Steve Cropley: Modified Tesla Model 3 Thrills On Track Car News

This week, Steve raced a Tesla against the clock and said hello to a new car.

Saturday

Good and bad on the electric car front this week.

The best news first: I did much better than expected behind the wheel of a modified twin-engine Tesla Model 3 during a competitive sprint at Abingdon Aerodrome, west of Oxford. If I tell you that I posted the 13th fastest time in a field of 90 cars, you might be impressed. When you hear that my car was the slowest of the four competing Teslas, the achievement will probably sound less than stellar. But there is much more to say, which I will soon incorporate into a full article.

One thing was well and truly proven: these Teslas are dizzyingly fast cars for the short and sharp codes of motorsport. I’ve never driven one as fast as it would before: the experience of coming into the first corner (a tight, bumpy 90-degree straight) at 100 mph will stay with me. People are still pooping in electric motorsport. I wonder why?

Tuesday

The government has scrapped its £1,500 subsidy for buying new electric cars costing less than £32,000, which was so predictable. The incentive was always on borrowed time; motoring organizations and green lobbyists have been preparing to complain for ages, so the complaints now seem depressing.

The logic behind the withdrawal is pretty clear: electric cars are selling like gangbusters, only a few cost less than £32,000 anyway and the Treasury needs the money. But it remains a depressing signal from the government.

His next step will surely be to increase the tax burden on charging. Electric vehicle owners should focus on cheap energy consumption while they can.

Wednesday

Today, a nice ICE interlude. The steering committee is away, so I nabbed his first Mini Cooper S for a quick ride back to London, and it was a real treat. The car rides on long legs, thanks to its relatively big and torquey engine, but it still clears obstacles with ease, not so much because it’s tiny (which it isn’t) but because it’s low , the driver’s seat is exactly between the front and rear wheels, and the steering is precise and quick.

Drive a modern Mini and you think it reminds you of the original car, but if you actually try an edition designed by Sir Alec Issigonis (like I did a while ago) you almost wish you didn’t. have done.

Thursday

For a while, we were a family of two SUVs. My long-term Land Rover Discovery arrived today, but my Dacia Duster hasn’t left yet. Having noticed that the latter has not quite made its term, the nice people of Dacia leave it to us a little longer. Comparing the £20,000 Duster with the £67,000 Disco would be silly. But I expect the pair, working as a kind of tag team, to make the case for the usefulness of SUVs.

Friday

Whisper it, but I’ve recently become a bit more tolerant of caravans, mostly by owning a Volkswagen California motorhome and finding that the people you meet at campsites are friendly and quiet – my two main qualifiers for ideal neighbors .

Having tried RVing once or twice with mixed results, I still wouldn’t willingly tow a big fiberglass box behind my car these days. One of those monster motorhomes doesn’t make sense to me either because one of the main reasons I travel is to enjoy driving and because they’re way too bulky to get into town to take A coffee. So the California keeps its place in our four-car list, although I was seriously shocked the other day to discover that the current British penchant for staycations means that our 68-plater (admittedly with barely 10,000 miles on the odometer) would sell today for the same generous sum we paid in 2018.

And something else…

The famous Pininfarina wind tunnel arrived at the same time as me, and I see that it has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. More relevant is that Pininfarina says that after major upgrades it remains ideal for developing new cars. That’s recycling for you.