http://www.solidstategroup.com/page/6277/a-review-of-the-new-fangled-petrol-powered-car
Having established a petrol station foothold in Manchester for it's internal
combustion cars, Porsche has brought its formula south, opening several petrol
stations in and around the London area that would, in theory, allow a speedy
petrol-burning road trip between London and Manchester.
But as I discovered on a recent test drive of the company’s high-performance
Panamera S, theory can be trumped by reality especially when traffic piles up
on the M1.
Porsche, the sports car manufacturer with ties all the way back to war torn
Germany, offered a high-performance Panemera S sedan for a trip along the newly
petrolified stretch of the M1. It seemed an ideal bookend to our encouraging
test drive last September on the speed-unrestricted German Autobahn.
The new "Petrol Stations" placed strategically around the M25 and the M1 allow
you to fill up in a matter of minutes, but they do come with some drawbacks.
The car is a technological wonder, but has some serious problems. Forget about
carrying your golf clubs ahead of the cabin. The entire front bay of the car is
taken up by a staggering array of mechanical devices. Slave cylinders, a
gearbox, several fluid containers, fans and fan belts, an enormous radiator and
the piece de resistance, a 4.8 litre piston engine that has been under R+D for
over 80 years, that is made up of hundreds and hundreds of components that have
been machined down to a tolerance that most instruments are unable to measure.
The amount of mechanical technology on the car is mind boggling. Put the key in
the ignition and before you start the engine you can hear petrol and water
pumps firing up.
The compromises continue in the cabin. A huge centre console runs through the
car, transmitting mechanical drive to the rear wheels. Not only is this
physically intrusive, but it does nothing to improve on the efficiency of the
car. In fact, the combustion engine and drive train lose an incredible amount
of energy in the process of burning up the new fangled petrol that drives the
car. Most estimates look at around 82% of the energy consumed by the car being
lost as waste heat, but the inefficiencies do not end there. The gearbox and
drive shafts lose further energy as they do their job.
The net result? A combined fuel economy of just 22.6 MPG. For those of you
having problems getting your head around the mathematics of all this, I'll put
it bluntly. If you want to drive from London to Manchester, it's going to cost
you about £50. One way. That's right, I said 50 pounds, not 50 pence.
All this being said, I have to admit that firing the engine up fills you with a
wonderful sense of power. It spits, gurgles and, when pressed, roars into life,
sounding not unlike an old World War 2 fighter plane. Once you start driving,
the constant noise is quite hard to get used to. As I drove out of London I
quite enjoyed the mechanical delights of the car, but the problems really
started when I hit the M1. Serious delays meant that I was stuck in a long
traffic Jam just outside Watford. I assumed that the engine would cut off and
save the precious fuel that I had just paid for but it didn't! In fact, all I
did was sit in the car, feeling very stupid, as my money burnt away and the
instruments showing engine temperature and oil pressure rose higher and higher.
In front of me I could see the heat haze as the engine bay got hotter and
hotter.
When the engine temperature reached 60% I started to get seriously worried. I
spoke to the Porsche representative and asked them what I should do. They said
this was completely normal, and that at a certain point fans would switch on to
blow air over the radiators. It all seemed very antiquated. True to their word,
I heard the fans start up and watched in bewilderment as my hard earned cash
carried on being, quite literally, burnt around me.
The craziest thing? As I sat there, not moving, the fuel tank read out (showing
me how much petrol I had remaining) was going down! It almost beggared belief!
So there I was, bellowing gasses at all the electric-heads behind me. I started
to think about all the other downsides of the car. All that heat dissipation
racks up some serious costs. Exhaust systems need to be replaced every 20,000
miles. Whenever you brake, forget about all that potential energy that you
could harvest. Huge (and hugely expensive) brake disks and pads soak up the
energy and just burn it up as heat just like the engine. Oil needs replacing,
along with oil filters and spark plugs. And all this after 80 years of research
and development.
All those problems that electric cars suffered decades ago when people worried
about "Range Anxiety" was turned into simple anxiety. Anxiety about the rising
cost of petrol, anxiety about the geo-political problems around the fuel,
anxiety about the thousands of parts that might fail, anxiety about the people
stuck behind me as my fumes flowed straight into their cabins, anxiety about
toxins in the petrol and most importantly anxiety about the effects that
millions of cars would have on the CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Rolling into Manchester, I had dozens of people staring at the car, asking me
about it, quizzing me on how much it costs to run, and what I would do with all
those 20 minute fill-up savings I would accrue using these new petrol stations.
By that point I had made up my mind. This car is madness, and it would need
someone far richer and far madder than me to see any sense in it.
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