terminal overdrive

[Shenfeng]

Hi,

"At first, finding himself alone in Chiba, with little money and less hope of finding a cure, he'd gone into a kind of terminal overdrive, hustling fresh capital with a cold intensity that had seemed to belong to someone else."

What would you say 'terminal overdrive' means in this context?


Thank you.

 

[apex2000]

What do you think it means?

 

[allenman]

Here "terminal" means "to the end" as in "death".
"Overdrive" expresses that person was pushing themselves towards this death at a very rapid pace (from the automotive context of shifting into overdrive).

Not a teacher