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Comment by ogre_codes | Hacker News Reader

Makes me wonder if they incorporate the feel of a laggy automatic transmission as well. Or perhaps they should force you to stop at a gas station once a week? Also... you have to fill up an oil reservoir once a quarter which slowly drips onto your driveway!

This is truly bizarre.

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It’s really not that bizarre. The article just describes a pedal-response curve; these are set by engineers for every EV, even a Tesla. Some are more aggressive than others.

“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.

"Slower" in this case is 0-60 in 9 seconds which is under-powered mini-van sluggish. That is not "nice to drive". I get that we don't need 0-60 in 4 seconds like Tesla wants to push, but limiting it to 9 second seems daft.

This wouldn't be terribly surprising. My wife's internal combustion car has a CVT that emulates an automatic with gears and shift points, presumably because that felt more natural to drivers than having the engine just run at optimal RPM.

That's pretty dumb as well. My Subaru with a CVT allows the driver to select from preset gear ratios, but unless you actively engage the paddles there are no artificial shift points as it should. The only time I can see value in the fake is when you are going downhill and want to control your speed without burning your brakes.

Clarification: I meant the idea of fake shift points in a CVT was dumb, didn't mean to suggest your comment was dumb.

Modern day automatic transmissions are anything but laggy and typically outperform average (and quite a few not so average) drivers by a very comfortable margin. They get better mileage too...

Modern day engines are capable of snappy acceleration too.

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