Did you ever wonder what the real world benefits of ESP might be?
Here is what happens in a Lamborghini Gallardo when you do a panic lane change without the
aid of ESP. It looks pretty spectacular, but not if you were on the M1 and there were lots
of other cars around.
Here's a little experiment to see what life in a Lamborghini is like with and without
ESP.
What I'm going to do is sit the car at 70mph. So let's say you were going down a motorway, and then I'm
going to give it a big violent left-right-left-right, just to see what happens, just to see how
good the ESP system on this 2013 model Gallardo actually is.
I need to now avoid the car like that.
If I hadn't corrected that, I would've turnedright around, absolutely right around. For one minute we were heading for the trees there.
I thought that wasn't going to be very good.
Can I actually bring myself not to correct it? I will. I'm going to do exactly the same
thing, but I'm not going to correct it. I'm just going to see if the car can correct itself.
This is with the ESP on, remember?
Big swerve. Wow. It does. If you trust it, if you just let go of the steering wheel and
let the thing correct itself, it actually does correct itself. That was quite impressive.
It takes a . . . it's just against every single sense possible to not try and correct the
slide when it starts to happen. That's amazing.
What I could feel happening then was the right rear brakes were being tickled, and then the
front left brakes were tickled. All the power went completely, and it almost felt as if
the steering was correcting itself.
I don't think it was, but all that was happening was just that the combination of the brakes
and the power were being adjusted automatically to straighten the thing out.
Gosh, that's incredible. I'm very, very impressed, indeed. What we're talking about here is the
difference between you going down the motorway and remaining in control when you have a moment
of total panic because the whole motorway has come to a stop in front of you, and not
spinning or spinning.
Now I'm going to try exactly the same thing again, but with the ESP system switched off.
That is what's known in the trade as a big spin. Jeepers. If you ever wanted to know
the benefit of ESP, that is it. I've basically just done the equivalent of going backwards
down the M1 at 75mph, and now the car won't start.
I think that its point categorically proved in favour of ESP.
Just remember that the next time you think you're in something quick, and you're feeling
a bit heroic, just before you reach for the button to turn the traction control and the
ESP off. It might not be a wise idea.