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Electric Cars Feel Faster – Here’s Why (Explained)

One of the reasons for the growing interest in electric cars is their ability to accelerate faster than gas cars.

Are you wondering why elerctric cars feel faster than other vehicles?

Keep reading to understand the concept more.

Electric Motor Vs. Combustion Engines

When talking about the fastness of electric vehicles, it’s important to understand how they work compared to engine vehicles. The information would give you a better understanding of why people consider electric cars faster than gas-fuelled vehicles.

In this case, the speed of a car isn’t about its highest speed. It’s about how fast the car can accelerate or break.

People consider EVs faster because they accelerate and break easily.

Electric vehicles work by converting electrical energy into mechanical work.

The process is done by a system of gears or directly to the wheels from a motor or generator. In some cases, like that of electric skateboard motors, alternating current (AC) electricity is also converted to direct current (DC) electricity and used directly in some electric vehicle designs.

Gas-fuel vehicles convert chemical energy (petroleum/natural gas) into mechanical energy. It’s then used to drive a piston and convert that mechanical energy to rotational energy.

The process is considered longer than that of EVs, hence, making the latter faster.

Electric Vehicles Have Optimized Transmissions

The transmission of an electric vehicle is different from the one of an internal combustion engine you are used to in a gas-fuelled car.

An electric car’s transmission system has no shift times, gearing, and gear ratios. These components are designed to deliver peak power, making your vehicle feel faster.

Electric cars come with one gear that adjusts the gearing ratio depending on your driving speed.

The adjustment depends on the car’s transmission mode and how hard the pedal is hit.

The function of the transmission is to connect power from the car’s engine to its wheels.

The gear disconnects the power transmission, enabling the vehicle to sit still.

The process explains why your car will sit still when you engage the neutral or park gear.

A part of the reason why electric cars feel faster is because of reduced torque and horsepower.

The torque from the electric motors is converted to rotating force by the transmission’s planetary gears. These gears connect your wheels to the inner workings of your transmission system.

Torque is a force on the engine, and once it’s converted to a rotating force, your car’s acceleration increases.

Electric Cars Have Efficient Brakes

Did you know that a vehicle’s brake system is important in determining how easily it accelerates or slows down? The more efficient your vehicle brakes, the better it would be to drive it.

The brakes used on electric cars are more efficient than those of gas-fuelled vehicles because they are modulated using regenerative braking.

The regenerative brakes automatically slow down the car when you lift your leg off the gas pedal. When you step on the pedal, the car accelerates again, making it feel faster than gas-fuelled cars.

Electric vehicles have small, efficient, and light brakes.

Therefore, stopping the car or slowing down takes less time than other cars. If a car takes less time to stop, it would feel faster than a car, which would take a long time to stop after pressing the brake pedals.

The efficiency caused by electric car brakes has made them the top priority vehicles for many consumers. Such efficiency means that the car would consume less power.

People are looking for vehicles that save money instead of those with less efficient engines and consume a lot of fuel.

You don’t have to worry about junk brakes when driving an electric car.

The vehicles can decelerate at the high speed they accelerate at. Therefore, you are likely to feel that the car is faster.

Electric Cars Have Better Throttle Control

The power delivered to a car depends on the power used in pushing the gas pedal.

If the gas pedal is pushed at 50%, it will deliver an equivalent force, which means your car will accelerate as expected.

The same case doesn’t apply to gas-fuelled vehicles. When you push down the gas pedal in such a vehicle, many factors come into play regarding the amount of energy produced. For instance, an old car is likely to have less efficient energy.

Therefore, the throttle power would not be equivalent to what you expected while pushing the gas pedal.

However, efficient energy would provide sufficient power to accelerate your vehicle.

When people talk about a car’s efficiency, they focus on its acceleration capabilities. A highly efficient vehicle should have minimal challenges when accelerating.

In this case, the vehicle should respond well to the force on the gas pedal; if it doesn’t, the driver will have minimal throttle control. The situation doesn’t apply to electric vehicles because they make it easy for individuals to control the throttle power.

As a result, the car will feel faster when driven.

The Battery Placement Affects Weight Distribution

Did you know that the weight distribution in a car can affect its acceleration speed?

Electric vehicles are heavier than gas-fuelled cars due to the engine’s weight distribution. Battery packs weigh hundreds of pounds, thus largely affecting the car’s weight. In the case of EVs, the designers have many options on where to place the battery pack.

These designs play an important role in weight distribution, thus affecting the vehicle’s acceleration speed.

Weight distribution in vehicles focuses on how the weight is placed in different car sections.

For instance, in gas-fueled vehicles, the engine is among the heaviest components and is placed on the car’s front section. Putting weight in this area makes the car lean forward. The impact of the unequal weight distribution is that the car becomes difficult to break.

The designers for EVS have a wide range of options regarding weight distribution. Therefore, the heaviest weight is not put in the front section but distributed in different areas.

The design makes it less challenging to break or accelerate the car.

Hence, the driver would get the illusion of a faster vehicle.

Electric Vehicles Lack Gear Shifts

Are you wondering how gear shits can affect a vehicle’s acceleration speed?

Changing gears can add a few seconds to a lap, which would delay the time taken for the vehicle to accelerate.

In this case, the driver has to think of the best fit gear for the situation. Hence, the driver would take a few seconds before achieving the desired speed.

On the other hand, electric vehicles don’t experience delays due to gear shifting.

Though we also have SOME electric cars with a manual gearbox.

These cars have simple transmissions, and the driver would not have to worry about the impact of gear shifting on speed. Hence, the car will feel faster due to its ability to accelerate as soon as you push the pedal.

Since electric cars have fast acceleration it also makes sense that many EVs have lower top speed to make sure people don’t crash their new electric vehicle.

Electric Cars Have a Low Center of Gravity

The center of gravity is important in determining the vehicle’s acceleration capabilities. The lower a vehicle’s center of gravity, the easier it is to accelerate and break.

The concept lies in the wide range of options for electric vehicle designers.

The manufacturers can put the heaviest parts, such as the battery pack of the car, as low as possible to lower the center of gravity.

The design makes the car more efficient at accelerating and breaking, making you feel like a faster car.

A low center of gravity is not applicable in gas-fuelled vehicles.

The combustion engine in the vehicles can only be placed high above the ground. The designers don’t have many options for where to place the vehicle’s heaviest parts. Therefore, the design raises the car’s center of gravity, making it a little challenging to accelerate and break.

While this doesn’t affect the vehicle’s efficiency, driving an electric car would enable you to note the difference.

Acceleration in EVs Depends on the Battery Level

A new electric vehicle is highly efficient in terms of acceleration. However, as the vehicle hits the road for years, its efficiency might be reduced.

However, the difference in efficiency reduction is minimal and might not significantly impact how fast the car feels.

The battery level will also determine the vehicle’s acceleration rate. A battery level of 30% would render the car slower than a 100% level.

However, the difference is just a few seconds; if not keen enough, you’ll not notice the difference. Therefore, this makes electric vehicles feel faster than gas-fuelled vehicles.

Read more here about how fast EV batteries are improving.

EVs Have Instant Power Delivery

When talking about power delivery in vehicles, the concept of ramp-up time is unavoidable.

This time is the period that an engine takes to reach peak power.

A gas-fueled vehicle’s power over time chart would display a large lamp-up time. The information means the engine takes time before delivering full power, affecting the vehicle’s acceleration capabilities.

The main difference between a gas-fuelled engine and a motor is how they deliver power.

The chart of an electric vehicle shows that within a second, the motor can reach peak power. Efficiency is considered instant power delivery and is responsible for making the vehicles feel faster.

A car’s quickness focuses on its ability to accelerate or slow down fast. Therefore, the engine or motor’s ability to deliver power contributes to this factor.

EVs Have a Simple Design

Another major contributing factor to why the electric vehicle feels faster than others is their design.

These vehicles have a simple design whereby the motor has minimal moving parts. These vehicles take time before the engine sends power to the wheels, thus making them slower to accelerate or break.

Therefore, it takes less time to deliver power than other vehicles whose engines have many moving parts.

The designs for electric cars have improved a lot since their introduction to the market.

They are considered superior to gas-fuelled vehicles due to many aspects. Among such aspects are the acceleration and braking capabilities discussed above. EVs are reliable in terms of speed and the reduction of carbon emissions.

These factors make the vehicles highly efficient and a preference for many people.

Its’ demand is expected to grow a lot in the next few years.

Sources

https://www.makeuseof.com/why-are-electric-vehicles-so-fast/

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