Testing, testing

Modern car steering is a very complex dance between shafts and cogs, software, suspension geometry and flexing tyres.

- ILLYA VERPRAET

But you would hope that operating it should be simple, as subconscious as breathing: turn the wheel clockwise to go right, turn it twice as much to turn twice as sharply.

Same with the accelerator pedal. Particularly with electric motors having a flat torque curve in most everyday speed ranges, you might expect that putting the pedal to the floor gives you full power and holding it at half its travel gives you half the available power.

Not always: in the Hyundai Inster that I drove a while back, three-quarters throttle equated to full power, according to the onscreen graphic. Which begs the question what the remaining 25% of travel is for. Moral support during a particularly ambitious overtaking manoeuvre?

The Inster (which I found a charming thing otherwise) is far from the only offender. Sport, let alone Sport Plus mode (or similar) for the powertrain of any given car, whether electric or combustion-engined, is generally to be avoided, because it tends to map 80% of the power onto the first third of the pedal travel.