Mazda made its first EV artificially slower 'to feel more like a gas car'
electrek.co
electrek.co
Mazda tuned the acceleration of their EV to feel like a conventional car. That's probably good UX if your market target is first-time EV buyer's who aren't especially keen on zipping around. The author of the article criticizes the decision because it makes the car less fun, apparently unaware that many people aren't looking for fun in a car, and aren't interested in aggressive driving.
Not to mention, the acceleration profile of conventional cars is tuned to the characteristics the designers want, too, and they aren't all tuned for "fun".
The Nissan Leaf has an "Eco" button that changes the acceleration curve and some models have a Hill Mode toggle on the Shifter that affects the regenerative braking characteristics.
Isn't "fun" what Mazda is known for? Their "Zoom Zoom" campaign ran for 14 years on the premise that Mazdas are more fun to drive.
Now they're intentionally making them less fun?
This is know since forever. Read the history of Karajan and his Porsche. He wanted a fun and sporty car tailored to him, but he didn't ask for more power. He requested less weight, and they even removed the radio, the back seats and the door handlers to get there.
The only way to get the cornering and fun of the ICE Miata is to get a EV Miata that weights about the same. Then get the 50%/50% weight distribution (this is easy with EV) and there you go.
I agree that it would be great if Mazda revived the RX-8 as an electric vehicle. Especially if they kept the stickshift.
The RX-8 would be much more complex, IMO, but I bet it would be a lot of fun to drive as an electric.
Are you blogging about your efforts somewhere? I'd love to follow them.
A Miata would likely have been an easier conversion, and it's probably what I should have done, though a convertible is kind of a tough sell when you live in Oregon and with RX-8s you can get a pretty recent car for not much money. (RX-8s with engine problems that no one wants to spend the money to fix are quite common.)
One thing to be careful of is weight balance. I'm told that if you have too much weight in the back, it makes the car a lot less safe in corners because it's easier to recover from front-wheel slip, whereas if the rear wheels break loose first you'll probably spin out.
So far, making battery boxes seems to be the biggest/most awkward task. I've never done welding before, and so I'm learning aluminum TIG welding. It took awhile to get the hang of it, but it's going alright now.
Miata culture is a thing. Being a convertible is one aspect of it, but other attractions are the handling and how common manuals are. In every area I've lived, there's at least one active Miata club where members take group road trips on weekends. These trips are typically 150-250 miles up and down hills and curves. A 100 mile range on a Miata definitely would not sell.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
I don't know what their stance is on built-in surveillance technology.
From a liability perspective it's a no brainier for companies. It also affords them a lot of valuable data from an actuarial perspective with regards to supply chain, warranty, and maintenance.
For the consumer the benefits are negligible, especially when that information is held private to the manufacturer.
The last RX8 had 33 fewer lb-ft of torque than this EV, and the current Miata has 44 fewer.
Mazdas have never been straight-line fast, but they have great handling dynamics.
No. And the people looking to buy a compact crossover from Mazda are not looking for a fun car. In fact, no person looking for a fun car is looking at compact crossovers.
Not to mention, reducing the torque output probably also saves a few electrons and extends the range a bit.
> consumers feel safe to buy a Tesla
That's a bit of a stretch. First of all, why would anybody in a supercar make fun of a Tesla, they're not aimed at the same market. Consumers feel perfectly safe to buy a Prius or Leaf and neither of those have Tesla like acceleration, and don't need it either.
People making fun of other people because of the vehicles they drive are just insecure.
If you really think that the acceleration characteristics of a vehicle is what sells your average car then you're mistaken, most people simply need transportation and don't want to do drag races in traffic.
Also, you know, there are a lot of vehicles that are much slower than 10 seconds 0-60 on the roads, even though 10 seconds has become pretty much the maximum for late model cars in the US. Commercial vehicles aren't going to disappear or do 0-60 in 5 seconds even if they had the power.
It's true that most people need transportation, don't want to drag race, and a really just need simple A to B stuff.
BUUUUUT that's not how America works. See - most people in America don't buy things based on what they need. They buy based on what they want and what they want their image to represent. Ever heard the term mall crawler? It's the term used for vehicles that have a ton of off-road gear/capability but never see anything but a mall. What percentage do you think of off road capable vehicles (like a Jeep Wrangler) see off road duty? How many trucks do you think regularly tow anywhere near their max? How many use the bed? How often do people fill up their giant SUV with stuff/people? Same with sports cars. Same with a bunch of vehicles.
People almost never utilize their cars to their built potential. They use them as A to B. It's almost completely about image and desire.
Maybe you don’t want a drag race but all the luxury spending 80k new can give you. However Tesla isn’t very luxurious, so they better be fast in comparison.
I don’t know about the “average car”, I think the market is pretty segmented actually and different buyers make their choice based on different things.
Eight years of Nissan Leaf ownership, and the only comments I’ve ever gotten at lights were positive. Used to be my friend hated to go with me in the Leaf because every time I parked it, someone would chat me up for five minutes. Not so much anymore now that EVs are more common. Now, no one even looks at me. Fellow Leaf drivers don’t even wave anymore.
So I don’t know where that massive insecurity is coming from.
The biggest racket that the major car companies ever pulled was tying someones identity to the car they drove.
It doesn't work on most, but it definitely works on some. Look at any forum for a particular car and you'll find em.
Certain psychological profile of consumers. I personally couldn't care less about it and would never pay more to impress random strangers on traffic lights... and while I'm sure I'm a minority in this, I like to believe there's still a significant market niche occupied by people who're closer to my view than insecure 16 year olds'... so in my eyes this Mazda's move makes a lot of sense, they just don't target the same people as Elon Musk
Why would you care what other people think of your car if you yourself like it?
Where’s your bottom line?
- Why would you care about other people not liking it, if you like it.
- If you don't like it (i.e. it's someone else's), surely you have better things to care about with your time than what someone else thinks of a car that you didn't buy?
- Most people don't have the time or money to give a crap about what people think of their car, more than they do about things like fuel-efficiency and repair costs, so if your main concern is that other people don't like your car, you're very likely well-off enough to stand to donate that money to people who are actually worse off.
The first two are just two parts of the same argument, the third point was used to augment the second. You're the one who was moving the goalposts. See:
- The initial discussion was about the person buying the car (Your claim was originally "People buy Teslas because they get harassed less at traffic lights")
- I responded to that and you moved the goalposts to "People drive cars that they didn't buy" (Which is a valid point, hence why I responded, but not the subject of the original argument, because we were talking about the owner of the car).
Please don't move the goalposts and then accuse me of doing that?
I mean, to make fun of my Yaris someone has to:
- Stop right next to me at some intersection
- Roll down the window
- Somehow convince me to roll down my window when I'm enjoying my Brahms and not even looking at them
- Yell "Hey your car sucks!"
...why would anybody go through the trouble? -.-
FTA: I know that Mazda likes to tune their cars for a specific driving feel, but I refuse to believe they couldn’t work the fun acceleration of EVs into their driving feeling.
Seems like they did exactly what the author is asking. Looking at Mazda's lineup, their core philosophy revolves around driver experience and feel (zoom-zoom) so it makes a lot of sense that they tune (down in this case) their EV's to match what they feel is the best experience for a car.
This should be a non-issue.
Better acceleration may use more power, but if it means people buy EVs instead of ICE cars, then it is helping the goal.
This is a downright laughable statement.
My car does 0-100 km/h in about 8-9 seconds. Plenty fast. In fact, I'm not really encountering any road users that accelerate faster than I do. No issues with merging, no issues with overtakes, nothing.
Here's someone joining the Autobahn with the same engine and gearbox as me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUiXwbbITGQ Please watch and observe at how undramatic this whole thing is.
Also, no one on the roads has any trouble catching up. The reason why people tailgate is because they're annoyed by people driving slowly (while possible still at the speed limit) in front of them.
It's not the catching up that's a problem. The problem is being to catch up while the dynamic, temporary, window in traffic is still open.
Were I to be driving a slow ICE car, that option of passing would not be available at all in many traffic windows that appear, because I wouldn't be able to close the n-car-length distance. This leads some people to tailgate, or follow more closely than they otherwise would, for various values of closely, because they are clinging to that hope of getting through a temporary window in traffic at some point.
(Setting aside the other less practical reason for tailgating, simple aggression / macho signaling).
Perhaps you are an exception. Thank you. :-)
No. I drive a 2001 Ford focus automatic. It's only 4 gears, has a torque converter and driven by a 100BHP engine. On paper, it's a sluggish car.
The gearbox has two kickdown modes. Give throttle a gentle push and it shifts down (interpreting we need to go faster) but, if you floor it, the gearbox quickly kickdowns until engine near-redlines, engine program changes to beast mode and the acceleration becomes unbelievable. I had used the feature a couple of times involuntarily and it literally saved my life.
0-60 in 9 seconds is not terrible. Not adding required emergency features is.
It's a bit simplistic, but if your engine puts out a reasonably constant amount of torque over different RPMs, then horsepower is proportional to RPM. If you have 100 peak HP, and a similar figure for torque it implies you have that horsepower at over 5000 rpm. So if you are accelerating moderately and your engine is turning maybe 2000 rpm, then it's only making 40% of the peak power, which in this case is 40 hp.
Say you had 300 hp, but you don't rev to 5K - you'd be aware of how it feels and think 100 hp is nothing - but you are getting barely more than that at 2K.
I actually have a newish car with 300 hp and an old one with about 150, and so from experience, the difference in power is very misleading, because the low powered car is usually running at twice the RPM on the highway, whereas the high powered one has an automatic transmission that really doesn't like to downshift. So it doesn't feel especially powerful unless you force it to rev.
Now and then I read an article about a car from roughly the late 70s, early 80s, when it appeared most cars made a ridiculously low amount of power. People say "wow, that big V-8 only made 200 hp" (or something like that). But comparing it with the torque figure should make it clear that if you compare it to a modern engine at a given, low RPM it's going to be much closer. They simply didn't produce torque and power at high RPMs. People like to talk about engines with low end torque, but in my opinion, there's no such thing - only engines that don't have high end torque.
I'd be able to safely merge with a 1992 200E, which does 0-100 in like 18 seconds.
When I was a kid Porsche made a car that did 0-60 in ten seconds. And Suzuki I think bragged about how their hatchback could do it in 8 or 9 and compared themselves to Porsche.
The F-150 FX4 truck I'm driving lately has a "sport mode" that completely changes the character of the acceleration and the "pedal feel" when driving. Why couldn't Mazda do the same thing?
> many people aren't looking for fun in a car, and aren't interested in aggressive driving.
I feel like those two factors aren't actually mutually inclusive.
> cars is tuned to the characteristics the designers want,
Why does that have to be the case? We allow customization and control of every other device in our lives, why not EV cars?
There's been a number of high-end EV crashes documented where they've rammed into homes and businesses, while it's unknown if they're sudden unintended acceleration issues I think it's great to hear other manufacturers are likely considering the human factors issues.
Mazda specifically markets themselves as fun to drive - the whole "zoom-zoom" thing
They put huge effort into making the driving dynamics both feel good and work well. Even the SUVs have a [Sport] mode toggle switch next to the shift lever that changes various shifting, suspension, and engine parameters for a different feel and performance profile.
It is no surprise that Mazda thought about this in depth and decided that the default should be to feel like a regular combustion engine/gearbox.
What is surprising, especially since it's available in other cars, is that that they do not seem to have included a Sport Mode, whereby a driver could access all the available performance.
Having both the default and sport mode would definitely make me more likely to consider the car, vs. the ICE-like mode only.
(also a bit surprising that the article never mentions asking Mazda about this option)
By modelling it after some very good "Zoom Zoom" Mazda driving characteristic, there is a higher probability it might fall into similar profile for insurance.
One of the problem with Tesla is its fast acceleration dramatically increases its rate of accident. To the point where some insurance company are no longer accepting it and Tesla had to insure it on their own.
Mazda did something very smart here - emulate current days experience, so presumably ordinary people swap to ordinary EV, because "it's a thing now".*
* - it's a thing now - aka goverments give subsidiares, aka it may be less CO2, it's cleaner, etc... is it? I don't know. I don't care. I do understand Mazda's move though.
1. pretty sure you mean subsidies
2. not all, wisconsin actually charges an extra tax if you drive an EV
* The article presents a controversial, click-bait title
* The article contents intentionally misrepresents very selective and incomplete quotes without surrounding context
* The article is low on factual content, high on opinion, while representing itself otherwise.
I've always called those people "digital drivers". It seems they're always either actively accelerating or actively braking, never anything in between.
Digital driver is (speed limit 50): go 49-51, brake back to 49, accelerate back to 51, brake back to 49
Not exactly like that, but approximately. Little ‘letting off the gas’.
This is truly bizarre.
“Slower” here probably isn’t appreciably slower at all, practically. It’s probably the difference between accelerating fast and accelerating so fast you feel physically ill.
Mazda is very good at making cars that feel nice to drive.
Also, true randomness isn't optimal for the picture frame display or the iPod. True randomness does annoying things sometimes like pick the same thing twice in a row even though there are hundreds to choose from. Apple had the right idea here.
You're saying horsepower and torque are just numbers used for marketing?
You don't buy a sports car to drive to the grocery store unless it's a status symbol (which is likely the great majority of sports car owners). But there are plenty of people that still like to actually take their cars to the track. I know because I'm one of them.
The majority of people that want a nicer car to drive around the suburbs will opt for luxury over sporty, because the Porsche GT2 RS is really not comfortable for daily driving. However, the Audi A8 is incredibly luxurious and very enjoyable for anyone that isn't in a hurry.
If you really think nobody buys a Tesla because of the acceleration, then you don't know that many Tesla drivers. I personally know at least 3 people who bought a Tesla because it was cheaper than buying a supercar for the same 0-60 time.
> You don't buy a sports car to drive to the grocery store unless it's a status symbol (which is likely the great majority of sports car owners).
You seem to agree on the core thing there: status symbol. Marketing. Gotta pump out bigger numbers to protect the status. Look at M or AMG cars now vs 30 years ago.
More acceleration is always beneficial in cases where you have to perform a safety maneuver or evade something.
Imagine, you are going in the leftmost lane, there is a car a bit too close to you behind (but still fine), in front of you there are no cars, but you aren’t speeding up because speed limits (and you just want to go at a comfortable pace). Someone in the lane to the right isn’t paying attention and trying to merge right into you, you honk, but it will be too late to react for the offending driver. Your only escape here in a slow acceleration car is to break and cause the car behind you to rear-end you, causing a collision and tons of potential injuries. In a car with fast acceleration, you can quickly speed up and that car will (recklessly) merge, all while avoiding an accident.
And that’s not even talking about stuff like avoiding something on the road or stuff falling out of a truck bed in front of you or just absolutely any kind of an avoidance safety maneuver.
Not legal=/=not useful, unless you mean higher than what most nice cars can currently do.
Of course, this will certainly not be viable during the typical commute hours.
BTW having 0-60 in 3 seconds helps you keep a safe driving distance.
That's what people want to believe but unless you have been trained by professional chances are more acceleration = more risks 99.9% of the time. In your example you can very easily go from being victim of an accident to being at fault in an accident you caused.
> And that’s not even talking about stuff like avoiding something on the road or stuff falling out of a truck bed in front of you or just absolutely any kind of an avoidance safety maneuver.
If something is in front of you acceleration is not really a concern. You either need good brakes or very agile car coupled with extremely good reaction time.
It's as simple as asking yourself if roads would be a safer place if everyone had a Nissan gtr.
A torque in an electric car is imo “a marketing ploy” only until a person thinking that actually tries one of those cars. I can assure you that even the cheapest model 3 has acceleration and torque that feels insane compared to any gas car I have ever tried (including stuff like a new Mustang GT with a V8).
You dont need to be into cars at all to feel the massive difference, it isn’t like an audiophile thing where you have to be into it to be able to tell the small differences. The best comparison i can give you is that if you press the pedal all the way, your head jerks back and your stomach gets that exact same physical feeling you would get on a dropping rollercoaster.
Sidenote: same thing with electric motorcycles btw. Even gas motorcycles already have really fast acceleration comparable to some electric cars, but an electric motorcycle is something else. Test drove a Zero recently, and the difference between it and a gas bike felt just as massive as going from a gas car to an electric car. Almost like a personal low-speed teleportation device.
I ask because I used to own a Brutale (I recently switched to an S1000R), and I noticed a guy on a Zero at a traffic light one day on my commute; he was fast enough off the line, but his shoulders got no more than 50cm or so ahead of me before he was behind me - I never saw the back of his bike.
My Brutale 920 had ~40hp less than my S1000R, but it felt faster in some ways because it had more jerk - the acceleration kicked in sooner. I kept doing accidental wheelies off the line the first week I owned it.
The S1000R is faster overall, but due to its smoothness, ride by wire throttle etc. it needs to be treated harshly with bigger throttle inputs to get the same feeling of responsiveness. I write this because it's not just a gas bike's power, but design choices that affect how fast it feels.
No, I should've specified that the bikes I usually ride are all around 600cc and below. I am totally aware that the discrepancy between top tier ICE motorcycles and electric ones isn't as massive as between top tier ICE cars and electric ones.
And thus I'm thinking about trading it in for something with more torque, as the screaming is less interesting to me and exposes more vibrations especially in older bikes. Could go either way with that (big engine or electric); though I have an inkling it might be worthwhile seeing what plug in scooters are available. Or if the cycle lane assault on road space continues in London, the fastest electric bike I can find.
Doing jackrabbit starts and stops on normal roads is going to have an impact to your mileage, just as if it was a regular ICE vehicle. Limiting the motor will lead to better mileage/range which then leads to a better customer impression when evaluating cars for purchase.
Casually dropping "It's so awesomely powerful, we had to put in restrictions for comfort" is straight up marketing speak to cover the tradeoff of 0-60 and battery range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_production_mot...
Tesla Model S Performance with its 0-60 under 3 seconds can still accelerate and drive very slowly and smoothly if the driver chooses to do so, while Mazda with artificially "slowed" acceleration can never go fast. At the end of the day, the car with more artificial limitations gives you less options and is inherently less safe.
That said, I can imagine some people may want a familiar driving experience, although it would make sense to make that a configurable option, e.g. 'sport mode' vs 'comfort mode'.
This type of power curve would also lead to increased wear on a some pretty expensive drivetrain components, so either the manufacturer has to greatly increase vehicle cost to cover for more resilient parts, or sell something that will tank the public's perception of the reliability of their brand.
Aftermarket pure software tunes can unlock some ridiculous amounts of horsepower and torque on modern cars, but expect your axles, brakes, suspension, or transmission components to need replacement much more frequently.
An ICE does require more air and fuel for acceleration as does an EV's motor use higher currents as the pedal is depressed, that is true. The nice thing about EVs is that you get aboout twice as powerful performance for your money.
TL;DR: I agree with your statement that all EVs are artifically slowed, just adding that all vehicles including ICEs are also artificially slowed in order to behave a certain way on normal roads.
> Their positive coverage of Tesla has been criticised by some automotive journalists. Its main authors have disclosed ownership of Tesla stock, substantial profit from referrals to Tesla, and ownership of Tesla cars.
When I drove the same car later (post production) it was noticeably slower. It seems that they had tuned the power controller to be more conservative. Honestly, the slower tuning is better. Electric motors can give instant power and lurch the car forward with little effort. My foot would become sore driving through the city, as I hovered it above the pedal and made micropresses to maintain speed. The new tuning (and gas engines in general) allow you quite a bit of leeway. Press the pedal twice as far as you should have, and you can slowly release it before the car gets ahead of you.
Having a car that’s quick of the starting line is a lot of fun, but make that a mode. Smooth, slow, driving is just more comfortable.
- lower max(amperage) to deliver for battery pack (lowered specs)
- longer-lasting battery pack at same energy capacity (strong accelerations consume lots of energy, and wear the battery)
- reduced weight (critical parameter for higher km/energy) :
- lighter motor (reduced max torque)
- lighter brakes (because of lower max speed)
- ...
Heck, given the option, I'd try a car with three separate controls for standard brakes, regenerative braking and acceleration. I expect it would be a lateral move in complexity compared to the stick shift I currently drive.
The brake pedal in Tesla’s controls only the friction brakes, the accelerator controls acceleration and deceleration via the motor(s).
Makes perfect sense.
mmm... ok.
That's not just a little slower for comfort. That's pitiful for any car. I am not sure I've ever owned a car that slow. For comparison, Mazda's full size SUV, the CX9, does 0-60 in 7.1 seconds. 9 seconds is more on par with the Mazda 2, a tiny sub-compact.
We need EVs to take over for the health of our planet, and the way we do that is by making them superior to gas cars, not nerfing them so they aren't competitive with them. The average buyer doesn't need a 4s 0-60 time but quick acceleration eliminates objections and perceptions that EVs aren't as good as gas.
9s 0-60 is 10% quicker than a 2010 Prius or Insight. Clearly there's a market for this level of acceleration.
It's not like the Prius has been a commercial failure, I'm really not sure what it is you're complaining about. Not everyone prioritizes speed and acceleration in a vehicle.