Electric Family Cars Are Becoming Too Powerful. It Might Be Time For A ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’

I know, I know, “gentleman’s agreement” is a gendered term, but it’s a reference to a “bubble era” understanding between Japanese automakers that they would not sell cars with more than 276 advertised horsepower. The point was to avoid a competition in which automakers went back-and-forth trying to one-up one another; “horsepower wars” were a bad thing, some thought. Meanwhile in the U.S., horsepower wars have been raging since day 1, but there has always been a limiting element that has kept figures from getting out of control in a regular consumer vehicle. Now, with electric cars, that element is gone, leading me to wonder if a “gentleman’s agreement” makes sense now more than ever.

Here’s a little background on Japan’s “gentleman’s agreement,” per Car and Driver‘s 2004 article “Japan Dumps 276-hp Pact”:

Since 1989, Japanese automakers have all endorsed—at least on paper—a kind of gentlemen’s agreement that limited their advertised horsepower to 276 on domestically produced vehicles. Their primary goal was to avoid a horsepower war in a country where the maximum speed limit is 62 mph. But in October, Honda officially broke the agreement at its Legend (Acura RL in the U.S.) press conference when it unveiled the model’s 300-hp, 3.5-liter V-6.

For years, it’s been presumed that once an automaker stuck out its neck and ignored the 276-hp mark, the rest would quickly follow. And judging by what’s in the Japanese production pipeline, it looks as if the conventional wisdom was correct.

So the agreement between Japanese automakers didn’t last forever, but the intent was good. Why keep cramming power into cars when 276 is more than enough? Well, cars grew heavier, and safety advancements like stability control and traction control entered the mainstream, making a 300 horsepower Camry safe in the hands of pretty much any Uber driver. So in this case, relaxing that agreement made sense.

Yes, There’s A Horsepower War Already Raging, But Mostly Among Sports Cars

Of course, horsepower wars have continued in the muscle car segment, with Ford Mustang GTs now making 470 horsepower, wreaking havoc on Cars & Coffees everywhere. Also wreaking havoc on every major street in America (especially Detroit)? Dodge Chargers and Challengers. Seriously, Hellcats and Scat Packs and Demons are out of control; I hear them all the time tearing through America’s streets. They’re cheap horsepower, and cheap horsepower yields silliness.

During the research for this article, I found that the State of Texas seized a 1000 horsepower Dodge Challenger Hellcat that had allegedly been “evading law enforcement.” Now the car is being used to catch the badguys:

Anyway, the Mustang and Challenger are not really my concern. They’re sports cars, so them being ridiculously powerful is less of a problem than, say, a Toyota Camry being ridiculously powerful. At least in the case of the Challenger and Mustang, the person behind the wheel consciously chose to drive a sports car, and they hopefully have some level of understanding of what that entails re: their responsibility/the risk involved.

No, the thing I’m worried about is the average car being absurdly fast.

The Technical Obstacles Preventing Powerful ‘Normal Cars’ Is Gone

With internal combustion engines, the risk of this happening has always been fairly low, as there are significant technical obstacles in the way. With ICEs, power and efficiency are, in large part, inversely proportional, meaning throwing a high-horsepower motor into pretty much anything will punish you at the pump. There will never be a 500 horsepower supercharged V6 Honda CR-V, because Honda CR-V owners want at least 30 MPG and long-term durability.

What’s more, making power costs money, especially given modern CO2 regulations. If Honda did decide to jam a 500 horsepower engine into a CR-V, a competitor would offer a vehicle with improved fuel economy for less money, and CR-V sales would tank. A more powerful internal combustion engine requires advanced technology to meet emissions regulations, and it requires increased robustness to handle the stresses. And that all means one thing: $.

But with EVs, these two obstacles don’t exist. A more powerful electric motor doesn’t yield as significant a decrease in overall efficiency, and what’s more, a more powerful motor doesn’t add that much cost, either.

There are inefficiencies associated with a larger motor size, and there are inefficiencies associated with wiring/electronics needs that go along with higher-current output from the battery to a motor, but the cost isn’t as noticeable to the driver as it is with an internal combustion engine vehicle.

It’s for this reason that you see Kia SUVs with 576 horsepower, “hot-hatch” mid-size Hyundai SUVs with 601 horsepower, a Chevy Blazer EV with 557 horsepower, a Tesla Model 3 sedan with 510 horsepower, and I could go on and on. Just this week we said the new 429 horsepower Nissan Ariya Nismo wasn’t powerful enough when compared to the competitive set — and that’s just a midsize crossover! Since when is a 429 horsepower Nissan midsize SUV not powerful enough?

But that’s the world we live in. Power has never been cheaper or more attainable or coupled with as few compromises. And when you pair that power with a lack of a traditional transmission, it can overcome an EV’s curb weight to yield zero to 60mph times that blows the doors off of ICE cars. And that’s a problem.

Just watch how fast that Lotus Eletre in the video above accelerates when I hit the pedal to the floor. It’s absolutely absurd, and the reality is that, if you’re doing 0-60 in 2.95 seconds, your ability to navigate the vehicle with precision, and to react to obstacles, is going to be diminished. It’s just reality.

I’m Not The Only One Concerned

I’m not the only one with concerns about democratized horsepower.

[UPDATE: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety just responded to my inquiry on the subject at hand. Here’s what they sent me:

Yes, the amount of power packed into many new EVs raises safety concerns because we know that higher horsepower often means higher travel speeds. Our past research has found that vehicles with more power are more likely to exceed the speed limit, and this is concerning because higher speeds make a crash more likely and make that crash more severe if it happens. In fact, speed is one of the biggest traffic safety issues in the U.S., implicated in more than 12,000 deaths in 2022. 

Concerns about speed are compounded by the extra weight of these EVs, which often weigh hundreds or thousands of pounds more than similar internal combustion engine vehicles. In a crash, that means the vehicle itself or its crash partner will have to manage that extra energy. 

IIHS sent me this link to explore the aforementioned concerns in more depth -DT]

NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy has voiced her concerns about powerful, heavy EVs, with Arstechnica quoting her in its piece “EVs are getting too heavy and too powerful, safety chief says.” From that article:

On Wednesday, National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy raised the alarm during her keynote speech at this year’s Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting in Washington, DC.

“I’m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and [the] increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles,” she told attendees.

Newsweek also wrote about this topic in its story “Electric Vehicles May Be Too Hazardous for Teen Drivers.” From that piece, which cites a AAA representative:

Even the slowest EVs out-accelerated 43 percent of internal combustion engine (ICE) performance cars.

“Fast-accelerating cars are indeed a risk for novice drivers; they may be more tempted to explore such vehicles’ performance capabilities. This is why AAA recommends for novice drivers a traditional passenger sedan with moderate power, such as a four-cylinder engine or similar,” Dr. William Van Tassel, manager of driver’s training programs at AAA told Newsweek.

“Plus, controlling the throttle of a high-power vehicle can be difficult for drivers of any age; they can end up going much faster than they intended, way beyond a safe speed. One result of the availability of EVs is that we are now also having to teach that if drivers do a lot of fast accelerating they will be out of power soon–don’t want that,” he said.

Even our Stephen Rivers wrote on Carscoops a while back “Are Electric Cars Getting Too Fast For Your Average Driver?” Hop on Reddit, and you’ll see that it’s not just journalists and safety advocates who worry about EVs offering too much speed to the layperson. Here’s a post from Independent_Win_4187:

I think there needs to be some regulation for how fast EVs can go because regular consumers have access to sub 5 second cars and that is scary.

The average Joe wouldn’t even think of getting proper training on how to handle heavy bullets, I predict that over the coming years EV caused vehicular fatalities will rise due to people not being able to control their 3 ton weapons. The F150 lightning can reach 0-60 in 4.0 seconds. That is way too much for a regular person to handle, and it’s a truck.

When the IONIQ 5 and ev6 released. They were piling up in junk yards because people obviously couldn’t control them. That kind of power on the road is not needed for your regular suburban family.

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/04/wrecked-hyundai-ioniq-5s-and-kia-ev6s-have-already-started-piling-up/amp/

Point is, I think the manufacturers are overconfident in the competence of the average driver. It’s only a matter of time until regulations step in, and I’m all for it.

Another solution would be to retrain the population to handle these cars, but that would be more expensive than just stopping at the source. Thing is, they’ve already started rolling out quick.

I love the idea of EVs, I just don’t like the idea of a incompetent user running over innocent people.

There are plenty of folks who completely disagree, with some saying that, historically, performance cost money, and now that it doesn’t, to punish the layperson by limiting their vehicle would be classist.

I kinda get the argument, but at the same time, there’s value in there being some limiting factor — something that prevented insane horsepower from getting into the majority of folks’ hands. It’s a volume thing. As I mentioned before, this limiting factor on ICEs was cost and fuel economy (and also, typically, maintenance costs). If you want lots of power from a gas car in 2024, you have to pay a good amount of money, and you’re going to be punished at the fuel pump. Not so with an EV.

You may wonder why an automaker would even bother with a 600 horsepower commuter car like a Camry, and if I’m honest: It’s possible such a thing will never exist, and this whole article is just me worrying about nothing. But with horsepower costing so little to build and creating so few compromises for a driver, I could see an automaker deciding to make sure its average family sedan has a few more ponies than the Nissan Altima at the dealership across town. Before you know it, it’s possible an 89 year-old is confused, and taps their pedal against the ground, shooting their 5000 pound EV from zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds right toward your rear bumper on a Saturday morning. That’s a scary thought.

Two more things before I conclude here: First, there’s software that can probably alleviate my concerns; you can offer 600 horsepower, but perhaps require one to dig through the menus to get to that particular “max power” setting. Second, I have to mention insurance companies, because even if cost and fuel economy are no longer the regulators of horsepower, and even if there is no “gentleman’s agreement,” the insurance companies are there to be the horsepower regulators, should there be a need. You can bet that, if it’s established that high horsepower EVs in the hands of laypeople are creating a more dangerous roadway, it’s almost a certainty that insurance companies will make it harder for folks to insure 600 horsepower camrys than, say, 300 horsepower ones.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.