What actually is a supercar in 2022?
What does it take to qualify as a supercar nowadays – other than being electric and seriously quick?
“What actually is a supercar these days?” is a question I often ask myself. We now live in a world and society where a lot of new cars, not even sports cars, are coming out with silly amounts of horsepower and incredible top speeds.
It isn’t unheard of to be smoked at the lights by a family sedan while you’re in a fast and expensive Italian supercar. This then, made me wonder what a supercar actually is in 2022.
For me, a supercar is something with brash yet beautiful looks, a loud exhaust note, usually a high price tag, and something that not everyone can master on the road. Ever since cars like the Ferrari 458 came out, anyone with a right foot and an arm could drive one. They just became too easy to drive, but they still sounded and looked the part.
Now, however, we are surrounded by a whole fleet of super-fast electric and non-electric family saloons, estates, and even hatchbacks. While many don’t quite gain the usual ‘supercar status’, they are certainly becoming as quick as one.
Let’s take the Tesla Model S for example. Earlier this year, Tesla launched a new variant of its flagship vehicle called the ‘Plaid’ and this is quite frankly, the most outrageously quick car the world has ever seen that isn’t actually a supercar. It would happily take on the likes of any new Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Pagani, Bugatti, and even a Rimac – but that last one might be a stretch too far.
My point is, the fact that there are car companies out there selling family cars with over 1,000hp puts the supercar market in a very strange position. Why would a successful family man save up for a fast supercar when he can have a Tesla now for a fraction of the price? It really begs the question “what will the supercar community look like in 10 years?”
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against EVs but should they be everything? A fully electric everyday car is perfect. If you gave me an EV with a decent range, a good interior, plenty of storage, and at least 100hp, I would be happy. But for the weekend, let’s have something exciting with a real engine running on sustainable synthetic fuels.
I’d like to think there will still be companies out there making beautiful, good sounding (even if it’s an EV sound), well-set-up, admirable supercars otherwise what are children going to hang posters of on their bedroom walls? Ferrari SUVs?
