If a manufacture of a sporty EV doesn’t have to have engineers working on things like transmission, then they should put forth the effort and build a good UX and allow the driver to tailor the performance of the vehicle to their taste. The amount of motor braking when letting off the accelerator and at what rate that is achieved, how “quick” power is applied as you press the pedal, how much “power” is applied from low speed take off, ect… In theory a lot of EV’s should be able to spin tires and make a show of it, at least based off the specs of the motor. The vast majority don’t because that makes for a dangerous situation I suppose and if you limit low speed power you can use cheaper axles. Shoving a 1000hp supercharged V8 in a land yacht probably wasn’t the wisest idea either, but Dodge loves to showcase the Demon and Hellcat.
My wife’s Subaru Outback, even with its CVT, was programmed for a true manual mode. If you locked in “2nd” gear it would wind it all the way to red line. I test drove a 2017 Toyota Camry and the “manual” mode of that automatic was nothing more than down hill braking. Placing it in “4th” and pressing the pedal to the floor had the car shift back into 2nd, while the Outback did exactly what my manual would do - groan a bit and slowly accelerate.
We have had a 2013 Outback and then traded up to the 2021 Ascent. The Outback did the rubber band CVT acceleration, super smooth but lacking in feel. The Ascent is a blend with there being some artificial shift points in there. I think the Ascent feels a bit better mostly because the computer isn’t trying to keep the engine at 1500 rpm all the time. Since the Ascent is turbo it gives it a bit more power and less lag when accelerating. For down hill descents both of our have a hill mode, but I believe that is for steep grades. As long as manual mode is selected it’ll stay in the gear you have chosen and just tapping the paddles while in auto mode will allow you select a gear for a short period of time. I feel like Subaru did a good job of figuring out how to make the CVT “work” in the real world pretty well.
If only I could customize the sounds for the EV. Maybe it would be interesting to have horse hooves on pavement, changing pace in keeping with the ground speed? How about turbine engine sounds?
Really though, George Jetson’s flying car sound will be enough for me.
Yes, let’s add unnecessary complexity in the form of extraneous hardware and software to make obstinate petrolheads more comfy. In fact, I miss having to insert a crank into the front of my car and risk breaking my wrist turning it over. Screw it, let’s just go back to horse-driven carts.
Yeah, I was more referring to the artificial “shifting” sensation it uses to avoid the “soulless” nature of a CVT. Honestly, I know that some early CVTs really bothered people, but I love the smooth acceleration.
This is a really great feature in mountains. I don’t really do artificial downshifting like I would in a manual under normal circumstances, but I love being able to have a more controlled descent. Especially if I was towing, I imagine it would be invaluable.
This must have been what drew so much ire with the early CVTs. It’s a laudable effort, but Subaru claims they got 5 mpg increase on the standard boxer just by adding the CVT and reshaping the piston heads. And since the CVT doesn’t have the same giant gearbox, the whole drivetrain sits lower, which helps handling immensely. Our 2019 Forester gets a solid 10 mpg over our 2010 Forester.
That was because they used an under-specc’d motor to cut costs. Hilariously though, the reason they dropped them was because EV torque kept blowing up the gearboxes. Much has been learned about the right way to build an EV drivetrain since then. For example, you spec the motor for highway speeds, then electronically limit torque at the bottom to keep from blowing up gearboxes and boiling tires at every light.
Oooooh-kay carmakers. Lots of big talk about nostalgia for standard transmissions here, but then why don’t you fucking sell stick shifts for ICE cars anymore?
As a clutch enthusiast, try buying a stick shift in almost anything nowadays. Many cars claim to offer it, but good luck actually getting one. Maybe if you are willing to wait two years for a custom order, you might get one, but then they won’t give you other options in combination. They’ll give you the smaller engine, or the worse final drive ratio or other nonsense.
Stick shifts have been a paper-only option from the factories for at least a decade now. Maybe two decades. I’m speaking for North America here. I realize Europe and other markets may be different. No need to reply with all the stick shifts you can buy any time you want wherever you live.
There’s a practical aspect to any car making actual sounds - to help pedestrians and cyclists hear their approach. Current EVs don’t make enough noise at low speeds to do so. Might as well be an engine noise that is identifyiable as coming from a vehicle as opposed to some other synthesized noise that takes learning to identify as such. Nothing says it has to sound like or be as loud as a Harley.
But most of those noises don’t sound like a vehicle. Toyotas, for instance, sound like the ghost music from a horror movie, not a 4000 lb SUV.
Thanks, that makes more sense. Not that the fake stick shift would accomplish those things. They certainly are things that could be accomplished. The car is basically a computer taking inputs and performing actions. It should be completely possible to finely adjust them different from the factory. Probably still within some safety limits, or perhaps not depending on ones mood.
My “cheap” BOLT can definitely spin the tires just fine off the line. Generally not on purpose nor desired. I’ve assumed some of that is the tires too.
Let me suggest music. Largo for when you are parking, then working your way up through Andante, Allegro, and finally Presto for when you are probably speeding. Different companies can offer their own pieces but I would definitely consider Flight of the Bumblebee.
If you’re looking for anachronistic vehicle noises maybe one of the manufacturers will make one that sounds like a team of galloping horses. Half of Ford’s vehicles are already named after them.
That’s mostly just software, and as we have already seen, some EV car makers manage to persuade customers that a few lines of code are worth thousands of dollars as an “upgrade”
So they should do it because it is money (profit) for old rope (minimal capital investment).
I would much prefer it to all just come with the car, for the same price, and the user could spend time configuring it to their heart’s content. But most drivers would just get in and drive with the default (much the same as the way they never alter default passwords), so why would the mfrs** bother, unless they could stiff some ‘geeks’ for it?
** may be shorthand for ‘manufacturers’, or may be shorthand for some other apt term, here.
I’m making a serious point that it isn’t really a safety feature if they are making people learn a bunch of new noises to identify with the hazard of a moving vehicle. There already is a set of similar sounds that do so, and they can be easily mimicked. But if you don’t actually care about pedestrian and cyclinst safety, sure, why not?
Ok. It is an important issue, and I’m sure that some types of warning noises would be much more effective than others. The regulations dictating which ones are allowed should be based on real-world testing to ensure safety. I’m just skeptical that they need to specifically sound like internal combustion engines for the rest of time.
