The Nissan Leaf and the Honda S2000: A Tale of Two Motors

As we take a closer look at the specifications of these two vehicles, it becomes clear that their power delivery systems are vastly different. The solid line represents horsepower for the Honda S2000, while the red line indicates torque for the Nissan Leaf. This visual representation makes it easy to see where each car's strengths lie.

The Nissan Leaf's torque curve is quite impressive, with a peak of 236 pound-feet right from zero RPM. This means that the electric motor can produce a significant amount of torque even at low speeds, making the Leaf accelerate rapidly from a standstill. The power curve starts to build up gradually, reaching its peak of 147 horsepower around 3300 RPM. However, it's worth noting that this is where the Leaf's acceleration begins to taper off, and it reaches flat power until about 10,000 RPM.

In contrast, the Honda S2000 has a much more linear power delivery. The torque curve builds up steadily, with the car reaching its peak of 265 horsepower around 9,000 RPM. This means that the S2000 can maintain its acceleration throughout a wide range of speeds, making it well-suited for high-speed driving.

One key difference between the two cars is their acceleration characteristics. In city driving scenarios, the Leaf's instant torque makes it the clear winner, allowing it to accelerate rapidly from a standstill and maintain its speed with ease. The S2000, on the other hand, relies on its ability to rev up its engine and dump the clutch to achieve high speeds.

This is where things get interesting. If you're willing to sacrifice your clutch life, you can use this technique to maintain top speed and accelerate faster than the Leaf through 50 miles per hour all the way to 80. However, for normal daily driving, the Leaf's acceleration from a standstill is still hard to beat.

Formula E: A Platform for Electric Cars

The Nissan Leaf's electric powertrain is perfectly suited for Formula E, an e-sports series that features city circuit racing. The tight turns and low top speeds are ideal for cars with instant torque delivery, making the Leaf a natural fit for the series.

In fact, the formulae cars used in Formula E have some impressive acceleration specs. With 200 kilowatts of power available during the race (about 268 horsepower), these cars can hit 62 miles per hour or 100 kilometers per hour in just 2.8 seconds. This is equivalent to the acceleration of a Porsche GT2 RS, which has significantly more horsepower and better power-to-weight ratio.

What's most impressive about Formula E is how it showcases the capabilities of electric motors. These cars are able to accelerate rapidly from a standstill, even when compared to high-performance gasoline-powered cars like the Porsche. This is all thanks to the instant torque delivery of electric motors, which allows them to produce peak power quickly and efficiently.

Conclusion

The Nissan Leaf and Honda S2000 represent two different approaches to power delivery in vehicles. The Leaf's instant torque makes it well-suited for city driving scenarios, while the S2000 relies on its engine's ability to rev up and dump the clutch to achieve high speeds. Formula E, with its focus on city circuit racing, is perfectly suited for cars like the Nissan Leaf.

As we look to the future of electric vehicles, it's clear that instant torque delivery will play a major role in their success. Whether it's in city driving or high-speed racing, electric motors are capable of delivering impressive acceleration and performance.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome to another episode of the five part series where I have teamed up with formula e to talk about electric cars now to my right this is not an electric car this is a 2002 Honda s2000 and to my left is an electric car this is the 2018 Nissan Leaf now both of these vehicles produce power in very different ways and they put that power to the ground in very different ways so in this video we're gonna be looking at what's faster electric torque versus combustion power now the s2000 is producing about 265 horsepower at the wheels and 163 pound-feet of torque at the wheels and this car weighs about 2,900 pounds so it's got about 11 pounds for every horsepower at the wheel now the Nissan Leaf produces a hundred forty-seven horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque so it's got significantly less power but it has significantly more torque but this vehicle weighs about 3,500 pounds meaning about 24 pounds for every horsepower and remember this is power at the motors output rather than at the wheels so the s2000s advantage as far as power-to-weight is concerned is even greater than shown by these ratios but it's more than doubled more than twice as good of a ratio for the s2000 versus the Nissan Leaf okay so now the fun part where we actually do some acceleration runs so what I'm going to be doing to test this we're going to be doing straight-line acceleration from zero miles per hour up to 80 miles per hour and taking measurements every 10 miles per hour and so for the electric car all I'm basically doing is just flooring it very simple process with the s2000 it's a manual transmission I'm not gonna rev it up and dump the clutch for two reasons first of all I want to show the differences between an internal combustion engine and an electric motor and by revving it up you skip half the engines Rev range so I want to show that part to illustrate a point and then also because in the real world you're not going to be dumping the clutch at every stoplight that you get to while you could just floor it in the electric car every time at a stoplight if really wanted to mechanically you're not going to be destroying a clutch like you would be in the s2000 and so we're going to get into these acceleration runs hopefully the s2000 doesn't do too poorly against this kind of you know heavy boring electric car you might say and so it's gonna be an interesting comparison I'm looking forward to seeing how the numbers turn out okay and so first starting with the s2000 an aggressive start but not just dumping the clutch and here we have the Nissan Leaf okay so these results are not entirely intuitive so the s2000 perhaps a bit disappointingly slow but I think even more so the Nissan Leaf is surprisingly quick so looking at the incrementals here 10 20 30 40 through 80 miles per hour the Nissan Leaf is quicker - 10 20 30 40 and 50 miles per hour the s2000 does not overtake it until 60 miles per hour it's then quicker - 70 and 80 and that gap will continue to get wider past 80 miles per hour as the s2000 still making good power in the Nissan Leaf is starting to lose power so a two-second gap there but the Nissan Leaf you know starting off quicker up to 50 miles per hour so if we're to take a look at these two cars curves it's pretty surprising that they're almost identical so here on the bottom we have time here on the Left axis we have speed and you can see you know the Nissan Leaf does better up until about 50 miles per hour and that's where things change and then it will start to develop a gap once you get into those higher speeds past 80 miles per hour you can see that that gap starts to widen there it will continue to get worse for the leaf as it starts to lose power in the s2000 maintains power up in those high rpm now this is pretty interesting because these two cars have very different power-to-weight ratios and so it kind of gives you an idea that you know when looking at an electric car the power-to-weight ratio isn't necessarily going to tell you it's especially its low speed acceleration as you can see it's doing much better than the s2000 here up until about 50 miles per hour and so why is this this is where we're going to get into the torque and horsepower curves for each of these two vehicles to help explain why this happens and why these two cars have such similar acceleration yet very different power-to-weight ratios and so here looking at this torque and horsepower curve what we've got going on the dotted line here represents torque in blue is the Nissan Leaf the solid line is horse power and then in red is the s2000 so here we have the Nissan Leafs torque curve which as you can see it starts at peak torque 236 pound-feet right from zero rpm all the way to about 3300 rpm where the vehicle then reaches peak power 147 horsepower and then flatlines that power until about 10,000 rpm and then it starts to taper off but this is at about 80 miles per hour so this is that about where our test is occurring and then here with the s2000 you're gonna have that torque curve build up and then your horse power curve build up as well basically continuously this almost straight line it doesn't look exactly like a straight line but it's pretty much like that up until about 9,000 rpm where it's at 265 horsepower and so the difference here and the reason why we see the Nissan Leaf have the edge initially that's because initially you can see it makes more power so we're looking at this difference in power right here where at these lower speeds the Nissan Leaf is putting more power down to the ground it's doing more useful work and so it's accelerating the car faster and then once the s2000 starts to get to about 20 to 30 miles per hour once it gets past about 5,000 rpm then it gets in its sweet spot where it is now making more power than the leaf and so then it starts to accelerate faster so going from 10 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour takes about 1.2 4 seconds going from 20 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour just takes about one second so it's starting to accelerate faster once it gets out of this little hole right here and starts to get into these higher rpms and starts to make more power and so that's where it starts to have the advantage and you start to see it pass it but what's interesting about electric cars is that because they have that initial torque they accelerates so quickly from a stop and so you know in city driving scenarios you know where you're driving 10 to 50 miles per hour you're pretty much always going to be faster unless you're gonna dump the clutch and you know speaking of simply if you're curious yes in the s2000 if you just rev up to 5,000 dump the clutch hold it about 5,000 you can't accelerate faster than the leaf 210 through 50 miles per hour all the way to 80 and the reason being is because you're skipping this whole part of the equation so you skip all the way to 5,000 rpm 6,000 rpm and then you maintain your power curve above that of the leaf and so as a result if you dump the clutch and you're willing to sacrifice your clutch life to do so then you know you can keep the car in this region and you can have it right faster but just for normal daily driving in those scenarios you're going to be waiting up until you get beyond that in order to accelerate really well because you have to have that torque build up as a result of the engines characteristic so it's pretty interesting the differences here between how the electric car and held the combustion car work and put that power down with very different power-to-weight ratios okay so what does this have to do with Formula e well Formula e is primarily City circuit racing and so the courses are all pretty tight but this is actually the environment in which electric cars do very well so the top speeds are relatively low because it's a city circuit but the cores are still moving very quickly through it because they have that benefit of that immediate low-end torque and so they can still accelerate very quickly and in fact for season five for the next season these cars are gonna have 200 kilowatts of power during the race about 268 horsepower or about the same as my Honda s2000 and yet they're capable of hitting 62 miles per hour or a hundred kilometers per hour in just 2.8 seconds so yes they are lighter they're about 2,000 pounds or 900 kilograms but their performance for the power that they have is pretty incredible so you know the same acceleration as a Porsche gt2 RS which has significantly more horsepower much better power-to-weight ratio than a Formula e car and yet the formula II cars hitting that zero 200 km/h in just 2.8 seconds so very quick acceleration and all of this is the result of how electric motors work producing that peak torque from the very beginning and delivering peak power once you get up into the higher rev range so I hope you've all enjoyed this thank you so much to Formula e for partnering on the video and thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave those belowhello everyone and welcome to another episode of the five part series where I have teamed up with formula e to talk about electric cars now to my right this is not an electric car this is a 2002 Honda s2000 and to my left is an electric car this is the 2018 Nissan Leaf now both of these vehicles produce power in very different ways and they put that power to the ground in very different ways so in this video we're gonna be looking at what's faster electric torque versus combustion power now the s2000 is producing about 265 horsepower at the wheels and 163 pound-feet of torque at the wheels and this car weighs about 2,900 pounds so it's got about 11 pounds for every horsepower at the wheel now the Nissan Leaf produces a hundred forty-seven horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque so it's got significantly less power but it has significantly more torque but this vehicle weighs about 3,500 pounds meaning about 24 pounds for every horsepower and remember this is power at the motors output rather than at the wheels so the s2000s advantage as far as power-to-weight is concerned is even greater than shown by these ratios but it's more than doubled more than twice as good of a ratio for the s2000 versus the Nissan Leaf okay so now the fun part where we actually do some acceleration runs so what I'm going to be doing to test this we're going to be doing straight-line acceleration from zero miles per hour up to 80 miles per hour and taking measurements every 10 miles per hour and so for the electric car all I'm basically doing is just flooring it very simple process with the s2000 it's a manual transmission I'm not gonna rev it up and dump the clutch for two reasons first of all I want to show the differences between an internal combustion engine and an electric motor and by revving it up you skip half the engines Rev range so I want to show that part to illustrate a point and then also because in the real world you're not going to be dumping the clutch at every stoplight that you get to while you could just floor it in the electric car every time at a stoplight if really wanted to mechanically you're not going to be destroying a clutch like you would be in the s2000 and so we're going to get into these acceleration runs hopefully the s2000 doesn't do too poorly against this kind of you know heavy boring electric car you might say and so it's gonna be an interesting comparison I'm looking forward to seeing how the numbers turn out okay and so first starting with the s2000 an aggressive start but not just dumping the clutch and here we have the Nissan Leaf okay so these results are not entirely intuitive so the s2000 perhaps a bit disappointingly slow but I think even more so the Nissan Leaf is surprisingly quick so looking at the incrementals here 10 20 30 40 through 80 miles per hour the Nissan Leaf is quicker - 10 20 30 40 and 50 miles per hour the s2000 does not overtake it until 60 miles per hour it's then quicker - 70 and 80 and that gap will continue to get wider past 80 miles per hour as the s2000 still making good power in the Nissan Leaf is starting to lose power so a two-second gap there but the Nissan Leaf you know starting off quicker up to 50 miles per hour so if we're to take a look at these two cars curves it's pretty surprising that they're almost identical so here on the bottom we have time here on the Left axis we have speed and you can see you know the Nissan Leaf does better up until about 50 miles per hour and that's where things change and then it will start to develop a gap once you get into those higher speeds past 80 miles per hour you can see that that gap starts to widen there it will continue to get worse for the leaf as it starts to lose power in the s2000 maintains power up in those high rpm now this is pretty interesting because these two cars have very different power-to-weight ratios and so it kind of gives you an idea that you know when looking at an electric car the power-to-weight ratio isn't necessarily going to tell you it's especially its low speed acceleration as you can see it's doing much better than the s2000 here up until about 50 miles per hour and so why is this this is where we're going to get into the torque and horsepower curves for each of these two vehicles to help explain why this happens and why these two cars have such similar acceleration yet very different power-to-weight ratios and so here looking at this torque and horsepower curve what we've got going on the dotted line here represents torque in blue is the Nissan Leaf the solid line is horse power and then in red is the s2000 so here we have the Nissan Leafs torque curve which as you can see it starts at peak torque 236 pound-feet right from zero rpm all the way to about 3300 rpm where the vehicle then reaches peak power 147 horsepower and then flatlines that power until about 10,000 rpm and then it starts to taper off but this is at about 80 miles per hour so this is that about where our test is occurring and then here with the s2000 you're gonna have that torque curve build up and then your horse power curve build up as well basically continuously this almost straight line it doesn't look exactly like a straight line but it's pretty much like that up until about 9,000 rpm where it's at 265 horsepower and so the difference here and the reason why we see the Nissan Leaf have the edge initially that's because initially you can see it makes more power so we're looking at this difference in power right here where at these lower speeds the Nissan Leaf is putting more power down to the ground it's doing more useful work and so it's accelerating the car faster and then once the s2000 starts to get to about 20 to 30 miles per hour once it gets past about 5,000 rpm then it gets in its sweet spot where it is now making more power than the leaf and so then it starts to accelerate faster so going from 10 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour takes about 1.2 4 seconds going from 20 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour just takes about one second so it's starting to accelerate faster once it gets out of this little hole right here and starts to get into these higher rpms and starts to make more power and so that's where it starts to have the advantage and you start to see it pass it but what's interesting about electric cars is that because they have that initial torque they accelerates so quickly from a stop and so you know in city driving scenarios you know where you're driving 10 to 50 miles per hour you're pretty much always going to be faster unless you're gonna dump the clutch and you know speaking of simply if you're curious yes in the s2000 if you just rev up to 5,000 dump the clutch hold it about 5,000 you can't accelerate faster than the leaf 210 through 50 miles per hour all the way to 80 and the reason being is because you're skipping this whole part of the equation so you skip all the way to 5,000 rpm 6,000 rpm and then you maintain your power curve above that of the leaf and so as a result if you dump the clutch and you're willing to sacrifice your clutch life to do so then you know you can keep the car in this region and you can have it right faster but just for normal daily driving in those scenarios you're going to be waiting up until you get beyond that in order to accelerate really well because you have to have that torque build up as a result of the engines characteristic so it's pretty interesting the differences here between how the electric car and held the combustion car work and put that power down with very different power-to-weight ratios okay so what does this have to do with Formula e well Formula e is primarily City circuit racing and so the courses are all pretty tight but this is actually the environment in which electric cars do very well so the top speeds are relatively low because it's a city circuit but the cores are still moving very quickly through it because they have that benefit of that immediate low-end torque and so they can still accelerate very quickly and in fact for season five for the next season these cars are gonna have 200 kilowatts of power during the race about 268 horsepower or about the same as my Honda s2000 and yet they're capable of hitting 62 miles per hour or a hundred kilometers per hour in just 2.8 seconds so yes they are lighter they're about 2,000 pounds or 900 kilograms but their performance for the power that they have is pretty incredible so you know the same acceleration as a Porsche gt2 RS which has significantly more horsepower much better power-to-weight ratio than a Formula e car and yet the formula II cars hitting that zero 200 km/h in just 2.8 seconds so very quick acceleration and all of this is the result of how electric motors work producing that peak torque from the very beginning and delivering peak power once you get up into the higher rev range so I hope you've all enjoyed this thank you so much to Formula e for partnering on the video and thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave those below\n"