There was a time when the vast majority of cars were stick shift and everyone learned to drive on one. Automatics took over and now there’s a small percentage of drivers who know how to drive stick and I’m sure that number is getting smaller each year.
EVs allow for single pedal driving, sort of like a golf cart where you only use the accelerator pedal. Press on it to go, let off to brake. I have yet to adopt it on our EV but I’ve played with it a bit. Is this fostering the next great generational old fogey driving technique?
The one after that is the idea that the car needs driving at all. Just tap the icon on the map and it’ll go there while you eat your sandwich. Net of a few dead pedestrians, but those won’t be considered your fault.
In any case, I bet pedal preference is like musical taste… you acquire it in your teens & 20s, then after that, anything older is ancient and outdated, anything newer is silly and unnecessary.
At ~40, we just got our first EV, and set the regeneration braking to 1/5. As soon as lift off the accelerator it starts regenerating a bit. If we hit the brake lightly it does a bit more. Lets us finely control how much to coast vs brake.
I tried one-pedal driving for a bit but it stops so quickly that I can’t coast at all anymore. Is that how it works with all one-pedal EVs, or do they have an adjustable “midrange” where you can still coast?
I would wager that even Tesla’s crappy self-driving is better than most human drivers. We have Waymo’s all over the place down here, and they drive infinitely better than the crappy drivers around them.
Here in Europe, internal combustion cars are still overwhelmingly manual transmission. My wife and I own a diesel (stick) and a hybrid (automatic). The only place you find ICE automatics is at rental-car businesses, for the American tourists.
I don’t have personal experience with this, but I’ve heard that in some places, the driver’s-licensing agencies require you to test on a stick.
My little experience when Elon puts self-driving out for free is that Tesla will err on the side of passiveness rather than humans who have to get in front of you RFN or see a gap 2" longer than their truck and shoot it without signalling across 3 lanes.
'Zactly. “Coast” is partial pedal. Foot off the pedal is manual transmission in 1st or 2nd gear engine braking. Not manual transmission in neutral or clutch depressed.
Normal/In town: two pedal, because that’s what 30+ years of driving has trained me in. I’ll react faster though I’m positive I could train the one pedal reflexes given a break-in period, but not yet feeling the need.
Interstate - pretty much NO pedal driving though I don’t take my feet away, duh. With modern adaptive cruise control and breaking, I can accelerate/decelerate beyond the set speeds using on-wheel controls. Very nice considering the twice annual 630 mile drive to visit my folks in Las Cruces.
And I agree 100% with human assholish driving - I set my following distance at the maximum to allow a nice safety margin, and yet someone is always saying “free spot!” speed into it, and then slam on the brakes - yeah, that did you so much good.
Electric towmotors have a “rocker” pedal. You press the top forward to go forward, and the bottom forward with your heel to backup. Those damn things have caused more trucks being rammed and near misses and impalements. Stupid design.
For years I drove my auto T-bird left brake, right go. That worked really nicely till I was driving my Mustang Cobra (only 5-speed) home, and at a red light, I hit the clutch and slowly coasted through the intersection. I kept the T-bird a while as a grocery-getter yet gave up the two-foot driving.
As has been noted, in the UK (or anywhere in Europa), a New York license is good for a year, and technically only if you’re not a resident. From my POV, the growth of mini-SUV’s is on the rise and supposedly 1 in 5 tests are for automatic-only (which is noted on your license).
I drive a small Toyota and I find it more natural to use my left hand to shift. If it were an auto, I’d be stuck on a hill somewhere.
Wait. Is this really how EVs work? There is no brake control (other than releasing the accelerator)? How does it know how urgently you need to brake? Ya know, the difference between light braking before a turn, and slamming on the brakes as hard as you can because a kid just ran in the road?
There’s also a conventional brake pedal on the left that works exactly like every car you’ve ever driven.
But you can one-pedal drive for efficiency, either accelerating, maintaining speed, or coasting under slight regenerative braking to a stop using only the right pedal. If you need more slowing than the regen braking is providing, step on the left pedal just like always.
Teslas only have one pedal drive and don’t have options to adjust how it behaves. I have come to love it. There is a brake pedal but I rarely use it. It’s there if you have to make a quick stop.
I assume there must be other possibilities. EVs must be able to back up, for example. And I assume there’s some equivalent to park and neutral.
As long as these “gears” exist, this system doesn’t seem that much different than an automatic. You’re just setting the car by touching a screen rather than moving a stick.
