drees said:
Keep in mind that the results for these cars are all most likely manual transmissions which require a decent amount of skill and a certain amount of abuse to produce those types of performance figures.
And furthermore, the LEAF cranks out 200+ ft-lbs
at zero RPM. Even fire-breathing hairy-chested cars need to get their revs up a bit before they'd see that kind of torque. I'd bet on the LEAF in 25-foot or 0-20 mph races
.
smkettner said:
For me the deception is midrange acceleration.
TRONZ said:
I would agree that the LEAF is a very easy car to drive quickly around town. It is wonderfully torquey between 15-40.
This is one of the LEAF's characteristics that I thoroughly enjoy. At just about any speed, a stomp yields immediate response, which is exactly the kind of behavior I need when I need to "stomp": to get out of where I am, or get to the spot where I want to/need to be, quickly.
In cars with a manual transmission, that would require a downshift (probably about 1 to 1.5 seconds; yeah, it seems like it should take less than that), unless one is in the habit of keeping the engine in the fat part of the powerband all the time. In cars with automatic transmission, it'd take probably almost a second for the transmission to shift down. Automated manual transmissions, even those with dual clutches, would
probably not be able to downshift instantaneously, especially if one wants a downshift when the transmission controller is predicting an upshift.
I tried to find some 40-60 or 60-80 times but it seems roadandtrack.com and caranddriver.com no longer test for that kind of performance. That information would be highly illuminating.
And finally, this thread's title should probably read "Deceptively
quick?" not "Deceptively fast?". The
LEAF's top speed is in the mid-90s, and it takes a while to get there, so I don't think I would call the LEAF "deceptively fast"!