https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
(Sorry if this sounds like an ad, I'm not affiliated with them but have been scouting for a car recently.)
Is that a good thing?
Your experience sounds like the overdrive was off. Or the transmission was dying/defective.
It still has a manual mode, even paddle shifters, but in regular drive, the lack of hard shift is really pleasant.
I sometimes drive an US-designed car with, I assume, an US-designed automatic transmission (traditional planetary sets + torque converter) and I was actually surprised it doesn't shift very smoothly, worse than a good driver on a manual and much worse than dual-clutch transmissions. With the latter it's pretty much impossible to tell when it is shifting if you cannot hear the motor rev.
(When you switch that car to 4L... oh dear, every shift feels like a learner driver learning to shift with the entire car jerking around. Everyone nods in approval!)
regular Automatic transmissions (not CVT) have been commoditized and are usually subcontracted out to dedicated vendors that make transmissions and sell them to auto manufacturers all around the world, so the nationality of the car vendor isn't going to tell much about transmission quality.
For example, the largest market share of car automatic transmissions belongs to (Japan based) Aisin, which sells transmissions to Ford, Toyota, BMW, Skoda, Chevrolet, Suzuki, Volvo, Hyundai, and many others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Aisin_transmissions
A lot of the bus and truck transmissions are made by (US-based) Allison and they are sold all over the world and have the largest share in duty engines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Transmission
There is large variability in perceived transmission quality, depending on everything from how the software controls it to form factor (real wheel or front wheel) to issues of reliability and build quality, but there are excellent US transmission vendors as well.
My newer car has a traditional automatic - the only reason I didn't go for a CVT is simply that the model I have doesn't come with that option (otherwise I would have opted for it).
My minivan has a 9-speed automatic transmission and the engine spends 99% of its time either off, idling, or around 1.9k rpm, so it seems like it's efficient enough.
(Or just buy electric and don't worry about fiddly transmissions)
The fact that you use energy stored as electricity does not get around the laws of inertia or air resistance -- accelerating a mass quickly will always require more energy than accelerating it slowly. And in the PEV world, since re-charging can take an hour instead of a minute, the consequences of draining the battery more quickly are going to be more of an annoyance.
Transmissions come up in that this is how some automakers meet efficiency requirements -- by taking away some control over acceleration from the driver by using a transmission that is programmed to shift gears in the higher rev ranges, with no manual override. But this makes the car less responsive.
Here, Tesla's brilliance shines, not because it doesn't have a transmission -- they can and do put in software that limits acceleration, so they could have done the same thing to improve range, but onlike others that improve efficiency by making the car less responsive to the driver, they improve efficiency by having a more efficent engine or a lighter car, while keepig the car very responsive to the driver. The real brilliance of Tesla is in building cars that are fun to drive (read, responsive), and indeed most of the innovation of electric cars that has been successful in the market was based around improving acceleration and adding more torque, making the car more fun to drive. That's why models like the Tesla or the old Ferrarris with electric assist are much loved by drivers, even though models like the Leaf and Bolt are not. Drivers care about good handling.
CVTs are not efficient because they control the rate of acceleration. You can over-rev a CVT and get as much acceleration as your engine (and it's transmissions losses) will allow. CVTs are efficient because they allow the engine of the car to operate in its most efficient power range more of the time.
EVs run into this same issue, but the way Tesla anyhow solved for it is pretty wild. Dual motor Teslas have 2 different motor/ drivetrain gear ratios. The rear wheels are most efficient at lower speeds and when you are driving slower, they get most of the power. The front wheels are most efficient at higher speeds and when you are driving faster, they get the most power. This way the most efficient motor is always doing the most work at any time. This is likely why the AWD Teslas have so much more range than the single engine/ RWD models.
There is a good article talking about EV transmissions here, the bit about Tesla's 2 gear ratio setup is about 12 paragraphs in.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/22/ev-transmissions-are-co...
I’m getting a bunch of turbo components tomorrow so that may change things.
The only things I’ve HAD to repair are... the top. $250 and 4hs later I have a new one on that’s been great. Everything else has been track oriented upgrades and tinkering out of boredom. It’s even running on an old Megasquirt ECU I put together as a teen, so it’s not even Japan reliable, and it’s still more reliable than many of my friend’s cars.
Except electric cars. They have been avoiding doing anything electric for years, pushing ICE instead.
Other Mazda's don't: https://youtu.be/z5k5Oqfyn2Y?t=510
*EDIT: Also all the VW models in the Golf and Passat Range come with a touchscreen, the low-end Fiats are the same, Mercedes is no different, even the low-end at Dacia comes with a touchscreen. If you can find a car manufacturer that does not think a touchscreen is the way to go, I'll be surprised.
\EDIT2: Since I looked at everything else in my neighborhood as well... Audi does a touchscreen center console for everything. You can get the Renault Twingo without any electronics but if you take the climate control you also get a touch screen. Honda and Hyundai will include a touch screen with everything as well. The only cars I got offered without a touchscreen center console is the Mitsubishi outlander and there it is only 1 model.
It is clearly designed away from "touchscreen", but if you are parked it functions fine with touch.
* https://www.consumerreports.org/infotainment-systems/how-to-...
> Despite selling some vehicles with high ratings in other categories, Audi, Honda, Infiniti, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Subaru, and Toyota all joined Lexus at the bottom of our satisfaction ratings when it came to ease of use for in-car electronics.
* https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/mazda/3/2021/road-test/ (requires subscription):
> The infotainment screen mounted in the center of the dash isn’t a touch screen; users must adjust audio and infotainment features using steering wheel controls or the rotary controller and buttons mounted between the front seats. Unfortunately, some steering wheel controls are hard to see and difficult to use because they have silver text on a silver background. The rotary knob and buttons in the center console are also challenging to use since many of the buttons are difficult to see at a glance, and the lack of an easy-to-decipher menu structure forces drivers to spend too long looking at the controls instead of the road.
As can be seen from your first link, the main control method is a jog-wheel knob at your knee next to the gear shift lever, mounted facing up, so you turn it left and right to select things and push in to "click"/confirm. CR says that with this control system, and the menu hierarchies that Mazda's UI makes you go through, you end up more distracted than with the better touch-screen systems they review.
>Mazda is looking to add more simple, tactile controls into the cars. A quick tilt of the volume knob to the right or left goes forward or back single tracks
Ugh, if only there were some kind of dedicated control for some of these things that are being moved out of touchscreens. Something you can just tap on, sort of the way you do with touchscreens, but that never moves or changes, so you can tap it without looking.
Boy whoever invents that will be a billionaire!
Obviously, if you only test drive the car for an hour, you cannot get used to it, and you have to look down. Same as you had to look at your mouse the first time you used it.
Touchscreens in cars are really distracting. I had to yell to an acquaintance of mine once -- they were trying to change the music while going with 40-50km/h in a suburban area and she almost hit a dog. The reason? Cheap touchscreen that doesn't register half the touches. But it wouldn't matter for the poor creature that gets one ton of steel driven through them.
Maybe the car infotainment system's controls belong to the steering wheel? Or a bunch of extra levers? Who knows, but IMO the touchscreens aren't that good as well. The jury is still out on what's the best way of approaching this.
Before I could turn my fan speed knob by feel. It was "stepped" so I knew what level it was at when I moved it, if it was min/max. Same with heat and cool. Knob to adjust what vents. All could be done with eyes on the road.
Now? OK you can change climate control, go into touch screen, open up controls, tap to change 5 times to different vents, some crap slider to control fan speed, all requiring to look in order to see where to touch. The lack of tactile feedback just sucks.
On a phone yea sure it's great because I'm looking at it when I use it - it's function is to look at it. Not in a car.