely it matters! but for me ‘off the line’ 0 to 30 performance is more important than 0 to 60, because I utilize that to the max more often…pulling out of parking lots into heavy traffic, making a left across heavy traffic, etc. Acceleration characteristics are important to me too. I hate overly aggressive or weak throttle tip in or any presence of DBW delay from a dead stop.
This is one of the subjects on which my opinion has changed over the years. When I was a newly licensed 16 year old and obsessed with drag racing, my paycheck couldn’t keep up with my desire to tweak whatever piece of crap I owned at the time for quicker quarter mile times. Never mind that the nearest dragstrip was two hours away and since I couldn’t afford a truck and a trailer I was limited on what I could do to a car that had to get me home at the end of the day.
25 years or so later, and with the experience of driving some ridiculously powered cars under my belt, I find the obsession with 0-60 times somewhat irrelevant. In the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to put some miles on Viper SRT/10 coupe and a Mercedes E63 AMG; both cars with north of 500 horsepower. At no time with these vehicles did I have an opportunity to tap into anything remotely approaching full power, because of traffic conditions, weather, fear of getting a ticket, fear of getting fired for getting a ticket, etc.
My daily driver is a Jetta TDI with 90 horsepower and 150 torques (thank you Jeremy Clarkson for removing the whole “pound-feet” versus “foot-pound” conundrum). It isn’t a rocket ship but I can drive way to fast for conditions rather easily in this car. Would I like more power? Sure. Does the (relative) lack of power prevent me from doing what I need to do with my car on a daily basis? Not at all.
It matters, because the time is with a single driver. The time with passengers, luggage and an automatic is considerably slower, and some of us actually want to be at freeway speed when we merge.
There’s also the need for 30-60 acceleration when stuck behind a moron who won’t go faster than 40 because he plans to get off the highway at the next exit, and the right hand lane turns into a trap lane. Acceleration gives drivers a chance to escape safety hazards, including those behind the wheel.
My previous car was a 90-horse VW Passat TDI. Fully loaded with 4 people in the car, pedal to the metal was just about right in those situations – but it means the car had enough power (just), even in that situation. Currently have a 100-horse VW Jetta TDI, and it has no trouble getting out of its own way in those situations.
I also have a Honda CBR125 motorcycle, which has about 13 horsepower, and even that one will keep up with normal traffic. Overtaking on two-lane roads is the only time lack of power is really an issue.
Plenty of us fortysomethings grew up with original-generation Honda Civics with 60 horsepower on a good day, or VW Rabbit diesels with 48 horsepower, and we got around fine back then.
Zero to 60 times are like EPA fuel economy numbers. Use them for comparison, your mileage may vary.
You could break the 7-second barrier in some of the later SVO Mustangs with the turbocharged Pinto engine. Outright horsepower was only slightly less than the V8. But the turbo lag was such that the V8 was by far the more desirable powerplant.
These days we’ve been arguing the merits of the V6 Camaros, Mustangs and Challengers versus the V8’s, especially as the latter two have upgraded their base engines. These sixes put out more power than the V8’s of 10-15 years ago, rev more willingly, are lighter on the nose and give the cars a different character. The V8’s generate better numbers, but are they a better drive?
The same argument went for big-block versus small-block versions of these cars 40 years ago. The 454’s, 429’s and 440’s were faster outright but the LT-1’s, 351 Clevelands and 340’s were the more well-rounded options.
2013 Malibus will be four-cylinder only, as are Sonatas and Regals. The European auto writers have known for years that the best powertrain combo for a given car is not always the most powerful or numerically fastest. Power delivery, refinement and economy also factor in.
Let’s compare two engines with 300 horsepower. One is a 350 cubic inch V8 and the other is a 3.8 V8. The V8 will be the faster, because it’s making it’s power over a wider power band. There are other advantages to V8 architecture other than power figures. One is engine balance. Another is durability.
The conventional; wisdom was the V8 was the better choice.
That OHC V6 will probably outlast the rest of the drivetrain.So if the vehicle is scrapped and crushed at 200,000 miles who cares?
The modern V6 and 4 cylinder turbo drivetrains are way better than they used to be. 200,000miles is no problem.
The question is, better to de-activate cylinders on a V8 or go with a V6 for economy?
Think V6 with active balancing. V8 is dead in mainstream vehicle applications.
The conventional; wisdom was the V8 was the better choice.
That OHC V6 will probably outlast the rest of the drivetrain.So if the vehicle is scrapped and crushed at 200,000 miles who cares?
The modern V6 and 4 cylinder turbo drivetrains are way better than they used to be. 200,000miles is no problem.
Okay, we’re talking about comparative design advantages. Two cylinders makes a major difference in power delivery. Given two engines with the same power, lets say 300 horsepower, the 300 horsepower V8 will be faster than the V6, because it makes it’s power over a broader RPM band. That is a fact.
I have 14 cars. All of them are V8s. Some of them are new, some of them aren’t. Four of them have over 350,000 miles and of those four, none of the engines have been rebuilt. When it comes time to rebuild these engines, the rebuild will not nearly be as expensive as a complex V6 or four cylinder turbocharged engine. That is also a fact.
Some people like to keep their cars forever. If you want power, durability, reliability, longevity you can’t beat a V8 (or I6 or V12).
V6s are needlessly complex, inherently unbalanced and, needlessly expensive. You won’t find this person building one.
The foremost advantage of a v6 is that it’s compact for it’s torque. And that’s more or less it. I still love them though :P They don’t have to be complex though. My Ford Cologne 2.8 is nowhere near as complex as most semi-modern 4 cylinders…
But the 3.8 V8 will probably be lighter so the vehicle will handle better and, with the right transmission, it might even be faster due to the weight savings.
I think it matters as much as multimedia features or a soft-touch dashboard.
Thank god I’m not the only one whop still thinks that way :P
I’m usually happy with a daily driver that uses no longer than 10 seconds on the 0-60 sprint. It’s not the only number that matters (30-50 is a lot more used in regular traffic), but those numbers do say something about how the engine power matches the cars weight. (In most cars with normal gearing, 0-60 in 10 seconds usually means 10kg(22lbs)/1hp )
I don’t know about you guys, but about the only time I touch my dash is when I clean the dust off it! If it’s soft touch or hard plastic makes no difference to me, as long as it doesn’t squeak or buzz.
I accidentally touched the dash in my Honda before buying it, and was kinda disappointed, compared to the 18 year old BMW I was getting rid off, but it occurred to me that I will almost never touch it again…
If you think of acceleration as a vector, then why is it not true the faster you can accelerate the more chance you have to avoid a Do Not Want situation? You can pull out of a bad spot with cornering, braking or standing on the gas. I’ll take all of them, thanks.
Then go find a C4 Corvette, the quintessential numbers hanger. Later LT1 cars could outaccelerate everything short of a Lamborghini, outcorner even those and generate good lap times against far more expensive cars.
Only problem is the car beat up your kidneys with its ride, tortured your ears with squeaks and rattles and abused your other senses with its cheap interior.
Race cars don’t make good road cars. They’re too much work to drive. Engine, brakes and suspension matter, but they have to be part of a complete package.
Or take an LT1 Impala with a little heads an cam work and 400 horsepower. Then you don’t “beat up your kidneys”. In the right hands, fast cars make safer cars.
This is why I love my Dodge Magnum R/T as a long-distance highway cruiser. It has comfy seats and the top end audio system. On a smooth stretch of asphalt it feels like flying. As a bonus it has enough straight-line acceleration to easily dispose of 95% of the other vehicles on the road.
Nah, it’s about how the car feels when accelerating. I’ve owned slow cars that felt fast (83 GTI at 10.8 sec 0-60), and fast cars that felt slow (08 R32 at 5.4 sec 0-60), and all kinds of stuff in between. Real life conditions almost never allow one to use a car’s acceleration properties fully, but the perception of speed is a much stronger factor towards an owner’s enjoyment. Need to accelerate onto a short freeway on-ramp, or pass a slow truck on a winding two lane country road? That’s when you really need some power, but those times are few and far between. For enthusiasts, how a car feels makes a huge difference. It’s influenced by the car’s weight, its gearing, how much or little sound deadening it has, and how trashy the engine sounds at high RPM. I could probably destroy a Mini Cooper S with a V6 Accord, but where’s the fun in that?
Nah, it’s about how the car feels when accelerating.
+1.
I get to deal with short on-ramps daily during my commute to work, so the times I need a fair bit of power are fairly regular.
Well color me surprised. I thought I would check back in on this post and find a bunch of people throwing internet tomatoes at me for my initial comment. On the contrary, I find that a whole lot of people with an interest in automobiles see this issue in a way similar to mine.
Thanks for the surprise!
Seeing the Hayward exit sign brings back memories of the days when we cruised the streets of San Leandro & Hayward in our jacked up Mopars.
Today, I agree with most here that acceleration is adequate enough to be a none-issue in modern vehicles. Everyone has their comfort zone for power, and in today’s market, you can find vehicles in every category that will satisfy your needs. Technology solved the problems of the 80’s, and many showroom stock cars can do a faster quarter mile than my highly modified Mopars. We live in interesting times when you can take acceleration for granted.
High end acceleration is a selling point, but, in America, it’s useless because:
PEOPLE HERE AREN’T TAUGHT TO DRIVE A CAR.
I don’t mean to “operate” a car, I mean “to drive”.
The worst thing about owning cars as fast as mine is not knowing what the dummy in the car ahead is doing on a cellphone/fixing their hair/doing makeup, etc and not knowing when they will switch lanes or if they will use signals to notify me in time. Not to mention dummies who hog the fast lane.
Not to mention the insecurity of being so fast that Grandma up front won’t even see me coming when she gets rear ended by Chrysler/Benz muscle.
I so wish I could live in a country with roads and people as sophisticated as Germany.
Start riding a motorcycle and your complaints about having to account for drivers in your fast car are going to seem petty by comparison.
+1. I bet if you took everyone out of their cage and put them on a motorcycle you would see a lot better behavior on the roads.
When I lived in China, I had a Motorcycle. One of your typical “chinese drivers” nearly hit me and caused me to fracture my ankle. I was on my back in my PuXi apartment for a month before my ligaments healed.
I promised myself – NEVER AGAIN.
From now on, all my commuting will be done in nothing less than a luxo barge.
Germany’s car culture is completely different. Also, enforcement of traffic laws in Germany is more focused on dangerous driving than (our tendency of) revenue trolling.
And any safety focused crackdown in the US directed against those with horrific driving records (or no licenses) would face some very unpleasant political realities . There’s a political party in the US that considers ‘personal responsibility’ an alien concept.
I think having power available matters, but is not necessary. Sure, you can safely merge into highway traffic, squirt through gaps in city traffic, and even occasionally overtake someone with a 4 cylinder compact. These tasks are all easier with more power though.
Some ramps are too short to reach the speed of traffic in slower cars. Many drivers seem to take offense to anyone overtaking them and will do their best to make your pass difficult. As already mentioned, you could be waiting a lot longer to turn onto a busy street in a slower car.
Another point already mentioned is refinement. More powerful cars don’t have to work as hard and make better highway cruisers with the engine typically at lower RPMs compared to a less powerful car at the same speed.
There is definitely a point of diminishing returns though. The gas mileage is unfortunate (though not unbearable on the freeway) and traffic, road conditions, and police prevent me from really leveraging the power on even a semi-regular basis. And my car isn’t even that fast compared to things like the latest mustang gt, E92 M3 or even a 335i. Hell, it doesn’t even blow away Camcords.
I like having the power, but my next car is going to be more fuel efficient. I can give up some and still have fun.
I don’t know what it is about me that resents people who speed more than somewhat above the limit or who race ahead to cut into the line when the right lane merges or will illegally go into the bus lane at the red light and then race ahead to get around traffic.
Maybe it’s the competitive side of me that doesn’t like it when others break the law and take needless risks – where I can’t or won’t – to gain an advantage like that.
This is exactly the problem – too many people look at commuting as a competition. I’m not even talking about reckless speeding or illegal use of bus lanes – I see people get annoyed when someone passes them even though it was a legal passing zone and they were driving under the limit.
The only 0-60 context that makes sense to me to test is this:
Rolling start at the bottom of a typical interstate on-ramp with a load of 4 adults (or 2 or 6, depending on the vehicle)), a piece of luggage or two, a full tank of gas, the air-conditioning going full blast, and bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate moving at 80 mph.
These circumstances occur every single day in every big city. IMO very very few cars (almost none, actually) are adequately fast enough to be safe for everyone concerned under those conditions.
For the autopress, cars are toys to be played with. For the rest of us, they’re appliances. In ordinary conditions, all cars built today have more than enough power. My 1973 Saab 99 EMS had plenty of power. On a trip across West Virginia, I found I could climb the steepest hill with half throttle in the car fully loaded. Recently, I came across an original road test and discovered it had a 0-60 time of 12 seconds. The autopress would call that car a dog today.
In today’s horsepower race, what is forgotten is tractability. My 1993 Dodge Caravan with 2.5 liter and 5-speed had 100 horsepower (and 135 torques) but it never felt sluggish or inadequate. That engine, with its long stroke and flat torque curve, pulled like a diesel. It could climb hills in 5th gear without working hard. I would much rather have an engine with less horsepower but more torque, one that doesn’t have to be “on the cam” all the time to get it to move.
No offense, but “torques” is almost as annoying as “hooptie”…I would pay money to have TTAC ban “hooptie”..ugh.
I’m not sure it ever mattered, except to teenage boys. Mr. Lang, how many of your customers floor the pedal and try to light up the tires when they are test driving a car they are thinking of buying? My guess is not many. When I sold cars in the ’80s nobody ever tried a standing start acceleration test. They’d take it on the highway to see if it had some pep for merging, but never 0-60.
At least the 0-60 times has some relevance in the real world at least for comparison with other cars (provided you are looking at numbers from the same source) and getting some idea about acceleration potential. But I still haven’t figured out what the obsession with the quarter mile times are. Why do so many cars magazines, Motorweek and even Consumer Reports seem to report it?
Where in the real world (except Germany) would you be allowed to speed up to 100 mph speeds? Nor would you need to speed up to that extent on any kind of contrived ramp to freeway acceleration. And where does the quarter mile come from? Freeway ramps don’t have any specifications for being a quarter mile or do they?
I tried doing an internet search to find out and the only thing I could find was that it may have something to do with drag racing. But then again why would mainstream media like Motorweek and Consumer Reports think that is relevant? Can someone enlighten me on this?
Like someone else mentioned, I find the 60-0 and 80-0 times to be more important. And I really wish there was some better objective way to quantify handling other than skid pad numbers where everyone uses a different radius and slalom where again they use different setups or CR’s avoidance maneuver. Most car dealers aren’t going to allow you to take the car to some far away twisty hill road and you can’t find all cars at rentals. Sigh …
Quarter mile times are often a better indicator of how fast a car really is.
For example, compact 4 cylinder cars might make it to 60 in what seems like a reasonable amount of time, but don’t have much passing power on the freeway.
Also, gearing can easily impact 0-60 times. Some cars can reach 60 in 2nd gear, while cars with shorter gearing require an extra shift up to 3rd. The car with shorter gearing will suffer a penalty in 0-60 times, even though it may have more usable acceleration.
Quarter mile times mitigate the effects of gearing and can give you a better idea of highway passing power. Obviously you aren’t going to cruise down an American highway at 90 mph+, but it isn’t unusual to want to pass someone blocking the left lane at 65 mph, where traffic would otherwise travel at 70 to 75 mph.
Car and Driver’s 50-70 test would be best for this if not for the insane requirement that manual transmissions are tested in top gear.
+1 on how difficult it is to quantify handling. Besides different testing procedures, tires can make a big difference. Some reviews will make a note of the OE tires and the tire’s impact on the handling tests, but not always. I think it is a subjective thing anyway and reviewers should give up trying to quantify it. I prefer thoughts on how the car handles on real world roads, similar to how Karesh offers an opinion on how his test cars do on the pot holes in Michigan.
I see it two ways. First, I feel overpowered for the road in my manual Civic. 0 to 80 on the highway is a snap after stopping for a toll booth. A light slippery car just snaps to the throttle. On the other hand when I drove an RX7 all I felt was frustration at how little of the engine oomph could be used on the road. All you do is get frustrated at driving like there’s an egg under your right foot. Do people actually enjoy not using their car’s power? Because they know they can any time they want to? No they can’t.
ps Do you guys get a prize for sticking in a Baruthian thrust? Did I do it right, just now?
Power band, power band, power band. It’s where the power IS, not how much is available. Torque available at a low rpm trumps high strung, high horse power every time. One reason I can’t stand Hondas.
I have a harder time driving my friend’s F150 with the 5.4L than my TDI. That thing has more flat spots than Butte, Montana so that you always have to hammer it to do anything. Noisily aggravating.
My Jetta, OTOH comes on like a steam roller. Sure there’s not much headroom, I’m not going to win races with it after 60′, but I’ve got you before that which is all that’s important in an urban scenario. At a 105 hp but 45 mpg who cares?
Acceleration is fun, I’ll grant you that. But it’s paradoxical that the more of it you have, the less time you can spend actually using it. It’s as if you’ve been given the world’s best stereo system, but you can only listen for ten seconds. Or as if you could have the choice of an hour with a lusty and normally attractive woman, or you could enjoy a Playboy playmate for one minute.
If you drive within a normal flow of traffic, faster acceleration times just mean you’ll have to back off sooner to cruising speed. I used to drive a turbo SAAB. I had to drive it using only 1/4 the pedal travel. It’s actually more fun now in my Beetle TDI, all 90 HP of it. I can really floor the thing (turbodiesels need that exercise), push it for all its worth, and by the top of an uphill onramp I’m doing 65. It feels like an achievement, and I don’t think I’d get the same feeling driving a Corvette.
So I don’t share the passion for power that draws folks into car enthusiast mode. I usually choose the smallest engine in the sportiest car I can find. I know I’m missing on drag-race thrills, but unless you own a private track like Clarkson and the lads, you’re going to miss out on that anyway– before or after you get your license revoked.
In 45 years of driving, I have never had driven a vehicle that could not merge safely. Not that there weren’t some I could have chosen (amphibious car, early Beetle, King Midget) that would have struggled to get safely onto a busy freeway, but all cars now can negotiate ramps and reasonable hills with whatever factory hp they come with. It is just that when there is an enormous reserve of power, it feels so aahh! when the vehicle accelerates without effort or noise v. the winding out of a Versa to do the same mundane thing.
“Or as if you could have the choice of an hour with a lusty and normally attractive woman, or you could enjoy a Playboy playmate for one minute.”
…come on, that analogy is big stretch.
Maybe so. My point is, other aspects of performance cars are different, delivering more lasting satisfaction. Good steering feel can make every mile more enjoyable, at any speed. Ditto for a good ride, or comfortable seats. Acceleration takes place, then it’s over. Is it any more fun to drive a ppwerful car when you’re cruising at a steady speed?
Personally, I don’t value acceleration that much. But I might feel differently if I lived and drove in the East. Traffic is heavier, but still fast, and gaps are smaller. Ramps are shorter, wedged into cities. Then there are those mountain roads. It can be a more demanding environment & faster company than what I see in Colorado, where roads are wide, ramps are long sight lines stretch on for miles…
Location plays a large role. Out in the wide-open states, people simply drive slower, and are not as aggressive. I remember reading a comment here recently from someone I believe was from the West coast or Midwest that described having trouble driving in very tight, 80+ MPH, tooth & nail Eastern seaboard rush-hour traffic. This is the only type of driving a lot of people know.
On the highway I very often need to use WOT. Very often. I have a thoroughly modern, average compact car: In third and above, and below 5-6k revs, you’re not going any faster than anyone else unless your foot is firmly on the floor, and that is still no guarantee you’ll match faster traffic.
There are still folks here who just impede traffic without knowing or caring, but the speed differentials can be so great I’d rather be the quicker traffic and spend as little time around any given situation as possible.
***********driving in very tight, 80+ MPH, tooth & nail Eastern seaboard rush-hour traffic. This is the only type of driving a lot of people know***********
I deal with that five day a week. Most times I count on my car’s excellent braking, but there are times when a healthy dose of throttle saved the day. Like when a guy in his Prius was driving in the HOV lane and passed out behind the wheel…crossed the no-cross HOV lines and three additional lanes of traffic jammed with commuters…all at 70…I was happy to have every tool to help me at my disposal…Nobody contacted him…I bought $25 in Lotto tickets when I got off the highway…no, lost that…
No offense directed at anyone, and I’m not referring to any particular person on this blog, but it is my observation that the people who drive the least powerful cars (under 200 horsepower) are the same people who want to tell everyone that they don’t “need” cars with powerful engines.
A powerful engine is a useful tool for avoiding dangerous situations.
My current car has around 200 hp. The new car I am waiting for has well over 300 hp. I can’t say that I need it, or that it’s necessary to have 300+ hp to avoid dangerous situations.
So why am I buying it? Because all the other attributes are right. And 300+ hp is really not necessary, but even I’ll admit that it can be fun at times.
None taken. And you’re quite probably wrong. I could likewise argue that people with 200+ hp think that way to justify their car, but that would be an equal shot in the dark.
I currently drive a 115hp Jetta two point slow manual. I love that thing. With 4 people and their load off a short ramp it screams, but I have never encountered a dangerous situation. I think you need to be somewhat of an innatentive driver to put yourself in a dangerous situation.
On the other hand, I often drive my BIL’s Accord V6, which is quite a beast in comparison. Yeah, nice. Still love my Jetta.
“A powerful engine is a useful tool for avoiding dangerous situations.”
In some situations that is true. And I’ve seen plenty where a powerful engine was the cause of the dangerous situation. Situational awareness and attentive driving are far more powerful tools, IMO.
An idiot with 300hp is a bigger threat than an idiot with 150hp. And as we know, there are PLENTY of idiots out there!
It doesn’t matter.
Until it does.
Then it matters HUGE.
@michalehagerty
That about sums it up.
99% of driving it’s a meaningless number.
the 1% of the time you actually do need it, it’s a huge difference.
The newer cars are so torquey and fast off the line that drivers now accelerate faster from a stop-light than say 20 years ago.
I find that when I drive a stick-shift car that I just about get rear ended during the slight gap between 1-2 upshift when leaving a stop-light.
Other than that I have no problem with my 75 hp Pinto 1600 or 100 hp Audi 5000.
Another factor is how manufacturers set up the drive-by-wire throttle. In some cases a slight press of the gas opens the throttle by a disproportionate amount. This helps to make cars feel even faster than they are.
Same story here pulling away from a light. Driving normally shifting around 3000 rpm, cars behind me always look like they are right on my bumper until I’m almost ready to shift to 3rd. I feel like I have to launch the thing just to get some breathing room.
“I find that when I drive a stick-shift car that I just about get rear ended during the slight gap between 1-2 upshift when leaving a stop-light.”
Glad I’m not the only one experiencing this.
1st to 2nd is the hardest with a manual. With a bit of practice you can get the change smooth and fast. Then, with out all the torque draining indirectness of the slush box you should leave anything automatic behind :-)
I happen to own a V-6 Honda Accord with 240 hp on tap and something like a 6 second 0-60 time. I also have a 1986 X1/9 with maybe 80 hp available and some much longer 0-60 time. Probably well over ten seconds, but I don’t know.
Guess which car is more engaging and entertaining to drive? One of the fun things about the X1/9 is that I can really push the car without getting myself into a ton of trouble. WOT is a routine event on something like an X1/9 and it is a blast! Sure, another 50 hp or so would make the X1/9 even more fun, but there is a point at which enough is enough. Most passenger cars and trucks in the US today are at or beyond the enough point.
John, you are right. Cars like your X19 had relatively low limits by today’s standards, but still offer the attributes you expect in a enthusiast’s ride, just delivered at “7” instead of “11”…as such you can enjoy and explore the limits of your car with a grin on your face. The limits of today’s cars are so high that the speeds needed to give the same “on the edge” feeling means much higher speeds. A driving error or unexpected obstacle in the road now comes with a much higher penalty, which to me saps some of the fun.
Once upon a time on a whitewater river, a kayaker asked a canoeist why he preferred a semi-open boat, with only one paddle blade to control it, instead of the fundamentally superior kayak. “Because I can have the same thrills on Class II water (moderate) that kayakers have on Class IV (very difficult), And when I mess up, it’s only a Class II swim.” That made sense to me…
Living in the mountains, we have found that hill-climbing ability, and the power necessary to pass from 50 to 70 mph on a two-lane road, are the most important performance qualities.
If you visit some of the mountainous areas of Europe (including French and Italian Alps) you’ll see that they easily handle both of those tasks with sub-100 hp cars.
In between Washington and Baltimore, the interstate on-ramps also double as off-ramps, with some shorter than 100 yards for merging.
Couple that with traffic moving roughly 75 mph.
In these situations, you need a car that can accelerate from 25-35 mph to 75 mph in less than 100 yards.
So yes, acceleration matters.
You need a car that can run from 30 to 75 in 4.2 seconds?
I have no idea as to how long my car (or any other car) would take t0 accelerate from 25 mph to 75 mph, although 100 yards seems very short for that (at 50 mph you’ll travel that 100 yards in roughly 4 seconds).
Are you saying cars with ~100 hp are unable to use these ramps?
Unable? No.~100hp is much less than ideal. To the point where it’s dangerous. It matters
Considering how many out-of-staters come to a complete stop 1/3 of the way out onto the on/off ramp… you need the horsepower to launch yourself into traffic.
Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, and other 100~hp cars tend to cause traffic jams and/or accidents because they try and merge into heavy traffic at much less than the speed of traffic.
Heck, on some of the on/off ramps, my 200hp VW GTI is hard pressed to just get up to 65 mph.
My current car is the slowest I’ve ever owned. Non-VTEC Honda D17, with a whopping 116 horsepower. No balls whatsoever. Somehow, though, it manages to get me through my highway commute to work just fine, and it didn’t get me killed back when I had to drive through metro Atlanta on a regular basis.
Sure, I miss the way my old Mustang rocket up to 80 on an onramp, but I don’t miss the way it used to get me speeding tickets.
If you can’t safely merge onto the highway in a modern automobile, stay off the highway. You don’t know how to drive.
I’ve had cars over the almost 40 years I’ve been driving that ranged from 105HP to my present 372(Actually, it’s closer to 400), and I have to say the slower ones have annoyed me to the point where I sold them solely because of their lack of guts. Anything with about 200HP or more has at least been acceptable. I’m a torque junkie, probably because my parents had mostly big block powered cars during the time I grew up, and a couple of my dad’s cars had muscle car engines in them, so engines that have no power off idle are particularly annoying to me.
About 50% of the people I;m behind every night coming to work have no idea how to merge. It doesn’t seem to matter what they drive, from new Camaro SSs, to Nissan Sentras, THE car for morons around here, they seem to be totally terrified or confused as to what to do at the top of the onramp. I was behind a guy tonight in a newer Chrysler 300C, a car with about 370HP, and just as I thought he was going to do, he slowed down as he went up the ramp. There wasn’t anything coming for at least 3/8ths of a mile back, and he still almost stopped when he got to the merge point. I could understand this action a little bit when it’s busy, but when it’s 1130PM, and it’s almost deserted, WTF are doing driving like this?
If you can’t safely merge onto the highway in a modern automobile, stay off the highway. You don’t know how to drive.
Reality check time: the vast majority of merge morons will NEVER take that advice. Those that do (the chronically terrified neurotics, the declining elderly) often self regulate (or stop) driving.
All things being equal, merge morons are probably safer without under powered vehicles.
I own a slightly modified 97′ Mercury Marquis. It’ll do 0-60 in ~8 sec. I never get anywhere near that rate of acceleration. My style is, “I am in coddled isolation, please pass on the left”, as I accelerate to 60 in 20+ seconds.
Sometimes, I get an itch in my crotch, and I take my DR650 to work. 14 tooth countershaft sprocket, 780cc bore cyl, supermoto running gear, and a big port head with web cam and JE high comp piston, it’ll hit 60 in 4 seconds with my ass sitting on the front fender to keep the front wheel down. Every commute is the Isle of Mann TT. Cars are for comfort, bikes are for fun.
Here on Long Island, we have ancient parkways planned by Robert Moses. The on and off ramps are tiny cloverleafs with miniscule acceleration zones. Oftentimes you have to come to a complete stop, then stomp on it to fit into a tiny opening. More power is better in this circumstance, but I would definitely trade more power for properly designed roads and more courteous drivers. When I was in Japan, I noticed the gearing was set up to provide nice acceleration through the lower speed ranges, although the engine size was smaller than the comparable USDM version. Honestly, it felt better, but obviously there was little need for 70 mph speeds.
I looked up the 0-60 times for my car…
2004 Subaru Forester 2.5 XT Turbo 0-60 mph 5.2 Quarter mile 13.6
2007 Subaru Forester 2.5 XT 0-60 mph 5.8 Quarter mile 14.1
2009 Subaru Forester 2.5 XT Limited 0-60 mph 6.6 Quarter mile 15.2
This is sad. I am glad I have a 2004 FXT! I very rarely put the power down, it’s really not a necessary thing.
Hopefully manufacturers put their cars on Weight Watchers with the increased CAFE regulations.
Basically, the makers and we buyers have three choices to meet higher fuel economy goals: lighter cars, small engines or better aerodynamics. My choice would be small engines. To the extent that they’re disappointing, they only disappoint when you’re accelerating. Less weight means less crash safety in multi-car collisions, so I don’t want that as long as the F-250 is a common form of personal transportation. I find extreme streamlining feels confining and harms visibility, so thats out, too.
Each of us are free to make that choice as long as choices are available. I just hope all the manufacturers won’t reduce comfort and safety to feed America’s urge to drag race…
Over here (NL, western Europe) people are obsessed with being the fastest. Working guys leave the office spinning tires on their kids haulers. I never get it, this country is so full traffic wise, 10 miles later you’re braking anyway. Car manufacturers also focus on “sporty driving”, while we have speed cameras all over the place, and traffic jams on Sundays. Currently I drive a 87 MB 300 TD, and I find it’s a little slow in some situations, so I’m getting something more recent soon. Other than that, I think this “look at me, I am faster” attitude doesn’t do anyone any good.
Anyone can fabricate a “need” for additional acceleration by deliberately putting themselves into dangerous situations, like passing one more car before the merge lane runs out, or catapulting their family in front of a speeding Kenworth rather than letting it pass by.
By all means check off the V6 option for your new Camry, or the Hemi for your new Charger. But let’s call it for what it is – fun – and do away with the silly rationalizations.
If you do not agree that it is best to match the speed of the traffic into which you’re merging, we have very different ideas of what constitutes safe driving.
This might not be exactly what you mean; I avoid zooming past three lanes of stopped cars in the merge lane and I try to merge someplace where I’l disrupt the fewest people, but unless traffic is stopped anyway, entering traffic virtually never involves slowing.
That said, I’ll agree you don’t need a Hemi to merge. You’ll get the most enjoyment out of that big engine when there’s no one else around anyway.
Of course drivers should match the speed of highway traffic when merging. My point is that any car can do this, but some drivers make things difficult by trying to pass on the right before merging. They end up running out of lane, and have only themselves – not their car’s acceleration – to blame. More horsepower would only make them more dangerous.
Don1967,
If you believe that all cars currently sold can speed up to the current rate of traffic flow, what say you to this?
—
In between Washington and Baltimore, the interstate on-ramps also double as off-ramps, with some shorter than 100 yards for merging.
Couple that with traffic moving roughly 75 mph.
In these situations, you need a car that can accelerate from 25-35 mph to 75 mph in less than 100 yards.
“…on-ramps double as off-ramps…”
How does this work? I’m used to cloverleaf ramps. Are they the same and my brain isn’t computing?
Here’s a map view from Yahoo maps.
http://maps.yahoo.com/#lat=39.140167221610895&lon=-76.7548817396164&zoom=18&mvt=s&trf=0&q2=Annapolis+Rd%2C+Jessup%2C+MD+20794
My Impala with the 3.4 does just fine and has all the power I’ll ever need. As far as metered highway ramps go, the Corolla we had in LA a few years ago did just fine and the Impala we had out there two months ago did even better.
I have never been much interested in high horsepower, even though all the Chevy SS models available made me salivate constantly. What did I drive? 6 cyl. sticks.
Having all that power is fun for awhile, but soon you have to pay for it with your gas money and insurance money. Now, at my age? Not so much. The insurance on our MX5 is pretty cheap and our total insurance bill for all three cars is very reasonable.
Frank Sinatra nailed it when he sang “youth is wasted on the young”!
IF I had a “normal” commute of 15 – 20 miles in good traffic, I’d trade my Impala on a Camaro convertible immediately! Make it an SS, too!
A “fast” car can get you out of trouble just as well as it can get you into trouble. I always pay very close attention to other vehicles on the highway, doubly so when it’s at night. You never know how much that other person has been drinking, or if they’ve been driving all day without sleep, or anything else. I have seen people drifting back and forth, slowing down and speeding up at random (am I the ONLY person on earth who uses cruise control???), and that kind of erratic driving makes me very uneasy. I don’t want to be near that person. I’ve seen people go from 60MPH up to 70MPH and down to 55MPH all in just a minute or two, with no traffic congestion to warrant such swings. I wait for the right opportunity and get past them as quickly as I can, then go back to cruising speed once I am a comfortable distance in front of them. I do not feel safe near or behind them, at any distance.
In those situations, it is a blessing to be able to get past those unsafe drivers as quickly as possible.
My girlfriend’s truck is the opposite. It’s an old 4-banger Frontier, and its 0-60 is measured in months, not seconds. The times I have to drive it, I honestly do not feel safe because it takes so painfully long to get up to speed. Merging onto a busy highway puts true fear into me when I am driving that truck, whereas I maneuver will full confidence in my car.
I do like the feel of acceleration, but it’s not something I’m always after. I honestly tend to accelerate harder more when not much other traffic is around. I don’t want people thinking I’m trying to race.
Top speed is the measurement that is useless in the real world. In all my life I’ve never driven any faster then about 120 mph because, lets face it, there are almost no places to do it safely. If my car topped out at only 100 mph I’d be fine with that.
However 0-60 is a BIG deal, not only for merging onto the freeway, passing trucks, etc, its just FUN to put the pedal down and feel that rush. Any car that goes 0-60 around 7-8 seconds is fine for most conditions/people but when you can get there in under 6 things can get entertaining. I can’t fathom what supercars that do under 4 are like but I’m sure it would be a blast.
From my experience its really the 20-60 time that matters and that is all about torque. I’ve driven vehicles that range from an 1985 Civic with all of 90 HP (0-60 = 10?) to my current 2003 350Z with 290 HP (0-60 = 5.3) and I’d much rather drive the Z! The Civic was fun but only because it reved quickly, was light and tossable. Now the Z is FUN on a whole different level – with real power and grunt. The problem is once you’ve had a “fast” car its hard to go back to something slower.
Oddly you rarely see mentioned the most important car speed stat: stopping distance. If you can stop even a few feet sooner that could be the difference between a serious crash and a minor fender bender. With all the technology out there you would think manufactures would start a “brake race” but instead its all about HP and MPG.
From my experience its really the 20-60 time that matters and that is all about torque.
Sure, it’s “all about torque”, but that’s only part of the story. Speed and acceleration depends on the rate at which torque is produced. Horsepower is by definition the rate of torque production.
Basically torque = power / rpm (ignoring units for the moment) so at any fixed engine speed you could compare either one and get the same result.
However, when people say things like “it’s all about the torque”, they tend to be looking for fat (or flat) torque curve rather than high peak horsepower. And that does result in very different driveability characteristics.
I agree that it would be nice to see a 60-0 arms race for a change …
Yeah, I’d support the loss of an EPA mpg or two for OE tires that actually have grip.
A crash scenario that unfolds before you is no different from an obstacle course set up to test cars and skill except one isn’t for funsies. A performance car can get out of harm’s way sooner not just by how it accelerates but how it turns and stops. Might be your own bad choices that put you there or Mother Nature in the form of a deer, wolf, tree, boulder, puddle or black ice. A car’s crash rating is always good to know but its ability to avoid collisions is more enticing.
A car’s crash rating is always good to know but its ability to avoid collisions is more enticing.
The accident rate is as high as it is because so many drivers believe nonsense like this.
Most people will use performance in order to overdrive their limits. They use the extra speed to get themselves into trouble, then crash because the handling can’t help them.
The best way to avoid a crash is to avoid having a drive style that makes you crash prone. If you’re tailgating, cutting off other drivers and taking other risks, then you’re just a statistic in the making.
“The best way to avoid a crash is to avoid having a drive style that makes you crash prone”
Driving like an A$$ may make you more accident prone than not and even an Accord can be driven past its limits. Thing is, anyone minding their own business can get called to task when say a simi merges left and puts an innocent driver between a set of tandem axles and a wall. Or say a car spins out, bounces off the K-rail and into an innocent driver’s path. What’s important here, for this dicussion is how quickly and efficiently a car responds to driver inputs. I think sports cars do that best but I could be wrong.
I really believe in most accident situations I wouldn’t react with avoidance maneuvering. I’d probably slam on the brakes in a panic.
There are those commercials where an object suddenly falls out of a truck ahead of the car and the car swerves suddenly around it. Um, yeah, unless there was a lot of time to see and digest what was going on, I think most people would be braking hard, if at all.
“I’d probably slam on the brakes in panic”
First you need to get familiar with your car in a panic situation. Practice at slow speeds at first when no one is around or in empty parking lots in various conditions. Dry, wet, icy. Getting comfortable behind the wheel is what I’m talking about. Comfortable making racing type of maneuvers at a split second notice starts with making them under relaxed conditions then drawing upon what you’ve learned. Don’t be afraid to pick up a book or two on hi performace driving.
That’s where safe following distances, staying focused and reading the road ahead of you comes in handy. It gives you that extra second or two to react.
Denver Mike’s suggestion about a book or two on high performance driving isn’t a bad idea either. Time was, you could count on the editors in Car & Driver (Brock Yates, Csaba Csere, Patrick Bedard) to write about driving technique in their columns…but that’s been a while (Eddie should bring it back…it is Car and DRIVER).
And, if you’ve got the bucks, time at an actual high-performance driving school (Bob Bondurant, Skip Barber) is well worth it.
Steve:
Go to Israel, rent any 1.6 liter car and tell me if it matters, whenever I rent a car there, about twice a year, it always feels as if something is wrong with the car, Mazda 3, Ford Focus, Chevy Cruze, they are all the same, it’s not safe to drive a car with such small engine, acceleration is none existence.
When I come back to the US, I feel much safer in my Mazda 3 2.5L.
When my daughter took karate classes, I always told her that her best bet in case she actually need to use it is to run like hell.
Same as with motorcycles, you need the power to run away from bad situations.
If we’re talking about power and speed… the engine displacement has almost nothing to do with the outcome.
As for daily driving in the USA… my 10 year old Insight has a grand total of one liter and 69 horsepower (but good low end torque thanks to the hybrid powertrain). For 30,000+ miles of city and highway driving it has suited me just fine.
Matters to me. We have two cars that reach 60 MPH in about 5 seconds (G37 is mine, Taurus SHO for the wife). I wouldn’t have it any other way.
it depends.
the last two rental cars I drove were a Yaris and Peugeot 308 eHDi. both automatics.
both claim a similar 0-60 time (about 11 1/2 seconds)
there was a world of difference between the two cars on the highway. where the Yaris struggled, the 308 was fine (nothing like my old saab though!).
i was not comfortable at all in passing situations with the Yaris.
Meh. Just test-drove a Focus SE with sport package and manual tranny. Everything good that Baruth said . . . at least the driving part. I would say that car, which has been tested in the high 7 second range, is adequate . . . for someone who knows how to use a manual transmission and is willing to use it (top gear is for cruising, folks! If you’re too lazy to shift out of top gear to pass at 50, then get an automatic!)
The family truck is a Honda Pilot, which, I believe, tests out in the high 8 second range. For me, that’s about the minimum I’m comfortable with. Slower than that and freeway merging in traffic (of which we have more than our share in The Capital of the Free World) is an adventure and as is passing on a two-lane.
At the other extreme, my Z3 tests out in the high 5 second range. I’ve never, ever felt the need for more acceleration in that car.
So, for me, the answer to Steve’s question is “about 6 or so seconds.” I simply would not pay more to buy an optional engine that produced acceleration faster than the mid-5s.
When do you need it? If you drive in hilly or mountainous country on two-lanes, you need it to pass slow trucks safely. Less so, if you live in a congested metro area, you need it to merge on freeways without having to wait for ever, or cause the traffic you’re merging into to hit their brakes. (It’s never safe to depend on the other guy to do something to avoid a collision. I’m amazed at the commenters here who advocate that in freeway merging.)
When do you not need it? If you live in a metropolitan area without heavy traffic in relatively flat country, say, Des Moines, Iowa.
Really, I think for 99% of the drivers out there, a car that hits 60 in less than 5.5 seconds will get them into more trouble, more quickly than they can deal with it (assuming they’re using the full acceleration performance envelope).
What lots of people are buying is bragging rights.
A far bigger concern that I have is how many of these sub-6 second to 6o cars have brakes that offer the equivalent stopping performance. Many don’t.
For all the people dumping on domestic cars of the 70’s and 80’s my good friends 1979 Olds Cutlass Calais with the anemic 260 V8 was a pleasure to drive all day even at speeds approaching 90 MPH. I never once had to floor it or rev it’s guts out to speed. How is this possible? Some simple low buck under hood tweaks and free hidden HP in the distributor and carb were all it took. Eliminating the spark delay and re-curving the distributor made a huge difference and re-jetting the carb, running a lower temp thermostat and using quality spark plugs put the finishing touches on this classic. Yes in stock form the 0-60 times were about 14-14.3 seconds. Now it takes less than 10 seconds to smoothly get this car up to 60 and the excellent torque curve means you rarely ever have to floor it for a nice surge of power. And this cost him $8.00 for the t-stat and 30 bucks for the plugs for a 4 plus second improvement 0-60. This car proved that you can take one of the most anemic low powered small V8’s of the time and make it into a decent every day driving car with good fuel mileage and passing power. I remember renting several foreign OHC 4 cylinder sedans and finding myself burying the gas pedal to the floor to get any power out of the engine with resulting disappointing mileage as the result.
I don’t even know the 0-60 time for my car, but I’ve never felt worried about it being too slow or not fit for the job. Stoplight derbies are stupid and they seem to be the only place where it matters.
I’ve found that if I try to bolt off the line, or start out quickly in my car, I kill it. I know a lot of this is user error since I’m still new to manuals, but anything approaching sub-10 second 0-60s would draw too much attention for my liking.
The 0-60 time represents the general fun factor of a car for me. I say general because 0-60 in a Jeep SRT may be faster than a cooper S, but the cooper S is really, really fun. For me the more important number is highway passing/power. I used to drive a 2006 Ford Focus and on numerous occasions I would have a lifted truck on my butt at 140km/h on the highway. If I had to brake for any reason I would have been crushed. Since then I have driven a 2004 A6 and now I drive a 2009 A3 3.2 and the power offered by those cars has certainly made my highway driving experience safer. If I am tailgated by someone I can simply mash the throttle and almost instantly put a safe distance between me and mr.tailgater.
Some perspective is needed with regard to an affordable everyman car.
The low HP/low TQ cars mentioned have low weight. Deathtraps to some. Fun to others.
The low HP high TQ cars mentioned have high weight. Safe. Effective. But mundane to some.
The high HP cars with low TQ. Fun weekend type cars with little DD capability. Safety priority is low.
The high HP/high TQ cars start to move out of the affordable range of us penny pinchers rather quickly
Summation:
Different regions will decide acceleration needs.
Politics plays a big part. Some areas of the world place driver safety last, so their light cars can do everything else better.
The buildup of acceleration is just as important as the dissipation of same. If transition is not smooth or equal you have an unbalanced car/situation.
Inattentive drivers will decide acceleration needs. Both mergers and mergerees(?) need to ANTICIPATE developing situations and have escape options lined up.
Politics again. Here in Colorado Springs it was found that 1 out of 4 accidents involved drugs or alcohol. 10 years AGO! As increasing liberties, which could prove deadly for drivers, are normalized… expect many more stupid accidents. Some of which MIGHT be avoided with at least equal acceleration coupled with driver training. Coupled with DWI/DUI offenders not getting a pass from authorities to repeat offend multiple times.
The future will quite possibly allow for some balsa wood concocted car with all enveloping airbag. Until then, I imagine acceleration times will have at least SOME importance.
This weekend I got stuck in city traffic (and then a merge onto a freeway) behind the slowest Accord V6 ever. It was a brand new one, too. Its driver had a 0-60 of at least 20 seconds.
My car does it in ~8 seconds. I would LIKE a bit more speed, but it’d only be for fun.
What is changing for me is how much I pay attention to hp ratings when I read previews or reviews. When a car has more than 300hp, I don’t really care how much it has. 350, 400, 500… it doesn’t really matter to me.
Everyone likes fast acceleration but no-one “needs” it.
Tractor trailers have 0-60 times considerably greater than 10 seconds yet their drivers routinely merge into heavy traffic with a 60-80 foot long (or greater with a tandem or triple) vehicle.
He who “needs” fast acceleration to avoid an accident probably used poor judgment in getting into that situation to begin with.
I don’t think a tractor trailer merging is a reasonable comparison for a personal vehicle. Due to their size, tractor trailers can effectively bully their way onto the highway. People already on the highway see those things and scatter. A tractor trailer depends on cooperation and/or fear from the cars already on the highway – it is definitely not moving with the speed of traffic and seamlessly merging from a clover leaf ramp in the north east.
By contrast, a passenger car instills fear in no one and depending on cooperation from your fellow motorists is a recipe for disaster. Half the time people in the right lane accelerate to make merging all the more difficult for traffic on the ramp. They see it as some kind of competition and allowing another car to merge in front of them somehow hurts their pride. Other drivers are inconsistent, unpredictable, and sometimes even malevolent. The easiest solution is to accelerate quickly and put some distance between you and the pack as quickly as possible.
As you admitted, I don’t think anyone here is arguing that sub 6-second blasts to 60 are necessary for survival. It does make life a lot easier though.
Where exactly are you merging with a tractor trailer in front of you that reaches freeway speeds on the on-ramp? Where I live the trucks merge at 30 to 40 mph, depending on whether they are loaded or not. Traffic is moving at 65 to 75 mph and the rig has a tail of 8 cars behind him on the on-ramp hoping that no one comes up from behind them too quickly.
I agree with the comment that most cars today have sufficient power, its just that no one knows how to tap into it. I bought a 2003 350z in 2003 (Lemans Sunset). The 350z forums were awash with complaints that the car was “too slow” or Nissan lied about the performance of the vehicle. What these commentors did not understand was that the electronic throttle was linearly mapped. In other words, you need 100% throttle to extract 100% power. Everyone was so used to the non-linear throttle response where 100% of your power was provided at 50% of your throttle application.
My LS1’d 240z is a handful. 0-120 is the problem, as the car will do that in the time it takes most drivers (not cars but drivers) to hit freeway speeds. It’s not the cars behind me that is an issue, it’s the rapidly approaching tail lights in front of me.
Don’t forget that not everyone lives in a congested metro region. And not everyone commutes. I work out of my home and go into the city (2 hour drive) once a month for meetings. I have the Pacific Ocean on one side of me but on the other side are miles and miles of excellent open back roads with zero traffic. I bought an AMG not for simply getting from point A to point B, but primarily for personal entertainment purposes.
Real-world performance, not spec sheets, is where it’s at. In American driving conditions, what we need is buckets of torque right from idle, since we hate revving our engines, insist on automatics, and do tons of stop-and-go and variable-speed highway traffic. That calls for diesels or moderate-displacement V6s with variable valve timing.
Smaller turbo motors are the Thing now, but they fall short. Turbo 4s rarely match EPA numbers in real-world driving — witness the dismal observed fuel economy of the Acura and Mazda compact turbo crossovers. And in a full-throttle launch from a dead stop, a small-displacement turbo car with an automatic (hello 1.8 liter VW/Audi) is terrifyingly slow to get underway — until the turbo spools up, you just have a tiny low-compression engine in a big heavy car. Give me a choice between a NA V6 and turbo 4 with the same horsepower rating, and I’ll choose the 6, thank you, EPA highway MPG be damned.
FWIW, the safest I’ve ever felt driving in L.A. was behind the wheel of an Infiniti G37, knowing its vast torrents of ever-ready power could immediately escort me out of the path of any oncoming danger. Maybe available power should be considered a safety feature.
Acceleration is king, to me. Having the extra power to blast out of harms way because of poor judgement (mine or someone else’s) is a big deal. How the vehicle makes it is important too. The above post mentioned the 1.8T VW attached to an automatic. A few times I caught the car flatfooted because it was off boost and in the wrong gear (i.e didn’t totally stop as in a yield, but wouldn’t kick down due to being too fast for lower gear)
I have an Altima with the CVT and 2.5. Pulling out quickly from a dead stop can be a problem because of how long it takes the CVT and slow revving 2.5 to get their act together.