Is there a commonly-used (and publicly searchable) car metric to measure how quickly it can accelerate from a standstill to about 30 mph?
I know there are 0-60 times (e.g. https://www.zeroto60times.com/) but what I really want to know is how responsive a car will be for in-town driving at lower speeds, like leaving a stop sign or weaving through low-speed traffic when an opening appears.
What I’m fundamentally wondering is whether there are any gas, hybrid, or plug-in hybrids that can rival battery EVs’ low-end torque in this regard. I know some sportier gas cars can catch up by sustaining high acceleration all the way to 60 mph, but it’s the first second or two that I really care about (the 0 to 20-30 mph part).
I don’t know the answer to your first question, but as to this part, IIRC the Toyota Prius runs solely on the electric motor below about 20 mph, and the gas engine kicks in at higher speeds. So I would guess a Prius would have the same sort of performance as a pure EV at those speeds. Anecdotally, that’s what I’ve observed – when I’m driving my gas powered sporty car and a Prius is next to me at a light, the Prius will usually beat me off the line and out accelerate me up to ~20 mph, then I will catch up to it and pass it.
That’s for the regular hybrid Prius. It’s got enough of a battery to drive around on the electric motor at low speeds for a short time, and then the battery gets recharged by the gas engine and / or regenerative braking.
I would think the PHEV version would run on electricity at all speeds, until the battery is depleted, at which point the gas engine would kick in.
Car and Driver publishes 5-60mph times, which they believe are a more accurate indicator of that “around the town zip” feeling you’re looking for vs. starting from a dead stop.
But to answer your question, nothing is going to be able to compete with the full torque at 0 rpm of an electric motor. This is why so many supercars went to hybrid powertrains even before full electrics were a thing.
eta: A relevant article, albeit one that doesn’t include EV comparisons.
Isn’t that actually the opposite — measuring engine performance from a rolling start vs traction from a dead stop? It’s actually the 0-15 (or even 0 to 5) that I care most about, for the purposes of getting through a stop sign intersection quickly or weaving through stop-and-go traffic or merging from a side street onto a busy arterial. I don’t care what happens from 30-60, which is where the supercars will start to dominate, just what happens long before that. And shaving off the first 0-5 would lose much of that data, I think, no?
I believe that, but are there meaningful differences amongst gas cars (or different hybrid drivetrains) that can do better than others? My old Mazda Protege sedan, for example, felt much zoomier than my Subaru Crosstrek, even though both are ICE cars.
Aha… now that I actually read it, I was wrong about what 0-to-60 and 5-60 mean! It seems the 5-60 times are actually slower because the 0-to-60 times often aren’t from “dead still, engine idling” but race car drivers doing fancy things to “lurch” off the starting line:
[0 to 60 times are] logged by our testing team using either launch control or the driver’s best effort, which can include brake torquing, high-rpm clutch dumps, or clutch-slipping launches on cars equipped with manual transmissions. These runs take technique and a lack of mechanical sympathy; replicating them, if an owner even wanted to, is often not easy.
Rolling starts, meanwhile, happen with the vehicle idling along in first gear before our test driver stomps on the throttle. Represented in our testing data as the 5-to-60-mph time, this test is more representative of real-world acceleration—like going wide-open throttle when the light turns green—than the 60-mph test. The fact that the 5-to-60-mph run is typically slower explains why some cars might not feel quite as rapid in daily driving as the oft-quoted 60-mph number might suggest.
They call the difference between the two “flexibility” and provide a list of the most and least responsive cars.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to find. Thank you!
No answer for you, but want to point out that not all hybrids or plug-ins are alike. The original Chevy volt is a plug in, but the gas generator effectively charges the battery that powers the vehicle (occasionally the gas generator provides a parallel mechanical assist). Simplistically, when the battery has been depleted to a certain level, then it is gas generator >> battery >> engine.
Second point is that all the EV’s and hybrids I’ve driven (half a dozen brands or so) all have a “sport” or some kind of “ludicrous” mode. This setting has a lot more torque and power off the line because not trying to be the most efficient.
My son’s 2012 Chevy Volt is a TON of FUN to drive 0-30. In sport mode, it’s quicker off the line than a boatload of vehicles out there at 5x the price. Plus, the undercarriage battery gives a very low center of gravity. It’s really fun, and I love blowing in the door of something like a Porsche Cayenne.
Any EV configured for kick-butt mode will give every ordinary car and no few hot cars a thrashing from 0-10 and even from 0-30. As well from 20-40 for the pass or lane change, albeit not so definitely.
You don’t need to defeat a Cayenne to be able to drive confidently in small town traffic. But it helps.
I drive a high end performance ICE. I’m often across a 6-lane intersection before the ICE next to me has rolled 3 feet. If the car alongside is an EV and not an econo-box EV and the driver is paying attention, they’re right behind me. Or right ahead of me.
Bottom line: IME any EV driven hard is all you need for your mission. Hell, a manual transmission Jeep Wrangler driven like you mean it is one hell of a 0-45 sports car.
A 4x4 in low range will get you to 30mph frightening fast. But you would never dare go over 30mph in low range. 30mph is probably to fast, but most will do it.
