I’m stuck on this personally. I love my manual, I have a tiny little Mazda 2 and I have driven that thing absolutely everywhere because I can control it better than any automatic I’ve ever driven. But I’ve been casually looking for a new car and I’d love to have an electric, but I don’t want to lose that level of control and everything I love about a manual.
What do you all think? What’s your take?
If an electric vehicle:
- Wasn’t an SUV or CUV
- Didn’t have a giant touchscreen with a Big Brother OS
- Didn’t cost over $40,000 for a good one
I’d buy one. As it stands I’m buying a used GTI tomorrow, mainly because it’s a stick shift and I miss that, and also because my GF got a job and needs to use my other car to commute. It’s basically the car I’ve wanted since I was sixteen so I’m pretty stoked.
We have a 2013 Leaf. Cost us $8k seven years ago, battery’s as good as it ever was, great around town or commuter for a 50 mile round trip commute (longer without defrost the whole way). Seriously the most fun car I’ve driven since our old manual bmw. The newer ones have bigger batteries if you drive more each day.
Used Polestar 2 fits except for the screen.
They might do well with a “classic” version with less tech inside.
Can I get one for under $12k. Because that’s what I’m getting my GTI for.
Na more like 35k for a 2022.
But you just moved the goalpost from 40k to 12k 🤔
Having owned a manual for a long time and also a bunch of different automatic cars but never an electric and also having been an enthusiast and participating in motorsports. I would honestly prefer taking a train and riding a bike than driving. I hate driving on the road. I hate other drivers and having to pay attention while I go somewhere. I hate driving long distances and l hate dealing with car issues and I used to be a mechanic for awhile. The whole thing is stupid as hell. I like driving go-carts, that’s fun. Cars are dumb as hell.
I wish my town (typical mid-size USA) was safer for bicycling. I’d actually get my bike out and use it for short trips for beer or whatever.
For now I walk or drive and I feel shitty every time I drive short distances
Just open carry an Ar-15 on your back. People will go around. But seriously, you can get a Garmin radar thing that will tell you if cars are behind you and how fast they are going.
I didn’t know those existed… but I kinda hate that they do. Can the Garmin radar delete a car that’s about to hit me?
But really, for $300+ it should also photograph the license plate of the car that hits you and automatically SOS when it detects an impact.
I mean, doesn’t that sound like a ridiculous product that shouldn’t need to exist?
I disagree with the premise that it’s the responsibility of the cyclist or pedestrian to avoid being murdered by a 2-ton vehicle. Having something like the Garmin radar on your bicycle seems like yet another thing that would make it EASIER for a driver to argue that it’s the cyclist’s fault in an accident, right? “They had a radar, it’s not my fault they were in my way!” Just like the “it’s their fault they’re dead because they weren’t wearing a helmet!” Argument.
In the worst timeline I could see a municipality trying to require these on ebikes for “safety” while in effect making non-equipped bikes illegal to ride. Which would be great for the car companies.
I absolutely understand this. I’ve been traveling to Vancouver, BC a lot and my god, it’s so easy to get around without a car. I’m sure it’s not the golden standard, but it’s sure great
Electric > manual > automatic.
Manual’s only advantage over automatic is better control over shifting for staying in the power band or downshifting for long slopes. A proper CVT electric can always have the optimal power band for the speed and regenerative braking takes care of the long slopes.
I’ve never seen an electric car that used a CVT, normally they are just direct drive. Like the motor spins a reduction gearbox, which is directly connected to the wheels. There is only one gear, not even a reverse, the motor just spins backwards to move the car backwards.
That is also why smaller electric cars typically top out around 80-120mph, and you need a very powerful one to go 150+ like a Tesla.
The issue is that at low speed the motor has to spin very slowly which requires immense torque. This is generally overcome with a reduction ratio. The less reduction the faster you can go, but if your motor is not powerful enough then you won’t have enough torque on the steepest hills etc.
I went from a manual ‘08 wrangler to a’ 23 model 3 and I gotta tell you, I’m so much happier with it. Granted, I live in the city now and driving a stick shift in and out of parking lots daily was a major pain in the ass, but I still think I’d be happy back in the suburbs. Here’s my first thoughts:
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Electricity is wayyyyy cheaper than gas. Plus you can charge whenever you aren’t using the car if you have a garage.
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I know jeeps aren’t sporty cars but my model 3 feels 100x more responsive than a jeep. Consider that electricity starts working immediately. To start a manual you need to take your foot off the clutch, push in the gas, let that gas get to the engine, ignite, and then the car moves. Sure that process takes less than a second but it’s hard to overstate how fast electric cars can go immediately
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Electric cars are all inherently newer and have a lot of cool new features. Auto parking, self-driving, adaptive cruise control, voice activated commands, driver profiles, and more made it feel like I went from the stone age to the industrial revolution overnight
That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and roses. Some downsides:
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I’m definitely a worse driver now. Manuals keep all 4 limbs focused on driving and make it really hard to get distracted. This is kind of a wash because the self-driving feels way safer on the highway than a human driver
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Recharging is not as easy as refueling. As long as you plan ahead this isn’t an issue but you can’t lazily say “oh I’ll get gas in the morning on the way to work” and you have to spend longer on road trips. During my day to day I actually save time because I just plug in when I’m going to be home anyway. Plus some places have free charging
And lastly this is kind of medium:
- People can borrow my car. I like having a car my girlfriend can actually drive when it’s relevant but other people want to try to drive my car and sometimes it’s a little annoying
I don’t think we’re ready for everyone to go electric but if you’re the type to not drive everyday and live in an area with decent access to chargers I think it’s worth considering
Just to clarify, you don’t have to hit the gas, you can just let off the clutch
What a weird nitpicky thing to argue about. Sure you can start a manual by easing off the clutch properly but that’s obviously not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the differences between driving manual and electric and that’s clearly the use-case people will have 95%+ of their driving time. What do you think you’re adding to this conversation?
He’s not arguing? Why so negative, that’s a good tip. I wish someone told me that when I was learning, I just sort of figured it out later.
My car had always been a stick shift. I bought an electric car and am very happy.
As a consolation, EVs can be considered “manual”, they never shift gears of their own accord. They just only have one gear… So it’s a one speed manual transmission…
