When I drive, I am one with my vehicle! I have the gear stick up my ass and twerk to change gears, like a MAN!
That’s the way my father taught me and his father before him!
And of course all shit electric cars are all automatic. It’s part of the NWO agenda. They want to force us all into electric, automatic cars, Over my dead body! A car that does not produce smelly fumes when driving is not a real car. What I am supposed to smell when walking in the city? Air? Fucking dumb. On top of that they make no sound! There’s nothing to tune up to make my car sound like a racing machine. How I’m supposed to let everyone know I have a small dick if I can’t rev my engine all the time? Not to mention electric cars don’t emit CO2 so I can’t lock myself in a garage with the engine running and kill myself when I realize that no one is impressed by my car and my dick is still tiny. Absurd!
I’ve literally seen people post that they’d consider going electric if only it had an engine sound. Seriously, people who are old enough to have a drivers license want their car to go wroom wroom.
I get it. It’s the same reason all cars have a steering wheel, despite it being the most dangerous part of the interior. Joysticks just don’t give the same feel as when the captain steers the boat over the seven seas.
Wroom wroom, steer steer, wroooom, change gear while turning, push pedal, wroom wroom.
Steering wheels are enormous because that allows fine grain control, which you need at higher speeds. Switching lane at 70mph requires only very slight movement but turning the car around in a street you can go full lock.
A joystick would be fucking TERRIFYINGLY stupid lmao
Some vehicles use steering by wire, which uses motors for i/o. This allows for steering sensitivity adjustments based on speed or even* preference.
True, but sensitivity is only half the story - the direct feedback of a wheel cannot be overstated
You’re right, but that should be part of the system.
There is virtually no noticeable lag.
The same technology is used by F1 vehicles, for example.Not lag, physical pushback from the wheels
Fundamentally a joystick is a device that gives input in 2 dimensions, while steering a car is a 1 dimensional input.
But the wheels only have one degree of freedom…
I think that’s what they’re pointing out, that a joystick has too many dimensions.
Just like the wheels on the car.
Those are the ones
Joysticks in remote controllers for toy helicopters are usually forced into one direction, you can just restrict one of the two dimensions
So a thing worse than a wheel?
While a wheel is more familiar to me, I don’t think it has many advantages over a speed modulated joystick, just make it as big as a hand so that you can have a hand for the joystick and lights and another for the gear stick, maybe put the control of the lights on the joystick if its more convenient
But cars move in an arc, the turning of the wheel is an extremely good analog for the cars movement. I really disagree and I submit that no one uses a joystick for sim racing, if it was better ppl would have latched on. You need the force feedback and control that comes with grasping a wheel and having the lever moment that a wheel gives. A joy stick has no mechanical advantage.
No it’s not terribly stupid. Handicapped people already use other controllers without any issues.
A steering wheel is already electronically adjusted for speed. The servo will work just as well regardless of the controller device.
Along with lane assistance and other “self driving cars” it should be pretty evident that there is nothing dangerous about giving up the physical turny wheely kindergarten toy controller.
It’s not just about precision, it’s about feedback. Being directly connected with the steering linkage gives valuable feedback about the road and the front wheels - just because handicapped people have an alternative that they may use out of necessity does not mean it’s a better solution.
In a fully autonomous car, sure perhaps a simple manual system as a backup makes sense but we aren’t there yet. You are talking absolute nonsense, and I can only assume you haven’t ever driven a vehicle.
I mean the wheel is definitely the best control mechanism for driving… whether or not it’s dangerous, there’s a reason the best sim racers use wheels and not controllers and it’s that they provide vastly more control. So nice argument except it’s all based on a false claim that joysticks are better lmaoooo
I think it’s just a matter of getting used to it. Something like a playstation controller would be easy to learn for most people. People who play racing games seriously wouldn’t use a wheel and pedals. It’s just too slow.
Huh? People that use steering wheel and peddles for racing games have a serious advantage, it’s far more accurate, I have no idea what makes you think it’s too slow or what that’s even supposed to mean.
Most people use a controller for racing games because there’s no setup or space requirements and it’s what they’re used to. Plus a basic decent steering wheel setup is about three to four times the cost of a standard Xbox or PlayStation controller.
Huh. I guess times have changed. It used to be that keyboard players would always win.
Anyway it doesn’t change my opinion on the topic. Car steering wheels are stupid and only kept relevant because it’s fun to turn.
Keyboard and mouse players win in FPS shooters, not driving games.
As someone who spent an inordinate about of time trying to play Test Drive III with a keyboard, I can assure you that a keyboard is a terrible interface for driving.
Later, Test Drive Le Man’s and PGR3 helped me learn that a controller is better than a keyboard, but still not great.
A wheel is by far the best control mechanism for a car.
A wheel is by far the best control mechanism for a car.
Well, here I am challenging that idea, and apparently that is a bit too much for most, but I have yet to be given any proof of the superiority of the wheel.
I for one would prefer to control my car using a theremin. How can you know that it is not better, if no one has ever tried it?
So much fun 😊 and don’t forget the vroooom
But in a racing game the wheels can also twist from hard lock left to hard lock right in a millisecond, not sure that’s possible or desired in real life
Rolling over is desired
People who play racing games seriously wouldn’t use a wheel and pedals. It’s just too slow.
That is not true at all, unless the racing game is NFS or something. The people seriously playing racing sims all use wheels and pedals.
Clearly, you don’t frequent simracing communities.
Something like a playstation controller would be easy to learn for most people.
I mean, you can steer a submarine with it, am I right?
I was extraordinarily glad to have a wheel when my power steering failed and found myself having to turn the car using the strength of my arms and the mechanical leverage of the wheel. A joystick would’ve made the vehicle literally impossible to steer.
It’d have to be a long joystick.
thats what she said
I’ll just leave this here. In short: a guy wrote a physics engine to simulate any combustion engine, and then further got it working with an electric motor so electric motors can use a simulated vroom vroom
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/4U41OxHiqI8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I’ve literally seen people post that they’d consider going electric if only it had an engine sound.
In many regions now it’s actually mandated that EVs make additional noise when moving at low speeds (less than 40km/h or so). There were concerns that quiet vehicles would have more pedestrian accidents.
Yeah but that 40 year old with a 4k computer, 90 series card, more lighting than fast and the furious, surrounded by 10k of plastic figures is 👌 Chad.
There actually is an EV with engine sounds and a “manual transmission” from Toyota. According to ArsTechnica, it’s supposed to be pretty good:
electric cars are all automatic
They aren’t, really. They don’t actually change gears, if you want to go backwards you spin the motor backwards.
Hilariously, jump starting EVs is a thing if the 12V battery dies. And no, you can’t roll start them.
And no, you can’t roll start them.
I imagine you “can”, it’s just not very effective. Like, if they allowed you to switch it to regenerative breaking and let it roll down a hill. The problem is you can’t get out any more energy than you put in. So if the battery is dead and you roll down the hill you won’t be able to rull any farther up the other side than you started (even less when you factor in mechanical -> electrical -> mechanical. You’d probably better off putting it in neutral [if that’s a thing for electric cars] and just let it roll)
No, you actually can’t.
For safety reasons, the 400V main battery isn’t hardwired to the car. There’s a couple of contactors powered by the 12V battery that connect it to the car.
If your 12V battery dies, the contactors open and the car is completely dead. You have to jump it or replace the 12V battery, then the contactors pull in, then the main battery can start charging the 12V.
Even plugging it in doesn’t work - the car won’t take a charge if the electronics are dead.
If the main battery is dead but the 12V hasn’t died yet, you can try regenning down a hill or plugging in or whatever. But if you lose the 12V, the car’s bricked.
It’s set up that way so that first responders can get to an accident, pop the hood, cut the 12V and then start cutting you out of the wreckage without worrying about high voltage cables.
just bridge them with a screw driver
Yeah, obviously there’s technical reasons why. I was just approaching the problem theoretically. And then showing why the theory is stupid. It makes sense that they would implement other things for safety, especially if avoiding them only enabled a completely useless solution to a dead battery.
We just need to make all roads go downhill
Both ways.
tl;dr: my PHEV does change gears when in EV mode, as weird as it sounds
So, I drive a Hyundai Ioniq Plug-in Hybrid EV (PHEV). It’s a hybrid with a larger battery so you can plug it in and drive fully-EV on the battery for about 30 miles/50 kilometers or so. The freaky thing is that the EV motor is connected to the transmission, so it does switch gears sometimes and you can feel it when it does. Even freakier is that this also applies to regenerative braking: when you slow down from a high speed, you can sometimes feel it switching gears while you brake. That all isn’t too bad since it’s got a dual-clutch transmission and so it switches gears pretty quickly, but it can still be a bit freaky at times.
Additionally: there are some people who have converted antique cars to EVs, but to save money they didn’t touch the transmission and instead elected only to replace the engine. They still have manual transmissions in them, though I suppose you could probably just find a suitable gear to leave them on 100% of them time. Still, you can, in principle, switch gears on them.
Typically I’ve seen people keep their car in 2nd (or reverse IIRC? That way your controller doesn’t have to support reverse and you don’t have to put in a new switch on the dash) in electric swaps. Also you don’t use the clutch pedal to start, only to change gears, which is a bit freaky when you’re not used to it.
On the highway there might be value in switching to a higher gear though, torque/efficiency curves aren’t perfectly flat even on electric motors. I would be curious to know what gains would be had on a modern electric platform like an ID.3 if one was to put in a cheap two or three gears sequential/manual transmission (for all I know the efficiency gains would not offset the additional losses from the clutch and gearbox, and even if they are some gains I’m sure that they do not make up for the inconvenience/lack of comfort of a MT).
Some have multiple speeds. I think the Porsche has 2 speeds for quick acceleration.
Over my dead body!
Be careful now. The German car and American gun industry might listen and team up.
Honestly the only issue I have with electric car sound, is that in the country side animals, listin for your engine. So silent electric cars make it all the more likely that your gonna hit a bear. I’m not even asking for them to be deafeningly loud. Other than that my only problem with electric cars in general, is that they are soo overall boring. The Tesla models are just generic car design smoothed over. At least the Prius has a neat double rear windshield. Honestly the only electric car I’ve been thinking of getting, are those new 2cevs that are being reproduced, but electric. The only fun cool cars being made today are Supras and Miatas. Everything made in America just looks like a blow up car thats about to burst. Drm just worsens them further because now I can’t mod or enjoy fixing them. Electric cars are just infuriating because they are just a battery connected to some motors. The complicated part is a fuckin computer chip why is everything sealed. All this effort for a car that looks like a car shaped cum blob.
Honestly the only issue I have with electric car sound, is that in the country side animals, listin for your engine. So silent electric cars make it all the more likely that your gonna hit a bear. I’m not even asking for them to be deafeningly loud.
Mentioned this in another comment, but many regions now mandate that EVs have noisemakers built in which emit sound at low speeds (<40km/h or so).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds
Apparently all the deer around me are fuckin deaf going by what cares I’ve seen hit them.
I suppose different places have different animals. But in my home state at least, deer were only a problem when my folks got a f150. That ironically enough was extremely quiet. It was easily my familys most quite vehicle we had. And it was the only vehicle that had deer jumping in front of it and even hit a bear.
I for one think that cars should be boring. And safe. Safe and boring. You want a fun car? Go to a racing track. You’re on a public road, sharing it with responsible people? Drive responsibly. Be boring. Shitload of people would still be alive today of everyone had a boring car and drove in a boring way.
I disagree because when we look at places like the Netherlands were they have driving alternatives ie bike, train and walk. Driving becomes more fun and the only people on the road are people who ether like driving or traveling long distances and driving accidents plumit. Compair that to amarica where driving is already boring, we have aggressive drivers, drunk driver and irresponsible drivers, and we have greater amounts of accidents. Because people who don’t enjoy driving are forced to drive and people who do enjoy driving have nowhere to go. It’s kinda like skateboarding with higher stakes. If you tear down skateparks, people who enjoy skateboarding with skate in public. Today we are expanding urban sprawl to the point that city’s are destroying the few race tracks that are left. So no duh hooners are going to hoon in public roads. The government destroyed the local track last year. So ultimately no I don’t think boring cars are the solution to bad driving. If anything it’s just gonna make it worse because no one cares about how well they drive it’s boring.
Try sitting in traffic for 2 hours with a stick, moving 10 feet at a time, and we can talk about how much you love manual
Cars aren’t about driving. You want to drive? Go to the track.
Cars are about getting from point A to point B. Bring on full automation please!Cars are about running down pedestrians, taking up space, eating hot chip and lie
I actually quite enjoy driving, especially at night, really helps me relax and get rid of anxiety. I would love to do a track day, but shits expensive.
Cars are about getting from point A to point B.
We had a tool for that it was called public transportation
A life time of stop and go traffic on i-35 had me get a auto when my last car died.
Or the car will be like “You’re creeping forward with your driver’s door open? I’m going to slam in to park without even asking first then all my dash lights will be going full xmas mode while I beep incessantly. Because fuck you, that’s why.”
“Oh no a slight bump in the road. Better shout about it and slam the brakes lmao”
If I’m at a t-intersection with a car parked on the side of the road in front, I’ll start turning, car thinks I’m about to t-bone someone, red lights and alarms everywhere. Scares the fucking shit out of me. The first time it happened I slammed the brakes on and fortunately didn’t get rear-ended.
That system has never done anything but cause me to almost have an accident and to turn it off is buried away in the settings each time I start the car. And the lane keeping assist is so dumb at understanding how people take an apex on corners, or dealing with the faded lines. “Give me the fucking wheel back!” tug LURCH “Fuck!”
It’s like learning to drive with my hyper-anxious mother in the passenger seat all over again, flipping out and unexpectedly trying to intervine over nothing she thought was something.
Which make and model is this?
I’ve experienced the atrocious lane following behavior in multiple models of Jeep and Chevrolet vehicles.
MY22 Subaru WRX tS
I’m so glad to see I’m not the only one with issues with those “driver nanny” systems, as I call them. The one in our Mazda regularly false alarms in left turn lanes, and occasionally triggers on signposts and shit while turning right. I had to turn off the lane assist; the damn thing kept steering me back toward obstacles I was actively trying to avoid (I guess I’m “supposed” to swerve to avoid them, but that was not how I learned to drive - swerving is something that should be done only in an emergency, and an obstacle I can see well ahead isn’t an emergency). The emergency braking alarm is occasionally triggered by cars parked along the road on a curve.
It doesn’t help that the alarm in that car is like nails on a chalkboard to me - it just instantly pisses me off. Why can’t it just be a nice little chime or something? Unfortunately, we didn’t hear the alarm until we were getting the overview from the salesman during delivery - during the test drive, the salesman had started it without us there and drove it to the door, and we just hopped in, then we didn’t trigger it during the test drive. The first time I heard it was when I started the car during delivery - “WHAT IS THAT NOISE?” Salesman: “Oh it’s just the driver seat belt alarm.” “Oh.” Then a few days later, on our way to work, it gave us its first false alarm, and I almost hit the brakes because I thought there was something seriously wrong with the car and I should stop driving it. Nope, it was just misinterpreting the situation.
It’s to the point where I will only drive the car on local trips - if we’re going out of town, I will take the pickup. It’s more expensive to drive, but so much more comfortable, and it doesn’t have blaring alarms screeching at me.
Unfortunately I think practically all cars these days have that shit, so I won’t have any options when my wife finally lets me get rid of the Mazda. In my ideal world, we’d buy a 2016 Honda Accord V6 (the last year they made them with V6 engines) and just keep that running forever. However, I doubt my wife would agree to that plan.
I would REALLY like to see the crash statistics for those cars. Theoretically the frequency and/or severity of crashes should be reduced, right? But road fatalities are up the last few years…which may indicate those safety features aren’t helping, or maybe they’re making people too confident, or maybe they are helping and the situation would be even worse without them. But no one seems to have that info.
Some of it must be regulatory… car chimes when you open the door and stuff I know is NA-only, even brand new cars in Europe know to STFU unless they have something actually meaningful to say. In my experience even the seat belt alarm doesn’t turn on under a certain speed (somewhere around 10-15 km/h on my car I think, at least it shuts the fuck up when maneuvering in a parking lot).
False alarms on the nannies is highly brand dependent. On my 2018 VW I’ve had it freak out maybe 10 times over 60k km, it’s rare and almost every time it was understandable why it would freak out (and never did it actually hit the brakes for me for a false alarm). So I’ve never felt the need to disable the nannies.
I don’t mind the alarms for things that are actually issues - open the door and the keys are in the ignition, or I left the lights on, or even the seat belt reminder when I start the car. But when I’m rolling along and everything is fine, a loud screeching alarm out of nowhere is extremely disturbing…and doubly so when I realize that there was actually nothing I was doing wrong. It really is like having a backseat driver screaming at me, and it pisses me off. I have screamed at the car to shut the fuck up on a few occasions. God I hate it.
And, I promise, I’m not driving aggressively or anything like that to trigger this shit. I’m really not. I’m a pretty careful driver; our other car is from 1999 - I bought it new and still own it and drive it, so I must be doing something correctly. I’m not saying I never make mistakes, either. I just try to keep them small enough to not have huge consequences.
Yes, one time I did get a little close to the vehicle in front of me that was turning and triggered the BRAKE alarm (not the actual brakes, just the alarm)…okay, I don’t do that any more. But I think that might be the ONLY time it has actually alerted me somewhat correctly…and even then things were well under control and I wasn’t going to hit them; it was just closer than it liked. The rest of the time…it’s like “I know more than you.”
I understand some people are busy doing other things instead of driving and need that stuff. Fine, they can have it. But why do I have to pay to have it in my car? And any minor crash is going to cost that much more to repair, too.
Yeah I have screamed at the car a few times as well for backseat driving (and I’m also someone who disables the satnav voice because I hate being interrupted by someone yelling at me), but at least with VW it’s extremely infrequent despite having driven quite aggressively for a couple years before I stopped commuting by car.
It just take one time of it slamming the brakes for one pedestrian to make up for it 100 times over, so I’m fine with it.
(Also specifically the minor crashes will not break the emergency braking systems thankfully, AFAIK it’s made up of a battery of sensors on top of the windshield, a computer, and hooks into the braking system alongside the ABS/ESP)
You might be right about the sensors. All I know was that we were in an extremely heavy rainstorm - a time when it would have been nice to have the lane assist - and the system was like, “Ha. I’m useless here and shutting down. You’re on your own!” I was assuming some sensors in the bumper or whatever were overwhelmed, but a camera-based system might explain that, too.
A close friend of mine also hates her new Mazda for all the “helping” it tries to do! It sounds like they really botched that. I’d be demanding a refund for an undrivable car.
It’s extremely irritating. I didn’t get into the frustration with the adaptive cruise (at least they fixed the nauseating issues it had originally) and other irritations I have with that car.
But, I will say: When I turn things off in the Mazda, like the thing that steers the car back toward the center of the lane, it fucking stays off. I’ve heard a lot of other vehicles turn that shit back on every time you start the car. Christ.
This really is a bad trend of half-baked half-measures between human drivers and fully autonomous vehicles. There isn’t a lot of room for “semi-autonomous” operation - humans generally expect to either be fully in control of the situation, or to relinquish all control to another (ignoring backseat drivers). Anything else can be annoying and unexpected unless done very subtly, carefully, and correctly.
My new VW has all of these sensors and safety features, but manages to not freak out until something is truly imminent, obviously properly accounting for speed and trajectory, and with only gentle nudges when the situation is less dire (e.g., lane drift), but more aggressively in the face of real danger (backing up into incoming traffic).
Yeah. I’m reminded of a story out of Reagan National Airport 10-15 years ago, when the single controller in the tower fell asleep overnight. Sounds bad, right? Except that they cannot take a book or music or anything else. They’re alone at night because traffic is so light. Basically, they’re supposed to sit there all night, alone, on alert, doing nothing other than waiting for an occasional plane to arrive. It’s insane to think anyone could be able to do that without falling asleep sooner or later.
For cars, yeah - when I’m driving, my attention is fully on the car and my environment. If the car is driving, my attention is going to wander, and if it needs me to pop back into driving mode, that switch is going to take a moment or two. This is just human nature.
Oh and you know what’s even better? Because we’re all relying on our cars to do the driving most of the time, we’ll all get worse at actually driving, so when we are called upon in that emergency…it might not go very well, even if we do mode switch successfully instantly.
Driving a modern car has opened my eyes to how far off truly autonomous cars really are.
And “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” Applied corrective steering to prevent a collision
When you follow the curve of a road with an edge barrier just a little later than it would have (Tesla)
Sounds great tbh
One of the main reasons I still like older cars. I consider it harassment when I get ding donged to death for not wearing the seatbelt for a two minute drive down the road, if this shit ever happened to me the car is getting fuckin sold ASAP
Wear your seatbelt, you ding dong.
ever needed to put something heavy in the passengers seat ? ever needed to move the car a short distance slowly ?
In both cases, wear your seatbelt, you ding dong.
am i required to also put the seatbelt down for the heavy object ? seems a bit unnecessary in both cases :/
I had a car with push button start and a CVT. After putting the first 50 miles on the car, the brake light switch died. Nissan, in their ultimate wisdom, used the brake light switch to tell the computer if you are pressing the brake when starting the car. Well, no brake light switch, no starting the engine. Had to get it towed back to the dealership to get fixed.
I now have a real key and a manual transmission.
Jokes on you, some manual cars also require the brake to be pressed to start them.
Clutch pedal as well, so you have 2x as many switches to go bad and strand you if you don’t know how to bypass.
Yes, I had an older manual car that had this. But it was a mechanical release of the ignition lock connected to the brake pedal.
You know I think your mistake here was buying a Nissan, not a car with push button start
Nissan had probably the most reliable motors through the 80s, 90s and early aughts, then the Renault thing happened . . . so yeah you’re right.
Modern Nissan is pretty hit-and-miss. Their CVT transmissions have a bad reputation too. I have a new Acura with push button start and a manual transmission and all the electronics work correctly with no issues.
Same with my Subaru. Staying away from the questionable brands like Nissan and Kia is the key. Never had an issue with my push start or CVT.
I used to have a 92 Honda accord. The car was built on par with Toyota as far as reliability. With that said though, there was one time it wouldn’t start. Push started it, it worked, but when starting- the problem persisted. Went to a shop to diagnose it. Turns out manual cars normally use a clutch switch to tell if you have the clutch pressed to start the car. There is a little rubber standoff on it to dampen the clutch pedal coming back up and hitting it, making it last longer. The little rubber bit fell out and got lodged making the switch not disengage. It was a 10 cent part that cost me an hour of diagnostic time (the minimum). So yes, manual cars still have an equivalent problem to what you had.
Clearly the CVT is the real villain here.
On a Nissan CVT? absolutely.
Jatco CVTs are in more cars than Nissans unfortunately
Don’t I know it. Ticking time bombs.
Why all the CVT hate? I drove a Jeep Patriot that had a CVT for about 100,000 miles before any major things broke, and what broke on me was the engine, not the transmission. That thing has great gas milage, as long as you used the CVT properly. Also need to swap out the air filter, oil filter, spark plugs, and plug wires, cause the ones that Chrysler puts on are crap, but if you do that, and keep your tach as close to 1000-1500 rpm as possible, I was getting 35/50 mpg.
There’s always that one guy with a jatco CVT that hasn’t failed yet. Those are called “ouliers” and are not representative.
I had a Sentra once upon a time with a Jatco CVT that worked fine. Bunch of other shit wrong with that car though. So that’s two guys now
Jatco CVTs are notoriously garbage. Subaru makes their own cvt and it’s pretty good.
The thing is, good modern automatics should last more than 100,000 miles. Motors should definitely last more than 100,000 miles, but from what I see online a lot that seems to be about the use-by date for Stelantis motors. Nissan (Jatco) CVTs were notorious for failing at or a little before 100k, and Nissan was one of the first (maybe the first) to mass adopt the CVT into their vehicles. It’s sad because Nissan had reached near engineering perfection on their VQ/VK motors and their traditional automatics prior to Renault getting involved in their business. Our 2011 Armada, the gas guzzling bitch that she is, runs like its new with 200k miles on the motor and tranny (both engineered in the late 90s).
Jatco is owned by Nissan.
I’m like 2 weeks late here, but yes. Nothing scarier than hitting the gas and feeling the belt slip inside of the transmission
Your mistake was buying a nissan
*Modern Nissan.
I genuinely believe the K24 is the second best engine ever made, even better than the 22RE.
Better that than having people ram into you because you have no brake lights
I actually was a real advocate for gears, then I drove my wife’s new car for some time. Modern automatic isn’t only comfortable, it’s actually more (fuel) efficient, especially in the city. Now I’m an automatic guy. And - the circle of life - my daughter, looking for her first car this year: “No, I want gears!” Now she’s got gears. In a car that weighs less than my phone, but hey, what do I old 🥔 potato know.
I’m resigned that manual transmissons are a thing of the past, but man, it’s such a huge part of the enjoyment of driving for me.
Getting that perfect shift, especially if accelerating quicky or going up a steep hill is just so satisfying… Or the “minigame” of balancing the clutch and throttle from a full stop uphill without using the handbrake… And that feeling when you smoothly downshift going down a road and the revs pick up, while you ease up on the brake…
Yeah I really like driving.
Learned automatic then later manual out of necessity and this is just nuts to me. People enjoy that? Driving is already fairly obnoxious just getting around traffic and the extra tedium of having to shift gears at every stop and go was awful. This has to be some kind of Stockholm syndrome or nostalgia or something
I’m a computer geek and I always look at it like a computer. Is a Mac or Windows easier to use? Arguably yes.
Yet I use Linux anyway because I like the full control despite the trade offs. And some tradeoffs I actually prefer
I could just click install on Windows and Mac (and on Linux), or I can download a program and manually put each of it’s constituent files into the correct place in order to run it.
I’m a computer guy and view an automatic as just that: Automation to do away with a needless repetitive task. Not to say that I missed your analogy, but “full control” is an awfully overblown way to put it when it comes to a manual unless you’re doing NASCAR or something. Our programmers and engineers know what they’re doing. Your car can automatically shift gears and do more than well enough to get you to work and back.
My attention drifts too much when I drive auto, I prefer the extra thinking and functions that manual driving needs.
For those with a similar view on the subject, keep in mind motorcycles are still almost exclusively manual shift in North America, so when stick shift is basically dead, there is somewhere to go, technically.
I cycle to work from time to time, even tough I own a (manual) car.
It takes longer to go by bike, I get sweaty, it might rain in the afternoon but I still take the bike over the car. Because it’s fun. (Even more then driving a manual.)
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Yeah they’ve been more fuel efficient for awhile now, but you can take my 6 speed from my cold dead hands 🤣
I just like it.
I have an auto truck because I needed a truck and that was what was available for the price I wanted to pay, but my daily driver is a stick and imma drive it till one of us dies lol
Word. I give not a single fuck that modern autos are more efficient and quicker than manuals. They are boring as hell. If I ever switch to an automatic, it will be because I’ve switched to something electrified and manuals are altogether gone.
I say this as someone who has dealt with the stop-go traffic on a daily basis.
Oh same, I lived in Philly for years lol
Should have put her into an old SAAB. I’m talking pre-'92, before GM bought them. They had gears, power, and speed. They also weighed over 2 tons, and are insanely safe. I’ve crashed several on the track, and walk away with scratches every time. It’s a really expensive hobby at times.
That’s a myth, new cars are much safer, like insanely so. It’s not even close.
Yup, this is fact, no arguments here.
But it doesn’t feel this way though, because new cars kinda… crumple… in a crash.
I get that it’s how they protect the driver, by deforming and absorbing the energy instead of just thrusting all into the occupants, but really makes them feel flimsy, compared to those olds hunks of steel.
I’d rather be alive in a crumpled wreck that dead in a barely dented tank though.
Modern CVTs will always beat manual transmissions in efficiency now. And probably reliability with reputable brands as well. It’s only a matter of time for consumers to catch up at this point.
Manual transmission is also a great anti-theft device, since most kids don’t know how to drive it.
Funny, when I was in the military all the Gen X’ers couldn’t drive stick when we got rentals in Europe. I could because I rode a motorcycle, so I just always drove.
My own purely anecdotal observation is that there are still far more of us Xers who know how to drive a manual transmission. One good thing about it, for my wife and I at least, is that our gen Z kids never asked to borrow our cars and just bought their own automatics or borrowed from their grandparents.
My wife’s car has an especially fiendish hydraulic clutch that will stall out if you even look at it funny, so that helped too.
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I drive manual, it’s great for my ADHD haha keeps me from fucking around inside my car in traffic.
That being said, the person who made this needs to calm down. It’s not that serious.
That’s an American problem. In Europe nearly everyone knows how to drive manually.
If it weren’t for America, BMW and Mercedes wouldn’t be selling a single manual transmission vehicle anymore.
What manual Mercedes is for sale in the USA? I’ve never seen one, that could be a whole lot of fun!
lmao
Instead of laughing, perhaps you’d like to see how many manual transmission models are sold under those two brands in Europe. Now do the same for the US.
It’s because only the rich in Europe buy new cars, buying a new car is a very rare thing.
In addition to that BMW and Mercedes are known as luxury brands and by far not common in Europe.
You’re joking right? I’m in the UK and every bugger going has a Merc or a BMW.
Other than the UK I guess, and the business vans are usually sold as manual too.
Totally made up claim, the average passenger car age is 12.2 years in the US, and 12 years in Europe. BMW market share is 2.4% in the U.S., 6.7% in Europe. Similar figures for Mercedes are 2.5% U.S. vs. 5% Europe.
Another thing America got right 😎
Oh yeah just like your guns, healthcare, abortion rights, politicians…
Which politicians have europeans gotten right?
Also unironic answer for Czech(oslovak) Repubic: Václav Havel, Dubček, Tomáš Masaryk. So far General Pavel seems much better than Zeman.
The ones who keep healthcare for everyone, have guns under control and keep most companies privacy policy in check. We don’t point at one politician to do the job for us, it’s at least a hundred.
Thatcher ♥️ Reagan
Boris ♥️ Trump
The two power couple special relationships
Yeah, but they aren’t part of Europe anymore
Fair, they should become the 51st state.
That’d be a coup, though if any country should incorporate them, it should be Canada because they didn’t even have to fight for their independence.
Guns are a problem? I love shooting
We know, we see the headlines coming out of US schools every week.
Are you calling me a killer? That’s not very nice of you
Only in the same way you call someone who voted for Hitler a Nazi. You know what’s less nice than mean words? Dead kids.
PS. I also enjoy shooting, I have friends who own guns, my favourite is a .30-30 Marlin Lever-action 5 shot breakdown rifle that is absolutely superb for hunting roos and pigs. We just have rules that make sure you’re responsible.
What does that have to do with liking guns? You’re weird
Do not forget all the freedom they get
Yes 😎💪
"EMBRACE THE COMPLEXITY OF MANUAL TRANSMISSION
- CARS are not just about driving, they’re about mastering the ART of machinery!
- Want to feel alive on a steep hill? Forget simplicity, EMBRACE the handbrake juggle and the dance of the clutch pedal!
- “I could simply shift to D, but where’s the thrill in that?” - A call to arms by the Connoisseurs of Complexity.
- DEFEND your right to a gearbox that requires three limbs and a keen sense of timing to operate!
CELEBRATE MANUAL TRANSMISSIONS (These are the cryptic contraptions deciphered only by the Worthy)
ZIGZAG MAZE? - Challenge accepted! VOLUME KNOB? - Twist and shout your way through the gears! ??? - Only the true driver knows!
“Please engage the starter motor.” - “Certainly, after I adjust the choke and check the distributor!” “I fear no hill start, for I have the power of the clutch and the arcane knowledge of the gearbox!”
Join the ranks of those who drive not for convenience, but for the pure, unadulterated challenge."
Does anybody have the version of this about roads, intersections and such? I’ve been trying to find it but don’t really know what to search
YES, thank you!
I can’t find it sorry
Don’t worry, AI transmission works most of the time (but every now and then it may hallucinate on the highway…)
Why is AI allowed to do that and when I’m driving on shrooms I’ll loose my license. Seems unfair to me. Hallucinogens for everyone!
Real men use steam. What is with your prissy internal combustion engines? Shovel coal like a real driver.
As someone studying tech, yes please, give me the dummest most rudimentary car with no computer or servos. I don’t want general motors to gather my biometrics or a script kiddy to disable my steering. Dumb technology is best always. Fuck that android auto bs or whatever abomination the manufacturer adds. Just want a speaker with an aux cord so I can listen to my flacs
I love the idea of a sound system that is just an aux cord to a speaker
If I ever win the lottery, I’m hiring a 50 people like you to build an incredibly basic production car together. Make it barely or technically meet the modern technology standards to be road legal in all 50 states, but use the simplest mechanical solution to everything a car needs to do. I assume a lot of systems would have to be installed as a “backup” to the electrical version, but I’d want to build it to be able to function perfectly with all the computers disconnected. Probably ship it with instructions phrased as warnings of what not to do.
As long as the price reflects that absolutely. I feel like one of the reasons cars are getting so pricy is because we are filling them with so much bloat. Ex. Heated seats, power windows, tablets. Like, what happened to a base model car?
Yes, I would want the price to reflect the simplicity, and lack of extras should help with that. Let the aftermarket companies do heated seats and fancy stereos.
Open source car? Lol. Design it as easy to aftermarket as possible. Let aftermarket companies sell full seats and ECT. Use only standard connections and hardware
Surely there is an open source car by now. Some sort of street legal kit?
I do think open source car is the best label to describe what I’m dreaming of. But factory built to take advantage of bulk order pricing for the parts and because people who are actually willing and able to put their own car together are rare.
Nope, at least afaik. Prototyping and building cars by hand (without a whole factory set up to build it) is hard. Not to mention extremely expensive. And you have to build multiple (identical) copies of the prototype to get it street legal, because of crash testing. And you have to be able to guarantee that what people build with your kit remains identical to your prototype. Or everyone assembling such a kit would have to build multiple copies of the car and go through the certification process individually.
And of course there are very few people that would want to assemble their own car, so you wouldn’t be able to make a business out of it.
I’ve seen a few builds from scratch online. All of them say it turned out to be far FAR more difficult than they ever imagined. Once the thing works properly, it’s up to what state/ country the builder is in to determine how hard or easy it is to get it legal to drive on the road.
I would also join this endeavor. This country needs a small, light pickup truck again that a guy can fix in his driveway with basic tools.
Yes! Something the size of a 90s ranger, or even a little smaller. Built with flat glass and a bench seat if we can get away with it.
This exists in the motorcycle world, actually. You can buy a 2023 Suzuki DR650. It will have a speedometer, an air cooled 650cc single cylinder engine, and that’s it. No ECU, no LED lights, no ABS, nothing. It doesn’t even have fuel injection.
In the automotove world there is/was something sort of close to what you’re describing. It’s called a Mitsubishi Mirage. 3 cylinders making a furious 78 horsepower, gets great mileage, and is absurdly easy to maintain and repair. And ever since they started making the current Mirage in 2014, it has been given so much hate because it’s a no-frills economy car. People literally bitch about how you can see a couple of screw heads when you open the door, and cry that it’s slower than a Mustang and less luxurious than a Lexus.
So be prepared to hear that when designing a basic car. There are automotive writers and reviewers who are very out of touch, and can’t understand that a basic cheap car is a good thing.
Oh absolutely, I’d expect this imaginary car would be an ugly thing, and constantly panned by reviewers. People would be outraged that some nobody burned hundreds of millions in lottery money on a trash looking car. Meanwhile, every mechanic constantly recommends it for a daily driver because it just works and is super easy to fix.
Interesting about the Mirage. Next time I’m looking for a commuter car, I’ll have to look for one of those.
There are two basic kinds of Mirage. There is a hatchback and a sedan. The sedan has a huge trunk (My wife is 5’-9", I’m 6’-0", and we can both fit in the trunk) and a decent amount of rear legroom.
My wife and I have a 2017 “G4” Mirage, which is the sedan. Ours is a 5 speed manual, the only “option” we got is bluetooth which we never use. It does have power windows and locks standard. It has a steel oil pan, not an aluminum one, so it doesn’t strip out as easily. The only problem we have had with ours is a gas guage that started acting up last month. Other than that it’s a solid car that gets us 45+ mpg highway.
Is it light enough that the car can get out of its own way, despite the low horsepower engine?
It’s actually frustrating to drive with it’s 78 horsepower and 2,000 pounds. But not for the reason you might think.
The problem is, most of the time, It’s the fastest car on the road. Every time we drive it somewhere, our 78 horsepower car is unable to go more than 30 miles per hour, because there is someome with a twin-turbo F150, or a Hemi Challenger, or literally any car that should be faster, and they are in the way. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve followed some allegedly much faster vehicle down an onramp at 40 mph, wishing they would go faster so I (and those behind me) could merge. The 1.2 liter under the hood hasn’t ever been an impediment. It is always held back by another car that should be faster.
The only car I have had that was worse about this was an old Metro. (1 liter 3 cylinder, 55 hp, 1600-ish pounds) The problem with that car was people knew what it was, and they would blow their engines or cause an accident trying to get in front of it just so they could pull their phone out and scroll facebook while going under the speed limit. I noticed a bridge I used to drive over always had a speed trap. I also noticed that the easiest type of vehicle to “trigger” were the fancy lifted diesel 4x4 trucks. So I started to bait them near that bridge, so they could show me how their big expensive truck was faster than a car I literally rebuilt in my driveway, and they woukd inevitably blow by a cop at 60+ in a 45.
Haha, baiting people into a speeding ticket when they try to prove something must be very satisfying.
The only car I’ve had that was just too slow was a 2006 Hyundai Elantra. Cheap to buy, cheap to fix, cheap little tires. But so so slow. Whenever I’d borrow another car, I would inevitably chirp the tires trying to accelerate normally.
Why do I feel it would look like the Homer?
It might look like an economy car of yesteryear, but not like the Homer
Yeah I couldn’t have said it better. Go around asking mechanics what they drive and they are all going to say this pretty much
YES, YOU GET IT
No wonder you’re just studying. I’ve met plenty of people like you. Just because YOU can’t do a good job or understand it, doesn’t make it bad.
Sincerely, Engineer with 13 years of experience.
I understand it and that’s why I hate it. I don’t want to hack my car to fix it like farmers are forced to do with their Jhon deere equipment. This whole inserting tech into everything is invasive and anti consumer
But I thought technology bad :(
“script kiddy”… Says everything I need to know.
Remember the kia challenge, that was literally kids running scripts they found online to steal cars
ok.
