Latest news with #acceleration
Top Gear
15 hours ago
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Nissan Ariya Driving, Engines & Performance
The 302bhp one has more of a spring in its step, and manages the 0-62mph sprint in 5.7 seconds. It's not going to squeeze the breath from your lungs, but there's significant out-of-corner power and strong A-road overtaking potential. Tractors, beware. Let's start with the cheapest powertrain – small battery, front driven. It means acceleration that's less in absolute terms than, say, a 2.0-litre non-sporty petrol crossover, but the point is – as with any EV – it's always there for you. No waiting for turbo boost or downshifts. So it's adequate unless you're being ambitious up hills. Still, there's good dry road traction even in the FWD version and it resists understeer unless you heave it into a tight bend, where you suddenly feel the Ariya's mass. In faster corners it's got a nice neutral feel. On a motorway it sits stable and true. The steering is progressively weighted in the normal drive mode, and accurate. Sports mode has an inconsistent weighting. Neither has any feel for the tyre grip, but that's par for this kind of car. Nope. As with any other EV, neither max regeneration nor e-pedal will give you any more miles to play with: they're just different ways of accessing the same retardation. Even in coasting mode, pressing the brake pedal starts by giving regen, and then when that's used up it brings the pads onto the discs. The brake pedal is nice and progressive, the regeneration and friction blending seamlessly. You can also switch to e-pedal drive, Nissan's system for upping the regen to the extent you'll come to a full stop without touching the brakes at all. It's relaxing in town, as you don't have to shuffle your foot constantly. The 4WD one is neutral under power, and is more involving to carve through medium-speed corners than most rivals. You can feel each tyre doing its work, as it uses the torque vectoring to quell understeer. Besides, its steering and brakes have less rubbery slack than the class norm. The bigger battery one with four-wheel drive can tow a 1,500kg braked trailer, which is unusual for an EV. Can't imagine what that does to your range, mind. Noted. Is it comfy? The ride is quite like a Qashqai's: fairly taut, with a bit of high frequency spring. It copes well with most undulations, and the tyres are normally quiet. But it doesn't like sharp ridges or potholes. Nissan pioneered Level 2 driver assist (fancy cruise control) with its ProPilot system, and it's fitted as standard on all but the entry-level Engage trim. Works well, keeping the car in lane and following the vehicle in front. New tweaks include capacitive sensors in the steering wheel so it knows your hands are on: no need to give a little 'I'm here' twitch every 15 seconds or so. That's a relief. Indeed. Also the steering assistance is calibrated more naturally: if you're in the middle lane overtaking a truck, it will move slightly to the right to keep further away from the truck. The car will slow down when the navigation knows a sharper curve is coming up. Talking of long journeys the DC intake is a reasonably brisk 130kW, well able to take advantage of rapid chargers. The base car charges at 7kW on home AC or public points, which means flat to full overnight. But you'd never go quite flat. With the bigger battery that will take 13 hours. And anyway the big battery also comes with a 22kW on-board charger, cutting it to about four hours on a public three-phase AC socket, increasingly common in car parks. What about the fast one? Ah, you mean the Ariya Nismo. It's based on the dual motor AWD version of the Ariya, only power is up to 429bhp, an increase of 128 horses. Torque remains the same at 443lb ft but it gets a new 60:40 rear bias, while zero to 62mph is seen off in five seconds flat. The steering and suspension have also been retuned, with a new front stabiliser bar and stiffer springs (by three per cent at the front, 10 at the rear). The brakes remain standard, although the ABS has been recalibrated, which in tandem with the grippier Michelin Pilot Sport EV tyres lowers stopping distances by eight per cent. Those tyres and the extra power give the range a good kicking though – you're down to 261 miles of WLTP here, and we got a disappointing 2.7 mi/kWh out of the car in mild weather, which works out at 235 miles of range. Not much to write home about then? The Nismo doesn't feel noticeably quicker than the regular dual motor Ariya, even in Nismo mode, which it needs to be in to unlock maximum power and the rear bias delivery. Nor does it offer any more dynamic engagement (or any more faux noise), so it's no more rewarding to drive. Hmm. And the ride – already quite firm on the standard car – is simply too harsh for a family crossover. It grips gamely round fast, flowing bends, aided by the fancy torque vectoring system, but it's very sensitive to road surfaces and prone to wheelspin. And you'll be quickly reminded that it's a 2.2-tonne behemoth if you throw it into a corner with too much gusto. At which point not upgrading the brakes feels like an oversight. Honestly, Nismo-Line might have been more apt.
Edmunds
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Edmunds
Our Dodge Charger Daytona EV Had a Curious Case of Unintended Acceleration
There are certain things in my life that I simply expect to work the same every time. Water coming out of my kitchen faucet when I turn it on, for example, or the repetitive banality of a Hallmark holiday movie. A vehicle's accelerator and brake pedals would be on that list, too. Yet disappointingly, Edmunds' all-electric 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona couldn't get that right recently. Let's call this the curious case of a Dodge Charger's unintended acceleration. I'll get into it, but some background first. This Dodge Charger is part of Edmunds' One-Year Road Test fleet. These are vehicles that Edmunds' editorial team drives and lives with for a year (sometimes more), so we can better report on what the ownership experience is actually like. We bought our 670-horsepower Charger for $85,965 a few months ago, and I had been driving it for about a week in late May when the following situation occurred.
CTV News
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- CTV News
Defence suggests Tesla had defect that caused ‘unexpected acceleration' prior to deadly crash
The defence lawyer for a Wasaga Beach man suggested his client's Tesla may have had a defect that unexpectedly caused the vehicle to accelerate.
Car and Driver
06-05-2025
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
Our Tests Show How Battery Percentage Can Affect EV Acceleration
As a battery's state of charge (SOC) decreases, an EV's acceleration times increase, but it varies by make and model. We took three EVs to the track to test how their 60-mph times change at different SOC increments. Among the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Lucid Air, and Rivian R1T we tested, only the Hyundai's 60-mph time was unaffected until its SOC dropped below 20 percent. Welcome to Car and Driver's Testing Hub, where we zoom in on the test numbers. We've been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test here). Pretend for a moment you're testing a 668-hp Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing with a full 17.4-gallon tank of gas. As you do more and more acceleration runs, fuel burns off, making the car lighter and thus slightly quicker. An EV, however, doesn't lose weight as it consumes energy. Electric cars' acceleration times increase as the battery's state of charge (SOC) drops. But some OEMs are better than others at managing this performance slip, so we decided to take three EVs to the track and clock their 60-mph times with a fully charged pack, with 10 percent charge, and at several increments in between. The acceleration degradation we measured isn't necessarily representative of all EVs, but it provides a good picture of how 60-mph times increase as the battery discharges. Car and Driver The test revealed that the 430-hp Lucid Air and the 835-hp Rivian R1T start losing performance immediately. But the Hyundai Ioniq 5 remains consistent until its SOC drops below 20 percent. The Hyundai has a few things working for it. First, making 320 horses generates a fraction of the heat that 835 does, so the battery isn't fighting excessive power-robbing temperatures immediately. Plus, the battery can make 365 horsepower, but the 5's motors request 320 at most, resulting in an EV that can deliver its maximum thrust over the widest SOC range we've measured. Infographic by Nicolas Rapp | Car and Driver 2022 Rivian R1T Quad-Motor Motors: 4 AC | Horsepower: 835 hp | Torque: 908 lb-ft Battery Pack: 128.9 kWh lithium-ion Curb Weight: 7054 lb Fully charged, the R1T hit 60 mph 1.3 seconds quicker than the Ioniq 5 and 1.2 seconds quicker than the Air. That's expected, given the performance upgrade. However, the champion at the start would eventually fall into last place once the battery percentage was low enough, or in this case, at 10 percent. Infographic by Nicholas Rapp | Car and Driver 2024 Lucid Air Pure RWD Motor: 1 AC | Horsepower: 430 hp | Torque: 406 lb-ft Battery Pack: 88.0 kWh lithium-ion Curb Weight: 4652 lb Once the Air drops below a 22 percent state of charge, it cuts its top speed from 127 mph to 92 mph to reduce energy consumption. The only single-motor EV in the test, the Air's acceleration only dropped by 0.3 sec after consuming 60 percent of its battery. A bigger loss of power was detected at the 20 percent mark, where the acceleration to 60 mph slowed to 4.9 seconds. Infographic by Nicholas Rapp | Car and Driver 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SEL AWD Motors: 2 AC | Horsepower: 320 hp | Torque: 446 lb-ft Battery Pack: 77.4 kWh lithium-ion Curb Weight: 4547 lb At a 5 percent charge, the Ioniq 5 was 1.7 seconds quicker than the R1T. With a triple-dog dare on the line, we had to see whether the Ioniq 5 ever limited its top speed. It didn't. Even with 1 percent charge, the Hyundai will go 117 mph. This article originally appeared in the May/June issue of Car and Driver. Austin Irwin Technical Editor Austin Irwin has worked for Car and Driver for over 10 years in various roles. He's steadily worked his way from an entry-level data entry position into driving vehicles for photography and video, and is now reviewing and testing cars. What will he do next? Who knows, but he better be fast.
