Toyota patents plans for EV with manual transmission and clutch
insideevs.com
insideevs.com
The nice thing about the regen paddle mechanical control is the no-look ability at your fingertips to change the car’s response depending on driving context. There are moments when you don’t want the car to tip into a regeneration drag when letting off the power pedal and sometimes you feel the need for the “engine braking” to engage right away.
All the other EVs just have strong regen (B setting) or low regen and the selection is a preset you have to choose either on the screen or somewhere near the shift cluster and isn’t exactly a no-look control you can change on the fly. The older VW Golf EV used to have a stick where you can tap up and down two levels of regen on the fly and that was also a great experience but now buttons have replaced the stick. (Sigh, it was nice while you had it, VW!) The Chevy Bolt has one paddle but it’s designed like a brake-with-your-hands lever when depressed. Not quite the effect of stepping up or down.
In sum, the feeling of downshifting, such as into a turn, can be controlled. On the other hand, there is no need for “upshifting” if the EV had adequate power to get to a high speed. Tesla’s power and torque band is already covering high and low speeds with one gear, although an additional top gear would probably get them to a really insane top speed. I think Toyota’s goal is to eke out more range because they want to use less powerful motors where the power and torque bands would benefit from gearing. My dream is for Tesla to add mechanical paddle shifters and do what Hyundai does.
Tesla tried that in their original Roadster. It had a two-speed transmission. The lurch when the transmission shifted during launch was too hard on the transmission, and many of them broke under warranty. Tesla had to replace many transmissions. It was easier to fix the problem on the electric side than the gear side.
There's something to be said for a paddle shifter, but mostly for better control at low speed. For parking and off-road use, it can be helpful to map more pedal angle to a range of low speeds. This is more like the high/low range lever found on off-road vehicles and tractors than like a stick shift.
Mode switches are undesirable because they lead to "wrong mode" accidents. This is an ongoing problem with aircraft automation.
Behavior with zero accelerator and brake is an interesting question. Should the vehicle creep slowly forward? That's a classic feature, or bug, of automatic transmissions. Some automatic transmissions had anti-creep mechanisms to prevent this. If the vehicle comes to a full stop, should releasing the brake initiate creep? Should the vehicle roll back if on a hill? Some cars have "hill holders" to prevent that. For an electric car, those are all design decisions - the power train has no inherent behavior.
Seems to me this was more a problem with Teslas build quality or design, because the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT have a two speed gearbox. From when I drove the e-tron GT this shifting was almost completely imperceptible, no lurching of any kind even when launching it in sport mode. If you're driving in anything other than sport mode the car will spend most of its time in second gear anyways, not even using it from a standstill.
The coolest part is the rear motor can be completely mechanically decoupled from the axel so it can just coast. Most other EV just shut of power to the motor, but Taycan can freewheel on the rear axle.
Jalopnik did a huge in depth on the whole powertrain that is really interesting.
https://jalopnik.com/an-extremely-detailed-look-at-the-porsc...
Actually, Tesla outsourced the transmission, first to Bosch then to Borg-Warner. Apparently neither of them could design and build a suitable gearbox.
Porsche has a lot of experience with gearboxes which probably explains why they can build a reliable one when dealing with the power and torque.
Note: power mode does not increase power, it just waits longer to turn off the ICE in order to improve throttle response
In single pedal mode, slowing down to a stop is a lifting the accelerator pedal completely and it will come to a stop in predictable manner. The brake pedal adds more regen and stronger application applies the brakes itself. From a stop, pushing down the accelerator starts moving the car. On hills, there is brake assist and works without any drama. Operating in reverse is the same way.
In dual pedal mode, or classic operations. While under motion, lifting the accelerator has a bit of regen until about 7kph and then creeps forward. To come to a complete stop, the brake pedal is necessary. From a stop, lifting the brake pedal starts the creep forward. This being an electric, even on inclines, the creep forward is consistent. Reverse is the same way.
At slow speeds, ie parking, it is easier to have the creep mode. Controlling speed with the brake pedal feels better. However, with experience, single pedal slow speed works well, just have to feather the throttle.
I've set the car to default to two pedal setup on start. I hit the single pedal mode switch every time I'm driving. It works well in a shared car setup. I do find it more weird to now drive with two pedals, but using the brakes still comes up even with single pedal driving, so if I do "forget" which mode I'm in, I'll still use the brakes when the car isn't slowing down enough.
Regarding the simulated legacy behavior, ie rolling back on the hill or changing torque. This is in the same line as simulating gearing in a CVT and simulating engine noise. I don't find it appealing and do hope car manufacturers have it as a configurable item, like Nissan has done with the one pedal driving. Here in a Japan, even the noise generator to warn pedestrians can be turned off.
The first is "Creep" which behaves like a classic automatic transmission. It basically matches the dual-pedal mode.
The second is "Stop", which matches the single-pedal mode you describe.
But there's a third mode, "Roll", which essentially mimics a manual transmission in neutral once speeds get below ~7 mph.
When I first got my Tesla, I came from a car with a manual transmission, so "Roll" made me feel at home and I used it for the first couple weeks. But once I tried out "Stop" mode and tried out single-pedal driving, I was sold. There's no going back. It's now exceptionally rare for me to use the brake pedal.
Most of the time I can drive without even touching the brake pedal, since you can hold the left paddle and it will engage maximum engine braking, which it quite powerful. This helps with battery as well since there is less energy loss when braking.
Fine-tuning this doesn't really add any value
Are you referring to a different model? Because if we consider the e-Tron... it doesn't seem to be where this design was first seen.
But paddle shifters do nothing for me. There’s no feel to it. It’s more like 3 on the tree.
If the clutch gives it feel and control, I’m in.
Sadly, finding a real manual is hard these days. Most cars don’t offer them. My Honda is stuck in 1 package with a mid-2000s style dash. Still fun to drive.
I should look and see if I could retrofit an Apple Car Play/ Android Auto system in it…
I would really like a modern car without shitty media systems. A desktop PC with mouse and keyboard would be awesome, directly attached to any sensor periphery and the coffee machine of course.
I mostly envy the nav on my wife’s Apple Car Play. Otherwise it’s just a running map and an album art display.
We use Waze for interstate travel and Google Maps for local. It’s nicer than a “nav package” or my phone holder. Otherwise, I’m happy with whatever let’s me listen to my tunes and podcasts.
But I don’t need it that much. My little car is mostly for in town. We always use the van for trips.
I do love a good minivan. I’m not ashamed :)
I don't have an ADHD diagnosis, but coordinating 3 pedals, the steering wheel and the gear shift with both hands and both feet is unbeatable, sublime even, when you hit the power curves you were going for.
Exactly: a fun activity that's enjoyable to practitioners, and doesn't hurt those who do not partake of it. You wouldn't ban cosplaying if you had the power, would you?
For instance the Porsche Taycan:
"Having a multispeed transmission in an EV provides the same benefits that it does in a gasoline-powered car: improved low-speed acceleration and increased efficiency at high velocity by lowering the rotating speed of the power source."
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28903274/porsche-taycan-t...
Another comment said the efficiency gain on the Taycan is 5% over not having it. Which is about what I would've expected to see, not much for all the added complexity and reliability issues it introduces.
EVs with multiple gear ratios do exist though, the first of which was the 2020 Porsche Taycan. The first gear lets it maximize torque at low speeds (up to 62 MPH) so it can set 0-60 records, then the second gear lets it maintain a more economical motor speed for highway driving.
The range dip may instead be because of lower battery temperatures (from all of the wind). Better battery thermal management at high speeds might help.
Higher energy density batteries will also comfortably overcome this problem. In the future I can see EV's that advertise fixed ranges, so that you don't get arbitrary range dips. They'll do this by over dimensioning the batteries and using better battery management software to make sure that more than 95-99% of your drives will be able to go at least the advertised range
Our Leaf could probably go almost 50% farther on a charge if we never exceeded 30 mph. 30-40 mph has a small penalty; freeway speeds exact a much larger penalty.
But I find that when I'm driving at lower speeds I'm constantly stopping and starting for traffic.
Around where I live there are many roads posted at 80km/h (50mph) with traffic lights every km or so. So it's accelerate to 80 for a couple minutes, then come to a complete stop, then accelerate back to 80. That's clearly what swallows up most of the range.
I would argue that for an EV that is not designed to be a sports car (ie, a Model 3), you are correct.
But one that is being designed to not just have power off the line, but also at the top end, will probably need a transmission.
I do wonder if the top speed of my Model 3 Performance is due to simply not having enough power to overcome drag, or if the motors are reaching the end of their RPM range.
But it's fixed.
Getting rid of 50% of your car detecting senses doesn't seem like a good idea
That said, the "cars make noise go vroom" argument hasn't really worked for decades now. Modern mufflers mean most unmodified cars aren't loud enough to be clearly heard over background noise in an area with lots of cars. Pedestrian safety is absolutely a problem that's worsening, but I don't think that "make cars noisier" is the solution.
Barring the ideal (to me) solution of fewer cars in the first place, what seems most promising to me is making the infrastructure itself more pedestrian-friendly. I was impressed to see what Amsterdam's city center did with encouraging cars out onto the thoroughfares and out of the places where people are walking. They didn't seem to have the same "Waze addicts blowing through stop signs on residential streets" problem that we have in North America. Nor did they have the same problem with stroads and their obnoxious traffic patterns that set everyone who uses the on edge. It seemed to make transportation both safer and more pleasant for everyone involved.
Tires often make more noise than car engines nowadays. I live along a busy street and often I can't audibly distinct a Tesla from an ICE except for a faint hum. They are both as loud when passing by.
When vehicles past a certain volume (which are not aggressively streamlined to shatter human-powered landspeed records) move faster than 25 kph (15 mph) they displace enough air that they are quite loud.
An automobile-sized vehicle isn’t some kind of terrestrial ninja when its engine doesn’t make noise. Depending on make, model and speed, the volume of displaced air is significantly louder than the engine running at constant velocity.
There's a significant gap between theory and reality, but I'm not sure noise pollution is the answer.
It might not even require GPS or anything complicated; just respond to car’s radar squawks, so that it can measure the distance and relative speed from the delay and Doppler shift. You’d need to use frequency that bounces around nicely, to “get around” other cars blocking the line of sight. We can’t do that with passive pedestrians, because we can’t tell the echo from pedestrian from the (also moving, like other cars) background. This could work more reliably and at much higher distances.
Of course someone must have tested that already; I’d be grateful for a link :-)
To be fair, the Charger name was created long before it meant "thing you use to plug into an electric device", and the Charger is a very popular vehicle in the Dodge lineup. And you don't abandon popular models without generating negative PR. So Dodge didn't really have a choice.
Plus, they can use the pun in witty commercials.
Fast cars are dangerous on our streets and responsible for a significant number of deaths on the road. It wouldn’t be bad if they killed the brand for society.
It’s too bad that “car that gets you great mileage and helps protect kids in driveways and crosswalks” doesn’t sell.
It also gets great mileage and helps protect kids in driveways and crosswalks, and sells rather well.
We lost that battle 20+ years ago, when SUVs and giant trucks became so popular.
Those are literally the cars that sell the most. There's a reason manufacturers focus on Crossovers, and Volvo focuses on safety - it sells.
The reason for this are the tires which have gotten so wide over the past decades that they are now the sole noise you hear from a normal car.
BEVs are not running tires that are any different sizes than similar positioned gas cars. The model 3 is running similar tire sizes to the German sports sedans of similar positioning. The leaf is running similar sizes to other hatchbacks. Etc.
In general, cars are running larger tires in every dimension, but cars are also larger in every dimension.
> Electrobat! Is that not a great name? It belongs to the first commercially viable EV effort. Philadelphians Pedro Salom and Henry G. Morris adapted technology from battery-electric street cars and boats and got a patent in 1894. At first very heavy and slow (like a trolley car, with steel “tires” and 1600 pounds of batteries onboard), their Electrobat [at left] evolved to employ pneumatic tires and lighter materials so that, by 1896, their rear-steer carriages used two 1.1-kW motors to move 25 miles at a top speed of 20 mph. Electrobats and another electric by Riker won a series of five-mile sprint races against gasoline Duryea automobiles in 1896.
Per Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Charger) the name has been around for 56 years (since 1966). Or 58 years for the "show car" version of 1964.
The future looks bleaker with each passing day
My uncle has a country place, that no-one knows about
He says it used to be a farm, before the Motor Law
Sundays I elude the ‘Eyes’, and hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire, where my white-haired uncle waits
Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine –
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream
I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time
Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar!
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime…
Wind in my hair –
Shifting and drifting –
Mechanical music
Adrenalin surge –
Well-weathered leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware
…
Personally, this one seems about as appealing as bringing back the manual ignition advance on gas-engined cars.
Not saying that's right or wrong. Only that it's not strictly a pedestrian thing.
Since in EVs it's more or less simulated, it would make since to have more than one setting and one of those to be off.
p.s. The Dodge Charger has been ine of Dodge's most successful model. Gazillions of recognition has been invested in that model. They're not going to abandon that. In fact, the name makes more sense as an EV.
When a significant part of your brand is noise pollution, your brand needs updating. [0]
[0] According to Autoweek, "Loud pipes save lives" is false https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a35952569/loud-p...
> and one of those to be off.
It definitely is, Europe wouldn't pass a law mandating slow speed EV artificial noise if it was just a matter of branding
That said, it doesn't mean a manufacturer can't use sound to their benefit, regardless of what regulations says.
In fact, I believe in Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" he sites an example (or two) where sound was part of the design of a product.
BTW, this clutch idea is really really dumb.
Doesn’t it make an obnoxiously amplified EV high pitched whir? That was the impression I got from the unveiling
I'm so glad this monstrosity is not cleared for European roads.
If the silence of the vehicles increases the likelihood of lower speed collisions then that's potentially a problem.
All of this is already working fine with no transmission... Adding one to a consumer EV for snowy conditions is a step backwards in terms of more stuff to break and maintain.
I believe this makes more sense for heavy equipment and freight trucks. You wouldn't want to have the gear ratio for heavy load all the time, as it would require the motor to spin at high RPMs (inefficient) to maintain highway speeds even when the amount of torque required is low.
Not the most fun though unless you enable track mode or disconnect the traction control sensors.
The instant reaction speed of its electric traction control to slippage will vastly outperform any manual transmission. You can drive like an idiot with the pedal to the floor and the car sorts itself out.
Most of the crummy AWD systems they throw in the majority of cars these days can get you unstuck or up a hill so that’s not a major advantage.
Also, car makers tend to throw on low friction tires on electric cars to increase range which invites another set of problems.
When the computer can outperform a human let the computer do it! Only give control of things where at least some drivers can outperform the computer. And, while not relevant to driving, if there's a grey area let the operator hit an override to use it. (Boeing--the plane does what you tell it even if you go outside the envelope. Airbus--the plane stays in the envelope no matter what you tell it to do. The first makes for broken birds, the second means the pilot in trouble can't decide to risk breaking the bird if that's what's needed. If you need 4g to clear terrain you do it even if the bird is only rated for 3g.)
Admittedly, it's hard for me to directly compare stick and automatic because the cars with automatic were also much heavier -- a minivan and a SUV.
Isn't the goal of traction control to limit the power to the wheel?
Reading on how TCS works [1], it seems it applies the brake and may limit power from the engine?
[1] https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/what-is-a-traction-con...
The other common case is when taking off in a straight line, the car can limit power in excess of what the wheels are capable of putting down. This is usually accomplished with a combination of limiting power and in some cases braking individual wheels as they lose traction to simulate the effects of having a differential.
Electric cars do better much in the latter case because of how quickly they can limit power compared to an engine. It’s one of the reasons electric cars dominate 0-60 tests because they can adjust power hundreds of times a second whereas that’s simply not possible with a gas engine.
Would traction control be expected to outperform a human on snow? Is the higher weight of an EV going to make it handle poorly anyways?
Traction control will outperform an above average driver on snow. I've driven lots of fast cars sideways and lived in the Northeast my whole life and I leave the TC system on because while I know how to control a slide on a racetrack, I don't want to do the same on a public road.
But if your _only_ goal is to limit torque, you could simulate that by re-mapping the pedal.
Say, by hitting "Eco" mode on a Prius.
Same in reverse for breaks and abs.
On my car you can turn it off if you want some fun on dirt tracks.
All that said, I do appreciate the tendency for Japanese car companies to take care with the act of doing in their cars. I know Porsche gets the trophy for wholistic driving experiences, but Japan is doing a great job of bringing some of that back from the 90s bubble era cars.
There is just a lot of people that are used the a certain solution and are resistant to change.
In the UK, for example, automatic cars are more expensive to buy and insure [1]. They also tend to be more expensive to learn how to drive as instructors mostly have manual cars to teach with.
This incentivises new drivers towards manual cars, especially as younger drivers are more likely to be in lower-paying jobs and therefore more price conscious.
There is also a separate license category for automatic cars. If you have this license you are not allowed to drive manual cars, whereas the manual license entitles the holder to drive both. Therefore most new drivers opt to learn manual for the flexibility and the cost reasons.
1: https://www.moneysupermarket.com/car-insurance/automatic-car...
Slam on the brake as if you’re using the clutch. Automatic brake pedals are more than wide enough to accommodate two feet, and attempting to upshift and slamming on the brake instead can really rattle your brain bucket.
Throw the automatic into park. Less of an issue these days, but it used to attempt to actually go into park, with the shenanigans you’d imagine there would be as the parking pin attempted to engage with the forcefully spinning gears.
Smoothly operating a manual has to be muscle memory and whenever you're dealing with muscle memory there's the issue of unintended capture. It doesn't take much to reprogram things like learning the actual working range of *this* clutch but skipping it entirely takes a lot more learning.
In high school, I drove a really old car with manual everything (including brakes). Our drivers ed class was taught on 80s american sedans, with overboosted power steering and brakes where you could probably just touch them with a single toe to stop. Coming from the manual brakes in my car where I needed to stand on them to stop, I'd inadvertently slam on the brakes early in my turn at the wheel and throw everyone against the seatbelt tensioners..
Source: https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmittei..., grep for Automateneintrag
So the fraction of manual-transmission cars in the UK is much lower than I would have expected.
This stops being true the first time you depress the accelerator on an EV. My Kia has a 0-60 time comparable to a low-end Porsche.
So I can see it making sense for vehicles that have have two modes of operation, for example a tractor or all-terain vehicle that also need to work on public roads at relatively high speeds. A manual gear box is ideal in such a setting, because you seldom need to use it and it's very simple, cost effective and reliable. In any case, only useful for an extreme niche of applications.
If this makes people feel better during the transitional phase, I guess that counts for something, but this is a manual car simulation only.
It actually “locks” the gears to a particular ratio which allows me to use the engine to keep the car from exceeding a particular speed when coasting down a hill. When I start using the accelerator after, it very quickly switches itself back to automatic as soon as the “locked in” gear ratio is clearly non-optimal.
I’ve never bothered using them for any other scenario though, I don’t see the point as the CVT (at least on my car) very intuitively adjusts gear ratio based on how far I’ve pushed in the accelerator, it’s such a pleasure to drive.
My Corolla only has two possible downshifts and neither is all that good for holding speed on a downhill but the cruise control is integrated into the system--I can set a speed and the computer will do a pretty good job of using the engine to keep from exceeding it too much and since it's adaptive it will always avoid the car in front even if otherwise it doesn't hold the speed that perfectly. Since I found that out I've never touched the downshifts.
Strange thing is they chose to only have "three gears", no matter at what speed you do it the max is two shifts.
Not that it matters a lot, the shift in revs is not too much and if it gets petrol loving people into hybrid vehicles I'm OK with that.
They've been phasing out their CVTs in favor of traditional automatics, though.
Film color,lenses defects, lots of "analog" audio effects and now cars.
What I would expect a machine to say. I, for one, do not welcome our new robot overlords.
BUT that's entirely untrue of electric cars, electric motors produce maximum torque at 0 engine speed and eventually drop at high speed. So there's simply no reason to be using a transmission at all. There is no decision to be made about gearing, you either have enough torque or you don't.
The interesting thing is with an EV you can customize the crap out of how the thing feels. You can (theoretically) tweak all the rates used by the controls to make it feel any way you want.
Union protectionism and crony capitalism at its best if you ask me, YMMV.
So it's more like "I have <image of clock> left" because I intuitively know what the clock will look like when the time is up.
When I used to drink coffee, I took sugar in it. Sugar in diners often came in a dispenser[1]. I could tell when I had the right amount of sugar poured in from one of these even though it might clump on a humid day and pour freely on a dry day. With an analog watch, I can do this for time, but with a digital I cannot.
A digital watch requires much more conscious thought; if I log all my activities and make a spreadsheet &c. I can calculate a range of time it will take me for all my tasks, but with an analog watch I can just intuit it. To some personality types doing all of this seems to be enjoyable, but it's quite painful for me.
1: Like this: https://rapidswholesale.com/browne-halco-12-oz-sugar-pourer....
I also have an image for the year in my head when long term planning. It is dynamic and I see it from “today” wherever that is, and I approach upcoming events. It is cyclic in years but there is a difference between looking back on January which was and looking forward to the next January.
This is not true. It does change a bit under heavy load and the req. to keep it constant are far from perfect. There are timers that use the AC freq. but they are far from precise compared to a quartz crystal oscillator ones. A low effort [0] stackexchange search.
[0]: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/57878/how-pr...
Some prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24602162
In my opinion wall clocks that run on a battery are a lot better than any digital clocks perception wise. They are also super cheap to make nowadays. Recently I had to fix one by disassembling it, clear the plastic gears/cogs, and silicone spraying them. Nifty little machines. My only regret would be not having solar battery as a frame. That would extend its battery life immensely, adding a tiny LiFEO4 would make run for decades.
Dunno how much drag the motor would create if allowed to spin freely…
Though a clutch-kick in an ICE operates based on the inertia of the rotating engine. I wonder how much inertia an electric motor has and if a clutch-kick would even be as effective.
What they really need is a hydraulic parking brake lever. Being able to lock the rear tires is a necessity for drifting situations when you want to increase angle while also scrubbing speed.
There's little downside to active power control unless you want the effect of not having it.
Side note to locking and viscous differentials (and for automatic transmissions, the "slushbox" torque converter), which have been providing passive traction control in cars for 70 years.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/jalopnik.com/this-chinese-elect...
Hell, the CVT in the Yaris can actually feel good, it's relatively responsive and gives a linear push (when the electric engine is charged, going on pure ICE is hell). You just have to enjoy the BRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CVT is, theoretically, infinitely superior to a traditional geared automatic transmission. They got a bad wrap at first (just like traditional automatics) when they were introduced, but the tech has matured and they are extremely reliable now.
The current Hyundai's and Kias using traditional six speed autos never overheat. The Spark is one of my favorite cars to drive on these courses, and unfortunately even the 98hp 1.4L will overheat the CVT after a minute of hard driving.
Love CVTs in city traffic though.
Interesting how everyone who answered thought I don't like CVTs. I was just pointing out the discrepancy.
I would definitely prefer a manual. Just don't always get to choose.
Didn’t you already find it with the Leaf? Or is a base-model Leaf still full of lots of unnecessary farkle?
Many of those bells and whistles you don’t want are designed to protect other road users as much or more than yourself.
Not wanting the bells and whistles that only effect the driver and not others is fine, but it’s a bit selfish to discard the others.
And yeah Some people will be like “I am responsible and don’t need those” but 50% of those will be the ones that need them most and it’s hard to tell who is who.
Like, maybe we can defray the costs of safety in a different way, such that cars, which are unfortunately a need for a lot of Americans, aren't outpacing inflation so badly. Such as increase licensing restrictions and make drivers' tests more comprehensive. Or lowering speed limits and enforcing them more strictly. These solutions do not have the effect of adding $10k to the cost of cars, which harms poorer Americans much more than wealthier Americans.
You can have this, but you have to import it from China, and the minimum level of bells and whistles required to legally operate it on the roads in the US is incredibly high.
Why not convert a mid 20th century car to EV?
It is also a joy to be able to service and replace the clutch when required. Here's to hoping Toyota doesn't break with their history of having vehicles that are easy to work on with cheap plentiful parts available from the dealer even 30 years after it rolls off the production line.
Trying to replace a battery pack on my Nissan Leaf has been a nightmare. Rather than supporting owners, they seem to prefer you treat the vehicle as disposable, given availability, cost, and needed tools to service the EV.
I'm glad someone is trying to save the manual transmission baby from the ICE bathwater.
The torque from 1000lbs of Li-ion cannot be denied, but are there other options here? Less torque, fewer batteries, less range but still the acceptable acceleration and cruising speeds?
The high end Porches Tycan proved that two gears is a good design, even at the highest end of performance, for example. Lower performance vehicles probably have more opportunity to use gears?
It's the closest thing to "get in and drive" of any car I've had. I especially love the adaptive cruise control.