I spent 17 years with a manual transmission as my primary car. It was fun, I liked driving it. My experience was a bit contrary to what some of the “it’s just a tool” posts experience. I liked the manual because it made even boring trips more fun. Maybe I’m easily entertained, but there is something satisfying about snicking into the next gear, even when just pulling away from a stop light, and downshifting can be fun, even it’s just to maintain flow with slowing traffic.
My primary car now is electric. There is no real competition. The electric is more fun for me to drive in so many ways. The often repeated thing about low end torque. That is totally intoxicating. No need to plan for the right gear, the car is always in the right gear. There is fun in modulating the throttle so the car decelerates at exactly the desired rate to come to a stop at just the right place. There is fun in accelerating with progressively more throttle so the g-forces are the same the whole time. Not the push, float, push, float feeling of a car with a transmission, but push, push, push, push.
The electric car is more like a video game. Thing is, video games are fun. (I know you, the person replying to this, has never had fun playing a video game, my proposition is you’ve just never played the right one. Also, it’s just an analogy, don’t get all wrapped up in how the controller hurts your hands, so electric cars must be junk.)
Back in the day, Chrysler’s Presto-matic sort-of automatic transmission (it had a clutch) was a big favorite on the drag strip. It apparently was tough enough to stand up to the torque imposed and made the driver’s task a lot simpler during those few seconds down the quarter-mile.
Please explain how freeway cruising is not at least as good, if not better, with a MT. I remember in my RX-7, I would come around the curve and wind it up the ramp in 3rd, then jump directly to 5th no problem. Once you get to the end of your gears, there is no hassle. You almost never have to downshift and the fuel economy is at least as good as an AT, if not better.
The OP’s point and responses seemed to me to be about fun, interacting with the car, and with performance in the sense of yanking and banking, not in the sense of maximizing MPG.
All I was suggesting is that once I’m established in the inside lane and up to speed for the next hour-ish, the MT doesn’t do anything for those measures of merit that the AT can’t do as well. Cruise is cruise. Ho hum.
As to cranking it around the 270 with all 4 squealing then slaloming out into the straightaway traffic, the AT can do that too. If normal mellow mode isn’t good enough, push the “sport mode” for delayed shift points. It’s only going to be 2, or as you say, maybe even just 1 shift.
Just read an article… somewhere… [f.fwd 20 min]… nope, can’t find it. But a guy had perfected a method of charging his car in the big city… basically running a thin but high capacity extension cord out to the street (laid a mat over it where it crossed the sidewalk), and rapid charging until after supper. It was efficient enough that he’d never had to charge overnight. Gave me hope… I’ll always be parked on the street.
I love driving a manual in a proper sports car. And it’s not about off the line acceleration, but rather being able to do things like downshift before a corner so you can modulate the throttle to change from understeer to oversteer when you need to.
I think electric cars are the future. And no, I won’t miss the manual because the way the torque curve works in an electric car you don’t need a transmission at all, yet you still have the maximum torque available for whatever speed you are going.
Electric cars can be dogs that are terrible to drive, or they can be amazing sports cars - just like internal combustion cars. It’s all about the tradeoffs. Two natural advantages electric cars have are that they make maximum torque at 0 RPM, and the batteries are usually low in the vehicle, reducing body lean and making it track more like a go-cart than does a vehicle with a heavy engine sitting high up on the frame.
What I like about that combination is that it makes the car fun to drive even at low speeds. Something like a Corvette or a Dodge Charger is actually boring to drive at legal speeds.
You can now buy an electric car for $38,000 with 300 miles of range or more. Less with incentives. That’s still too expensive, but not by much when you consider the much lower cost of maintenance and energy.
We are near a tipping point with electric. Another 20% increase in range and 20% decrease in battery cost, both of which are achievable in the near future, will cause a huge shift towards electric. Especially for two car families, where one car is a ‘city car’ and the other is some sport ute for long trips. That city car will soon be electric.
…ahh, but I can buy a used “sports car” for a lot less. Now, notice that I used quotes there. That’s to designate that I can buy a cheap small car that magically becomes a “sports car” with the addition of a manual transmission (and with a driver who’ll be an immature senior with ADHD and a need for speed… and yucks).
Seriously, I had such a blast in my manual Yaris. So cheap, so fun. Helped that, here in the frozen tundra, the snow meant I could drift around most corners, and do a 180º every time I’d parallel park (slide right into my spot at work and home).
If the prices come down to reasonable levels …I would seriously think of an electric. Most of my driving is around town or within a small radius, so range is not an issue except for the occasional long journey. If there are plenty of charging stations and the charging is quick, then I just have a leisurely coffee or even lunch. That’s OK as long as no more than two longer stops are required per journey. The ranges of electric cars are increasing, but the figures tend to be for mixed driving, and I suspect you get much less on high-speed cruising.
Does yours offer the thrill of a busted slave cylinder, and challenge of driving the whole way to the garage in third gear, without stopping.
Or if you stop, you have to start up in third, get going in that gear, VRrrroooooom!!! SQUEAL!! and either shut off the car while waiting at the light, or press as hard as you can on the break while giving it enough gas that you go SHOOTING out of that intersection.
One of the disappointing things about my manual 2011 BMW 3 series is that, despite having 6 gears, the top gear is not very tall. When cruising at 70 MPH, even in 6th gear, the engine is doing almost 3000 RPM. Contemporary cars with automatics can do the same speed with the engine at 2000 RPM or even less.
Coming from a country where manuals are the majority (UK), I still find the implicit premise that there’s some kind of manual “camp” that I’m either in or out of, very weird. And that, if I’m in the manual camp, I must believe they are inherently better.
Well, I don’t. For some kinds of driving I find manuals better, for others, automatics.
I prefer manuals for faster driving in the countryside or highways, where the more responsive acceleration makes things like overtaking less of a pain. And I prefer automatics for city driving, particularly hilly cities ala san francisco.
Now, in terms of the Tesla in the OP…
I don’t care much about the acceleration from stationary. You rarely need (or should) race from a dead stop in ordinary driving. OTOH, if the Tesla has good acceleration across all speeds then…that’s great. That would mean there’s an automatic that combines the best of both worlds.
It wouldn’t invalidate the overall observation about the pros and cons of manuals vs automatics unless and until every automatic (electric or otherwise) accelerates just as well though. So, depending on my budget and other requirements, I might still choose a manual the next time I need to buy or rent a car.
Yeah, that’s exactly what a Tesla does. 60 mph to 90 mph has the same acceleration as 20 - 50 mph.
As an aside, I have a Porsche Macan Turbo and I will get it up to 130 mph or so on my way to work when the city road I’m on turns into an interstate. It feels and sounds like it’s going 40 mph, it’s just so smooth like it was meant to be driven constantly at 150 mph on the autobahn. The Model 3 and Y doesn’t match that kind of experience at high speeds, but it does out accelerate it. I haven’t driven the S or X, so maybe it’s more “luxurious” than the 3.
I used to always drive stick. I couldn’t stand automatic transmissions because I hated feeling them shifting. Usually too early. When I bought my Prius I fell in love, partly because of the CVT. It never shifts, so acceleration is smooth from 0 to 80.
You should try it. They are not just golf carts any more. Especially the Toyota engineering (although I suspect they’re all similar these days) where the electronics and the gas engine work hand in hand, it feels nothing like a golf cart. I regularly and by habit drive my Prius like it’s a Maserati. It’s got “get up and go” if you don’t drive it like a granny.
Oh, I’m a bit slow today. I just realized that you all are talking purely electric cars, like Teslas. Still though… not granny-pants cars.
Not quite, at least not for the Model S. Constant acceleration from 0 to around 45 MPH, then constant motor power output up to about 75 MPH, and then power tapers off after that (because the VFD output voltage can’t rise any further to counter the increasing back EMF from the motor).
The freaky thing about the Tesla Model S (other EVs may have this behavior too) is the instantaneous acceleration when you floor the accelerator. On a conventional drivetrain, the electronically-controlled throttle slows that transition from idle to full power, just a bit, so the fuel injectors can keep up - and it also takes a brief moment to build up the engine RPMs to the point where it’s delivering useful torque to the transmission. Not so on the Model S: put your foot to the floor, and you get full torque output NOW.
