This was odd, because I hadn’t felt either sensation in years. In this job, you become a bit immune to speed, to the extent that I was perturbed on the road test of the current Porsche 911 Turbo S, during which repeated 2.5sec runs to 60mph weren’t eliciting the speech-stunting excitement I know they once would have.
The teenage me would have found this incomprehensible; I found it a bit sad. The tangential point here is that when it comes to speed, it’s good to safeguard your innocence. Going fast is laugh-out-loud fun in a primal sense, and if an Alpine A110 still feels rapid to you, you’re winning the wider petrolhead game.
Getting back to the main point, the Audi left me gasping for breath in a way that ICE cars simply don’t any more. But why was it so discombobulating and unpleasant despite being not uniquely quick?
I suspect that being a passenger didn’t help, rather than being at the wheel. When you’re in control, 2.8sec to 62mph probably feels like 3.5sec; if you’re not, it feels more like 1.8sec.
The nature of the acceleration is also unrelenting, and this really made the difference. An ICE car hurls you forward then takes a breath to engage second before going again.
Engine speed rising, as well as some shape in the rate of acceleration, gives valuable context to what your cerebellum and vestibular system are logging. It grounds the experience. A near-1000bhp, four-wheel-drive EV is by comparison a form of sensory deprivation.
Interestingly, it was at about 60mph, when second gear would normally arrive but at which point the Audi just kept slogging onwards, that the show reached its zenith, or perhaps its nadir. The cumulative effect seems important. One second of being rammed back into your seat and pinned there is fine.
Two seconds is okay. Three seconds feels like an eternity and was the point at which I started to feel like an ant rapidly circling a plughole, or a waxwork starting to melt. The Audi’s official 0-62mph time, by the way, is 2.5sec.
