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in order for electric vehicles to be efficient they need a special transmission

Electric cars don't have transmissions. At least the Leaf and Teslas don't, that I can say with certainty.

Both of your examples have transmissions, they are however a single gearing ratio (“reduction gear”). EV conversions also frequently use a multi-gear transmission, as did the original Tesla Roadster IIRC.

Figured someone would be along shortly to point this out. Here ya go: "electric cars do not have the multi-ratio selectable transmissions that are in ICE cars." I seriously doubt anyone was confused by my succinct version, though.

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