Those performance numbers are perfectly acceptable for a general purpose vehicle. In fact, those numbers don't necessarily capture the responsiveness of a vehicle off th eline since electric motors have a flat torque curve unlike ICEs. One could also argue that all gasoline powered vehicles have become increasingly overpowered. A Honda Accord V6 has around 240 HP and 7 second 0-60 times, comparable to expensive sport sedans of ten years ago. All the technological gains of the past two decades has gone into greater HP rather than fuel efficiency.

BTW, the hybrid Honda Civic is comparable in performance to the Prius. None of them focus on 0-60 times, which is just as it should be. The hybrid Camry posts numbers in the 7 second range, but its fuel economy is twenty percent worse than the Prius.

I would agree.

I used to own a 1994 BMW 325i convertible and its inline six had 194 HP and that car was pretty damn fast.

Now even the non-luxury, family sedans have substantially more standard horse power than my old BMW 3 series.

Rather than using advances in motor technology to increase fuel efficiency, the manufactures have chosen to raise HP.

I read somewhere that Honda was going for performance - perhaps it was only the Accord.

That is correct. The Accord Hybrid gets good performance but terrible gas mileage (< 30 MPG>) and does not sell well.