why don’t you drive an EV?

have you tried pretending youre a mafia boss every time you leave a tip

"i'll make an offer ya cant refuse" *adds 20% to the bill so you can still have a place to live*

“you’re uh right, i can’t refuse that”

I think Americans drive automatics because because all the coins they have to keep in the center console of their cars make driving a stick “too jangly”.

one underrated advantage of driving stick is that you never have to worry about anyone borrowing your car

Every year or two I read about how some carjacking attempt was foiled when the would-be thief is foiled by an unexpected manual transmission he doesn't know how to drive.

In the U.S., manual transmissions are in just over 2% of new cars. The disparity with the rest of the world is in part because of how cars are sold here. Decades ago, American cars were sold with a la carte extra-cost options. You could order one to your liking with your choice of engine, transmission, body style, inside and outside colors, several upholstery choices, different audio systems, and different features of all sorts. 50+ option choices were commonplace. Nowadays, the manufacturers no longer allow more than a few packaged variations of a given car so there's not much point in ordering one. Instead the dealerships stock massive numbers of cars and you by one they have in stock off the lot. This means dealers don't want to stock anything they can't sell easily, and that means automatic transmissions for everybody. It's also the reason 76% of the cars sold last year were some shade of greyscale (white, grey, silver, charcoal, black) - these are least likely to offend anyone. My local BMW dealer doesn't stock *any* other colors on their mainstream cars.

Another reason for the downfall of stick shifts is the highly regulated certification process (for fuel economy and pollution) in the US where each drivetrain much be certified separately, which makes it expensive to offer more than one or two drivetrains on a given car. In the UK a mainstream car may be sold with four different engine sizes in gas/petrol and a few more in diesel, each with either manual or auto transmission. In the U.S. the same car would be sold with one engine (usually a big one) and an automatic.

Anyway, yeah, a shifter isn't missed in an EV. There's always loads of immediately-available torque, so if you want more power you just step on it and you'll get a satisfying shove in the back. No need to downshift first.

also people in america just like automatics better, like not that long ago there were more manuals available and they still werent selling, which makes sense to me automatics are just easier, europe is also trending towards automatics too just way later, maybe it just took automatics getting good on fuel efficiency to tip the scales there since gas is so much more expensive and a lot of cars sold there are the tiny ones thatre specifically all about being cheap to operate

i would like to say for the record manuals are cool and fun, under the right conditions, i still wouldnt buy one tho crawling through traffic shifting all around and what not, plus with a lot of the very helpful new tech adaptive cruise control and so forth is a non starter

my first car was a lil manual corolla, salute, that thing was even fun to shift around in on the right roads, try to keep the momentum rolling

i might buy a manual if it was a very sick car, but whatre the chances of that, pretty low, and tbh if i were buying a very sick car id prob go for a new one with all the tech

It should be noted that many recent cars with automatic transmissions can't really be downshifted either, as they too don't have any gears. Instead they use a continuously variable transmission (CVT), which can adjust anywhere from low to high rather than having six or so discreet gears to choose from. This allows them to be more fuel-efficient because the exact optimum engine speed can always be chosen. However cars with CVTs often feel weird to drive, answering with a drone when you need more power. For that reason, some are programmed to have fake "gears" so you can "downshift" and "upshift" when you want.

yeah my outback has a cvt... and paddle shifters lmao

dual clutch is the best very nice transmission

Lag©©n otm re the pleasures of manual clutch out on the road

I love driving manual (learned that way), but haven't in a while unless renting in a foreign land - most recently in Mexico. Took me a while to figure out the fiddly whatsit to get reverse (different makes/models have different "yes I really do mean to go backwards" signals; this one had a weirdly suggestive cuff on the shifter that one had to slide up and down), but overall it is one of those things you don't really forget.

I don't drive an EV but I do have a subpar hybrid Civic, probably on its last legs. Next time it needs a new battery I will likely decide it's not worth it. Not sure if I can afford to go full EV next time; we'll see what the options look like when we cross that bridge.

https://i.imgur.com/Tgmz76Q.png

feel like no one ever talks about this car possibly because it looks like a desktop computer accessory but there are lots of them out there that can be had for a reasonable price used

the batteries in those suck tho

maybe thats why

mmhmm

if i were buying a new EV, id look at the hyundai ioniq. before car prices got wacky, you could get one for under $20K once you factor in the $7500 tax credit. dont seem to have the problem of exploding batteries that bolts have, and have some form of active cooling system for said battery that the nissan leafs do not so you'll get longer life from it.

I miss my old manual, but when I bought the automatic in 2000, my first thought was "Finally, I can enjoy a cheeseburger on the road."

The front looks terrible but otherwise this looks like a lot of fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo

Lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTjViMJ3o1Y

The front looks terrible

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Sunday, October 3, 2021 12:35 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah companies need to make electric cars look space age is lame, tho i do salute them for going away from the current industry standard angry face front, if that truck just had round headlights instead of oval itd prob look cool and relatively normal

i watched most of the offroading video and my ruling is: that truck is extremely sick

i still wouldnt buy one tho crawling through traffic shifting all around and what not

see this is what I like about having a manual vs. an automatic (one of the things I like) -- the automatics are way too abrupt and more like start/stop as opposed to a consistent smooth crawl, though, when my old corrolla (1989, manual) was near the end of it's 25 year life, it didn't handle the traffic very well and an automatic would have been more pleasant, comparatively.

the pleasures of manual clutch out on the road

hell yes

feel like no one ever talks about this car possibly because it looks like a desktop computer accessory

it looks like the car equivalent of apple earpods

xp Ye Mad P -- I started a thread inspired by you in this thread:

Why don't you drive a Peavey?

I drove manual exclusively from age 17 to age 47 and living in the NYC metro era with all the stop and go traffic pretty much cured me of ever wanting another manual. When my car was totaled in 2019, the replacement wasn't even available in manual. It does have paddle shifters, which I have used maybe once or twice as a lark.

It used to be a manual was really helpful in the snow, but nowadays an automatic with modern traction control is far superior imo.

We also still have a 10 yo manual mini cooper that is fun to drive if we're somewhere where there aren't a billion cars.

the automatics are way too abrupt and more like start/stop as opposed to a consistent smooth crawl, though

― sarahell, Sunday, October 3, 2021 1:10 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

automatic with —manual mode— best of both worlds, pretty common these days, tho i think ive owned three cars with it and barely ever used it, pretty much only when i didnt want to be breaking all the way down a mountain

would also like to say the guy in the rivian video is extremely weird and unsettling

My car has manual mode where you shift using little steering wheel paddles. I find it very weird and confusing and don't really get why you'd use it.

that rivian looks cool. i agree that having the headlights round would be better, but i wonder if the oval shape serves a function. having that bar of light at the front would definitely help with visibility, i'd imagine

i do question how well electric trucks would do in rural america. things might be different in the states, where you get a lot of temperate-ish weather and lots of safe land mass, relatively speaking. but it seems like these trucks would be popular on a california highway more than anything

i think electric trucks are pretty useless in canada, where the weather outside the few major cities we have is constantly trying to kill us. i looked up the range in cold weather and there's no information on it. it would do well in spring and summer in bc, but vehicle cost and insurance being so ridiculously expensive in this province, it would probably be more of a luxury item for city people

a friend has an electric motorcycle and, a few years ago, he was running low on battery power but needed to get to work soon. since he's been riding it for a long time, he thought he could make it. well, the temperature dropped when he got on a bridge (windchill and rain) and the motorcycle died on him

they're cool, but batteries are extremely unreliable in anything but temperate weather. once that's improved, i think electric vehicles would do well outside cities

https://i.imgur.com/eKSOwsg.png
hey guys whats up

they're cool, but batteries are extremely unreliable in anything but temperate weather. once that's improved, i think electric vehicles would do well outside cities

― Punster McPunisher, Sunday, October 3, 2021 1:43 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

almost all new cars sold in norway are electric due to a government mandate they mustve figured something out or at least i hope so lol

those rivians are totally sick and maybe in a few iterations/price reductions i will get one as i am a sucker/mark and v much the target demo

will stick with my 94 2dr jeep xj w manual in the meantime B)

sick

i think it's "sich"?

electric cars, not trucks do well in norway. i imagine they already do well in a lot of cities, where power and range are not that important. electric car ownership is on the rise in my city, as well

im saying its cold there

would also like to say the guy in the rivian video is extremely weird and unsettling

range or more specifically difficultly of refueling is def a huge issue with evs tho, something like 20% of ev buyers go back to a combustion vehicle for the next purchase because of it

seems like the tech on range and recharging is getting better all the time tho

plugin hybrid would really be the sweet spot were it not for the complexity and cost of having a combustion engine and all the electric stuff

if i ever become a homeowner here in the SW i will get solar panels to charge my EV, seems like the obv move

If you drive less than like 5k a year and especially if you mainly have a car for road trips or big shopping no or whatever then a hybrid is absolutely the way to go, economically, practically and environmentally.

its inelegant tho

u r

rude

honestly should really just get an electric cargo bike

they're cool, but batteries are extremely unreliable in anything but temperate weather.

Ford's EV chief is interviewed in a recentish episode of the InsideEVs podcast and he talks about how the F-150 Lightning battery management system deals with cold weather.