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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

> The car’s gasoline engine coughed to life and started to operate. One could hear the engine’s sound and the car’s whole body vibrated as if something was broken, but the seller assured us that everything was as it should

I've only learned to drive and have owned my car for a year now (I'm in my mid-30s), but I just love the engine of my petrol car starting. Often times I choose to drive with my radio turned-off just to hear the engine's sound. Mind you, is a regular 1.4l hatcchbak, nothing sporty or the like.

Later edit: I also love to change gears, honestly. Not sure exactly what it is, but I don't see myself driving an automatic.

> You need a lot of training to learn to select the right gear at the right time

And about this, there's no "a lot of training" needed, you just get used to it pretty fast. Actually, IMHO, is part of the whole process of you becoming one with your car.

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I also love manual transmissions. It will be the hardest thing for me to give up when I eventually make the switch to electric.

I suppose it is similar to the satisfaction the owner of a mechanical watch gets -- but it's more visceral. You're really becoming part of the machine, and you feel it. Coordinating gear shifting with clutch pedal actuation, instinctively doing it all at the right moment based on what you hear and feel from the engine. Your body and mind are involved, consciously and subconsciously. Now all that is just ... gone.

You can always occupy yourself, now free of unnecessary tasks, with audiobooks.

That's the thing though - it's not a mentally taxing activity once you've become accustomed to it. Listening to audiobooks is not a problem.

Driving automatic/electrics is less physically demanding, so it will allow you to more easily eat tacos while driving (which is much more challenging than eating cheeseburgers).

Yup. Being in tune with the vehicle is the most fantastic part of driving. The skill and coordination required, the tactile pleasure of the controls and the gearchange. The automatic kills much of the enjoyment of it. And yes, I've been driving for about 20 years, and yes, I've commuted in some of the worst traffic in America.

Also, changing gears myself does not preclude me from listening to audiobooks, as some commenter mentioned. I'm already sitting there operating the controls on the car. Having one more lever and one more pedal does not exactly tax me mentally, or preclude my other senses, not constitute any real effort aside from perhaps an extra calorie or three burned.

I also never understood the charge that driving a manual sucks for commuting. I've done my fair share of the rather lousy downtown Chicago to Chicago suburbs commute, and never quite figured out what the big deal with all the starting/stopping was supposed to be.

IMO an electric car gets you closer in tune with the car because the input delay from pedal to torque on the wheel is pratically zero and the resolution is insanely more precise than with gasoline. At lower speeds the car feels much lighter, every input you put simply gives you instant feedback making the controls feel even more tactile, almost like riding a bike.

You can not compare electric to driving a gasoline with automatic, those still suffer from all the mechanical delays and are imo worse with regards to this as the delay of a gearshift can come at unpredictable times.

I pretty much always drive with the radio off. My car is a 3L diesel. Purists might scoff, but I've always liked the noise it makes. I was sold pretty much instantly on the test drive and four years later I still love it. Once you're on the move, it's very relaxing, like an ambient music track, with a cheeky whirring noise in the background that becomes more evident when it gets going.

When you're sat stationary with the engine idling, the gear knob and foot pedals shudder, and there's a slight juddering through the steering wheel. Some might think of this as unrefined, and possibly even agricultural, but I find it actually quite comforting. At such low revs the engine also sounds rather clattery... but I don't mind. At least you know it's still there.

(I had a courtesy car a couple of years ago with an engine that was undetectable while idling - and I ended up not liking it! It was so nice to have my car back, with its reassurring vibrations and its clattery engine sound. People are weird.

(But maybe if I'd have been given a Tesla, with its panoply of toys and its space shuttle-style acceleration, I'd have got over it.)

Obviously this post is not interested in car-geeking, but I agree, the sound of combustion engines can be wonderful (VW Beetles).

You have a valid point, but... anyone here misses typewriters? I didn't think so.

First of all, there was an article about Hanx Writer just the other day. Yes, there ARE people who miss typewriters.

Secondly, the word processor does countless things the typewriter cannot do, and does so with an order of magnitude more speed.

The automatic transmission does nothing a manual transmission cannot do (from the end user perspective), other than being ever so slightly less effort, and perhaps a few milliseconds faster in gearchange, which does not matter unless perhaps you are being paid for how fast you can get to the grocery store.

Freed of the tyranny of having to use your left foot for a clutch, what is it that you accomplish while driving an automatic that you could not before?

Hey there. You are arguing against a strawman...

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I'm way over here!

Hi.

You completely missed my point, which was, that the desire to drive an ICE car is generational.

I don't miss typewriters, never having used them regularly, but they certainly have their advantages as well. If I were to take up something involving more writing I'd probably get one. I spend a lot of my writing time with paper and pen these days.

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