Is the ‘Golden Age’ of cars over?

I was talking to some enthusiast friends about what is happening in the world of automobiles. I don’t know if we reached that stage where we started repeating that exhaust “in my time” was better, but… But in my time, I don’t know if they were better, but the cars were more exciting.

What motivated the debate was the sequence of presentations of electric cars from the most varied Chinese manufacturers. All with a lot of technology: they rotate on their own axis, huge entertainment screens, doors that open automatically. But beyond that, there was a “trivialization” of power: models with more than 1,000 hp no longer cause surprise.

“My God in heaven… What an annoying guy! Complaining that the cars have more than 1,000 horsepower”, says one of the three readers of this column.

SEE TOO:

I didn’t complain! I said it trivialized! It’s funny that this climb started about 5 years ago or less. Until recently, it was a herculean effort to achieve powers reasonably lower than these.

But then I get to the point: the coldness of numbers loses meaning when it doesn’t translate into the relationship with the driver or enthusiast. It’s all very sterile, like a video game or simulator. There are, I don’t know, four motors, one on each wheel, all controlled by a computer so that, at the command of the accelerator, it optimizes the response and rockets from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 3 seconds! Wow!

*Applause*

You see, I love electric cars, the immediate delivery of torque, the comfort of running without noise, but this is for a car to be used on a daily basis. As a tool of rationality, not as an object of admiration.

Want an example? last week, Lotus released a video of the Lotus Evija

See the video:

It’s impressive, but – and there’s always a but – it’s not exciting. For me, an epic on this same circuit is the RUF CTR Yellowbird: a man dueling his car with a lot of noise. Compare:

That’s what I’m talking about! If you asked me, do you want an Evija or a Lotus 7? The Lotus 7 without even thinking twice! I don’t want to see cars being treated like smartphones. If we are beginning a new chapter in the history of the automobile industry, then I pretentiously declare the “Golden Age” of the automobile closed!