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Comment by jstelly | Hacker News Reader

I also have a model S, but I have owned a couple of other high performance gas cars that are much more responsive on the 55-65 or 40-70 acceleration test (passing at highway speeds). That's the only common case where the tesla loses to gas vehicles, and then only high performance gas vehicles (e.g. 300HP+ coupe/sedan models).

But the 0-30 thing is exactly right in my experience. Even more powerful vehicles don't have the instant and smooth acceleration feel of an electric motor.

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This is due to the rising power curve of ICE.

There's that, plus the time that it takes for the automatic transmission to decide that yes, you really do want to accelerate, and yes, maybe it ought to get around to increasing the RPMs one of these seconds.

Electric cars opened my interest car performance. I now have a higher performance ICE than I ever thought I would spend money on, but I still miss my tiny little electric Fiat 500e, even though my ICE is definitely better at 40-80mph.

Fiddling with gears, monitoring RPM, what a terrible system. Feels like a steam engine after being in an electric.

>Fiddling with gears, monitoring RPM, what a terrible system.

For some of us, this "terrible system" is one of the best parts of owning an ICE vehicle with a manual transmission.

I can totally see how that would be true. You build muscle memory and positive associations around the operation of the machine. But you've gotta see too how it's akin to turning a rotary phone dial.

In some ways, yes, but excluding dual clutch transmissions, manual transmissions really do have a performance advantage while rotary phones did not have any advantage over touch tone other than, maybe at one point, cost.

I doubt that there are many drivers who can outperform a modern automatic transmission.

I disagree. As eeks points out, fully automatic transmissions are kind of awful at making decisions.

I have a case when I was driving into work this morning. I got stuck behind a funeral procession going 35 MPH on a 65 MPH interstate highway (Uggghhhhh)

I look to my left-mirror, and I see a spot I can feasibly make, I just gotta time it right to get "into" the flow of traffic. So what do I do?

I drop to 2nd gear (The Gear ratios on the Ford Focus are kinda "weak"). My engine roars but its cool, because my engine's top-Torque is in the 4000RPM to 6000RPM band. When the "spot" opens up, I floor the acceleration pedal and get in just fine.

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A fully automatic vehicle wouldn't "know" that I wanted to "prepare" for the sudden acceleration. It only knows after you push the pedal.

A manual driver however, can tell the car to "prepare" for acceleration, so that when you push the accelerator you are 100% ready to go.

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Semi-automatic vehicles (including some "sport" CVT engines I've test-driven) would work. The important bit is to be able to change gears way ahead of time BEFORE you push the accelerator.

Automatic transmissions are better & smarter than you. you may have to drive a little differently if you're driving an automatic in the scenario you described, but saying that it doesn't ''know'' what you wanted to do means either your transmission is virgin & hasn't learned your habits, or, had a different driver for several years & is shifting at the wrong points. This 'ready to go' thing is all hogwash manual elitism.

Look, a CVT semi-automatic probably would outperform me. I'm no master driver or whatever.

But a typical automatic transmission? Dude, I have a huge advantage as a human. I have eyes. I can see things the engine cannot.

It takes time for a internal combustion engine to rev up to its ideal torque band. The Ford Focus is a turbocharged engine, which means it only achieves maximum torque above 4000 RPM.

Since most automatic transmissions are tuned for fuel efficiency (ie: 2000RPM band or so), they will perform worse when you're trying to accelerate. The manual driver has the advantage that they can choose fuel efficiency (ie: 2000RPM most of the time), or in cases of emergency... kick it into (low) gear for very high RPM to maximize the torque band.

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ICE Engines are all about tradeoffs, and the manual driver can choose the RPM-band that best matches the situation.

Would a properly tuned automatic beat me in fuel economy? Probably.

Would a properly tuned automatic beat me in acceleration? Probably.

But no automtaic can be tuned to do both at the same time. Since high-Torque is high-RPM only... and fuel efficiency is low-RPM only... the computer cannot be tuned to try to do both at the same time.

Unless it's hooked into a sophisticated camera system, how could an automatic transmission possibly learn that I'm going to want a lot of acceleration in a couple of seconds once this car passes me?

By the way, I'm not a manual elitist, but rather an EV elitist. I like not having a transmission at all.

Automatic, yes. Semi-automatic, no. With semi, the driver makes the decision, and the system execute it (the best in class is within 10ms IIRC).

Most electric cars have only 1 gear (including reverse), isn't that a manual transmission? :-) It doesn't automatically shift...

That's no excuse

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