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Automakers can’t quit manual transmissions so they’re cramming fake stuff into EVs
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Technology
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The author of this article just seems to fundamentally misunderstand (or deliberately ignore) why people like to drive. Just a lot of, "I don't like it so nobody should."
I like to drive because it gets me places. If you are driving fast for fun, that’s reckless driving. It should only be on a racetrack. People who drive like they are in The Fast and Furious are dicks. People who ride loud motorcycles to draw attention to themselves have mental health issues.
Not all "fun driving" is reckless driving. Endangering other people is never right of course. But the majority of people with car hobbies are very safe drivers.
If driving is not really your interest, that's totally fine. I don't personally see much appeal to it either. But that doesn't mean you should yuck other people's yum.
Yes and Id like to put in my two cents. I love driving. And it’s been my experience, having owned both manuals and automatics, that it is way more attainable to achieve fun engaging driving experiences safely when I drive manual. It’s far more difficult to attain that safely when driving automatic. The reason is that automatic cars are usually only fun when accelerating, turning at high speeds, or recklessly speeding. Manuals can be fun pretty much no matter what you do. So it’s perfectly reasonable for me to expect to have a good time when driving safely in a manual, and in my experience there is little to no motivation to pull unsafe maneuvers in the name of having fun. Point is there are in fact people who drive for fun who don’t feel the need to drive recklessly.
If (hypothetically) taking a taxi was free, some people would still rather drive the car themselves, even though both things get you to your destination. Some people simply enjoy switching gears on a manual...
But isn't the point of the manual transmission to be closer to the machine and integrate yourself into the actual driving experience, as well as perform better in edge use cases where a traditional automatic has little or no advantage over a skilled driver? This is literally the opposite of that, adding an imaginary layer of control and artificial sensory feedback that works against the drivetrain. Driving a manual is an exercise in market inertia and value engineering in Europe, and it's barely more than an enthusiast hobby in the US. I don't see either group wanting to "play pretend" for long.
Given the state of this world, there's better things to do than to add such gimmicks in EV. There's enough energy and matter wasted in useless widgets to at least spare the new generation of such stupidity. I could get behind a new kind of recycled ICE vehicles, operating on captured-carbon fuel and paid at a premium for those who need to love the rumble of a well-tuned engine, but that should stay a fringe hobby.
Time's for a compromise on the length of the fuse is over, we, as a whole, should be focussing on preventing the climate bomb to do too much damages to humans.
Or maybe we should double down, extract and burn even more fuel, produce and discard even more plastic, without forgetting to have it circle five times the Earth before before it hands in the customers' hands: it wouldn't be the first mass extinction and the planet will get through. Us humans, though...
If the goal is to completely phase out ICE vehicles, shouldn't we be welcoming technology like this? Some people are eager to embrace electric vehicles, which is great. Other people are more hesitant for many reasons.
If someone doesn't want to buy an electric car because they'd have to give up a manual transmission (which many people prefer), this technology might change their mind. More people would buy electric cars.
And if you don't really care about having a manual transmission in your car, then you can just ignore this technology altogether and buy a regular EV. Which is exactly why this article comes across so strangely - the author is complaining about tech that doesn't really affect them whatsoever.
People simply live on their own bubble and don't try to understand others who may be different.
Humanity is narcissistic.