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>>And in street racing, and driving fast responsive cars in general, electric is the future.

Street racing is entirely too dangerous and of course illegal. You don't have to race to take part in the street scene, which in that scenario the actual power to weight ratio is somewhat irrelevant in itself. What is relevant to me, personally, is the ambience that surrounds a supercharged radically cammed V8 rumbling down the street. That will give me goosebumps every time. The power is in it's growl, not necessarily it's bite. I don't know how you replicate that in an electric vehicle and I think that feeling transfers to the racetrack as well. I would rather watch a 3-4 second top fuel race rather than a 2-3 second electric car race.

Oh yeah if you ever do happen to catch one of those top fuel events don't miss watching them rebuild the engines and the 'let's make sure it runs' startups. The fumes will cause tears in your eyes and your lungs will hurt but it's as good or better than the actual race.

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ryandrake 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I would rather watch a 3-4 second top fuel race rather than a 2-3 second electric car race.

The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises has always seemed pretty silly to me. Maybe I just don’t get it. Like heat, loud noises are just a sign of inefficiency and energy loss. A car that goes the same speed as another car, but 10dB quieter is objectively better and more efficient at delivering power to the wheels. A car that is both faster and quieter is even better and more impressive. Like a GPU that delivers high performance without getting hot and needing a fan. A noisy car is a worse car.

	▲	ultimafan 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		From an enthusiast point of view, I'd wager that it's more because a lot of the most iconic engine noises are distinctive and recognizable based on model and just general throttle feedback and it's a quirk that gives different cars a lot of personality. Versus electric cars not having that personality quirk to really tell them apart- they're all going to be quite similar in "feel" and responsiveness to the throttle. I think in general for more hands on enthusiasts electric will never really quite take over ICE obsession. From a tinkering standpoint, intricate mechanical systems like engines are far more satisfying to pour your hands over when you're rebuilding or modifying an engine than black box electrical systems that you can't really reasonably work on. The act of replacing a physical, actual part instead of plugging in a laptop to twiddle some abstract values is also more gratifying. It's the same reason I imagine that mechanical watches are pretty much universally preferred by watch collectors and enthusiasts over digital ones. edit: When I think about it more I guess celebrating inefficiencies/nostalgia/the physical aspect of a hobby is not that different anywhere. Like people still collecting vinyl records, or using real CRTs with refurbished consoles instead of emulating, people into collecting physical books / doing their own book bindings instead of switching to digital etc.
	▲	rootusrootus 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises BTW this is a gross generalization. Many of us car enthusiasts, including oldsters like me, love EVs. And if I'm feeling a bit spicy, the fact that I can use 100% of the power without announcing that to the world is exhilarating. I love a big rumbly V8, too, but everything has it's place.

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tzs 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Street racing is entirely too dangerous and of course illegal

Someday I wonder if that will change?

Consider a future where full self driving cars have been perfected, to the point that they are mandatory. Every car on the road is FSDing, and the cars are also all in communication with nearby cars and with a central planning system.

Many humans will still want to drive for fun, and that could be implemented as a mode. In human driving mode the FSD system would still be running but it would be taking driving commands from the human and following them as long as they are safe. Safe in this context means the FSD does not let the car get into any situation where the FSD system won't be able to keep control.

The FSD system could coordinate with other nearby cars and the central system to leave more space around the car in HD mode to allow for slower human reflexes.

Such a system could also implement a street racing mode, where two or more cars in human driving mode could race, again with the FSD coordinating with other cars and the central planner to clear traffic.

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drmpeg 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My mechanic told me the future of racing is hydrogen. You gotta have noise.

	▲	smileysteve 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You really dont though, turbos cut the noise in half in the recent years and it's considerably nicer to watch a race. Recently, the gt3 Porsche cup at an F1 event; you need earplugs for the gt3s 1000' away, but the F1 cars you can have a conversation, not damage your hearing (because of the turbos)