The car industry has scored plenty of own goals over the years, but it’s hard to fathom why it’s so comfortable with the idea of pleading forgiveness rather than seeking permission when it comes to electric cars’ acceleration times.
For context, the Mk1 Ford Focus RS took 6.4sec to race from 0-60mph, the Mk2 5.9sec and the Mk3 4.7sec. They were each era-defining hot hatchbacks, and while their legendary status is down to far more than their straight-line pace, I can’t recall anyone arguing that any of them was too slow in a drag race. Yet today the industry is awash with family SUVs (and occasionally hatches) that will comfortably match or beat those numbers.
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As an owner of a Plaid in Europe I'm the first to agree that it's a fast car. But you don't have to drive it that way all the time. It is controllable and you don't have to run it in Plaid all the time. I had an F10 M5 Competition a few years ago which could be way more of a handful (esp. wet) and not a car you could call slow. A Plaid is clean, green comfy and very fast. It doesn't need to be that fast for sure but neither do any of the fossil based super saloons. Or in the UK most other sporty cars. As a hurdle, a Plaid is pretty expensive for now, which is good. Perhaps another question is about 500hp for 60k which is a new EV or pretty much any super saloon second hand. The law is the law anywhere and effectively prohibits usebon most of the 1000+ hp on a public road except in Germany. On a track you can have fun. Too much? Perhaps. But the same applies to fossils if it applies at all.
Performance is a byproduct of battery size which is what yields range, it's all about the C rate. If you're going to fit the large battery for range, you might as well use the performance for marketing purposes.
Hmm, it's a question of controllability. The aforementioned Plaid won't achieve that 0-60 unless set into a mode that requires multiple button presses to reach plus a warm up and suspension adjust time.
It also provides lower rated driving modes such as "Chill mode" which provides lower power and reduced aggressiveness on the accelerator pedal. In addition to that, speed limits can be set on a per user basis so members of your family can be locked into speed limited chill mode and the car will be much slower and easier to handle for the less experienced requiring a PIN to be entered to release full performance.
You don't seem to consider any of these facts relevant enough to your story to write about them yet they show that at least some manufacturers are already taking your point seriously?
No it's 2.3s on winter tyres. Or 2.5 if you don't warm it up.