Solve the range and speed of recharge issues (along with problems related to battery metals mining and worker exploitation) and I’ll consider an all-electric car.
For now I’ll enjoy my manual transmission gas vehicle.
A stick makes no sense in an electric car. That’s it. If you’re making an electric race car for certain kinds of tracks it might make sense to add a clutch, but an electric motor gives you torque/speed control options a standard transmission can’t match. But assuming we are talking about driving these cars on the streets within reasonable limits of the law, the only reason for a stick would be to simulate driving like in the olden days. You could carry a buggy whip with you too.
Hence my suggestion upthread about a special compartment for the Luddites to carry their horse.
Toyota does not make BEVs (battery electrics), they only make hybrids. So they’re not direct competition for Tesla. Chevy makes the Bolt, which is a BEV but it has really slow recharging (55 kW). Not like the Superchargers (250 kW) that Teslas can use. So it’s not really competition either. The real competition for Tesla is going to come from VW starting with the ID.4 in the US.
Not strictly on-topic for this thread, but the range is one of the reasons we are not planning on getting an all-electric car any time soon. I just spent 8 days on a long road trip - and while both hotels I used had EV parking / charging, I don’t know if I would have been able to get the whole way to my destination on one charge and I don’t know how long it would have taken to recharge en route, even if I’d been able to find a station; a large chunk of the drive was through some fairly rural areas.
On the other hand - owning an EV would be dandy for local driving, and we could rent a gas vehicle for the occasional longer trip.
I do find RivkaChaya’s comment about automatic transmissions in stop-and-go traffic to be fairly interesting; it’s something I hadn’t really thought about that way. You also have to be careful - if you’re a Bigfoot like me - to not accidentally mash both the gas and brake pedals at once. I would assume that an EV would pose the same issue with a foot slipping off the brake pedal? In any case it’s a trade-off: daily knee-fatigue versus the risk of an oops on the pedal - and one that each individual driver would have to weigh.
You’re concerned with “problems” related to rare earth mining and worker exploitation to the point of not considering an EV, but have an ICEV? Shouldn’t you not even be considering a gasoline-powered vehicle until problems with environmental destruction of oil extraction processes are fixed, global warming due to CO2 emissions is under control, and suffering and wars over control of oil reserves are a thing of the past?
Range and recharge speed are real concerns and could easily be deal-breakers, but complaining about the environmental impact of rare earth (or lithium) mining as a reason not to get an EV while merrily driving around in an ICEV is like turning your nose up at a nice vegetarian curry because you’ve heard cardamom might be linked to a slight increase in the likelihood of a heart attack, so you’ll stick with your double cheeseburger thank you very much.
There are plenty of people for whom electric vehicles are poorly suited and someone who demands a thousand-mile range and the ability to tow is definitely one of them. And that’s OK.
Or perhaps a trailer for all the straw?
No-one has insisted that electric cars should have manual drive, just several people have suggested that they wouldn’t buy an electric car (yet) for various reasons.
FTR I own an electric motorcycle. It’s great. Consistent acceleration, cost of recharging is negligible. And no gears.
All I’m saying is, that great options like my bike or the Tesla S don’t mean it’s over for petrol or manual drive yet. There are still reasons to opt for a manual and/or petrol car at the moment.
I don’t need a whole horse-- the buggy whip is just for sentimental reasons.
Actually the fellow I jokingly responded to insisted he’d only buy an electric if it came with a manual transmission.
I didn’t / don’t think he was being exactly serious either, but it’s hard to say. It did give off the “You can have my manual tranny when you pry my cold dead hands off the gearshift!” vibe.
I think range and speed of charge are damned near solved now for 90% of potential EV users. There are plenty of EVs now with ranges between 300 and 400 miles. A Tesla can be fully charged at a supercharger site in less than an hour, A rapid charger can put 100 miles of charge in a vehicle in 35 mins.
If you are at home and have a 240V charger, you can charge about 100 miles of range in an hour. With a standard charger, about 25 miles.
For example, if you drive to work and back, and it’s maybe 50 miles round trip, your car will be fully charged again before you finish supper. And you never have to stop at a gas station again.
The only thing holding back EVs now are the price and the extant auto fleet.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say “the only thing”.
Another huge obstacle, already mentioned upthread is the many, many people who do not have, and cannot install, charging facilities where they park overnight. The problem is particularly acute in urban areas where EVs are an especially good fit and could easily become 80% of the cars on the road. If only we could charge them.
I’d have an EV today if I had a place to plug it in. But my condo complex is not equipped with a charger at my parking space, nor with the electrical infrastructure to support 200 hi-draw chargers at all 200 parking spaces. So no EVs for any of us.
I grew up in South Africa where manual cars are also the “standard” option and it was the same: there isn’t a manual camp, there’s just 95% of the population who drive a manual car because that’s what exists. It may be different now, but when I lived there my mother was the only person I knew who had an automatic. The manual versus automatic debate just didn’t come up.
But it makes more sense that being in the manual camp and insisting that it’s better would be a thing here in the US. It’s a specialty item. The default is an automatic car, and if you end up with a manual you’ve typically made an explicit choice to go against the mainstream. I don’t think it’s even cheaper here. It totally makes sense if that correlates with hobbyists and people who have strong opinions about it.
an EV transmission on something like a Tesla is about equivalent to a manual transmission on an ICE where 1st gear has plenty of low-end torque, and still has enough legs to get you to 120mph+. Other than that initial clutch shift into 1st gear at the start of the drive, the level of driver engagement and feeling of direct connection with the engine is exactly the same.
There are plenty of valid reasons to hold out on buying an EV right now, but “lack of a manual transmission” isn’t one of them, IMHO.
This. Anyone who says otherwise has never driven day-in day-out in Washington DC traffic. I was only 23 when I realized if I didn’t want a knee/hip replacement at 40, I was going to have to buy an automatic.
Gee, the worker exploitation thing must really be a sore point with electric car-hypers. 
The quoted ranges are…optimistic.
“Less than an hour” for recharging isn’t exactly competitive with gas engine models. And yes, price is still an obstacle.
Not yet ready for (my) prime time.
AIUI, you can get from low charge, around 10%, to 80% charge in 15 to 20 minutes. The last 20% takes a lot longer than 20% elsewhere in the recharging cycle. And unless you really need it, you don’t want to go over 80% anyway, since that shortens the life of the battery.
EV’s generally don’t have ‘transmissions’. What Tesla calls a transmission is really just a gear reduction box.
The purpose of a transmission in an ICE car is to keep the engine at max economy RPM, or max power RPM, or a combination of both as driving speed changes. Because an electric car creates maximum torque at 0 rpm, there is no need for a transmission.
That said, I believe the Porsche Taycan has a two-speed transmission, I’m guessing to limit motor speed at higher velocities. Porsche says they think they can get 5% more range that way. It’s not about improving the driving experience, but probably reducing frictional or back-EMF losses in the motor.
Ah right you are; I missed digs post.
Yeah I know, I’m just saying it feels weird, like asking if I’m a salt or a pepper man.
But, now that I think about it, in the UK, back in the day I might have a similar conversation about diesel engines, or the wankel. AIUI neither of these are very good options now, but they once were, yet still niche enough that owners were often also evangelists.