Yeah, and EVs have essentially killed that. And no, a “manual transmission” on an EV isn’t the same at all, I know those are fake gears and I’m having none of it.
Most EVs have barely any gearbox to speak of, usually one gear for reverse and one for forward. If you like simplicity and less stuff to break, an electric drive train is about as simple as you can get.
The battery does have some more complex tech in it. And of course, sadly, all the software stuff that doesn’t have much to do with the actual driving. That is usually the worst part.
Yeah, the software and data collection are pretty big parts of why I don’t want an EV. In theory, they should be dead simple, since the parts that can fail are limited to the steering and braking systems, simple electric motors, and the batteries. But there’s just so much artificial complexity in them that I really don’t want to bother with.
For a commuter, I just want to get to work and back, I don’t need driving aids (I drive the same route every day, and never at night) or a fancy screen, I just need something to listen to (could honestly just be my bone conduction headphones) and for the battery to not explode in my garage. I care more about fancy features in a family car, but I also care about range, and I need 400+ miles range for it to make sense (I do 800+ mile road trips at least once/year), so for now, my family car will be ICE/hybrid.
EVs should be simple. Just scale up an e-bike to go highway speeds and stick a bigger chassis on it so I don’t die if I get rear-ended. That’s it. I don’t need anything fancy, just keep it cheap and reliable.
You just hit my nostalgia nerve. Damn I miss my 5-speed.
Yeah, and EVs have essentially killed that. And no, a “manual transmission” on an EV isn’t the same at all, I know those are fake gears and I’m having none of it.
Most EVs have barely any gearbox to speak of, usually one gear for reverse and one for forward. If you like simplicity and less stuff to break, an electric drive train is about as simple as you can get.
The battery does have some more complex tech in it. And of course, sadly, all the software stuff that doesn’t have much to do with the actual driving. That is usually the worst part.
Yeah, the software and data collection are pretty big parts of why I don’t want an EV. In theory, they should be dead simple, since the parts that can fail are limited to the steering and braking systems, simple electric motors, and the batteries. But there’s just so much artificial complexity in them that I really don’t want to bother with.
For a commuter, I just want to get to work and back, I don’t need driving aids (I drive the same route every day, and never at night) or a fancy screen, I just need something to listen to (could honestly just be my bone conduction headphones) and for the battery to not explode in my garage. I care more about fancy features in a family car, but I also care about range, and I need 400+ miles range for it to make sense (I do 800+ mile road trips at least once/year), so for now, my family car will be ICE/hybrid.
EVs should be simple. Just scale up an e-bike to go highway speeds and stick a bigger chassis on it so I don’t die if I get rear-ended. That’s it. I don’t need anything fancy, just keep it cheap and reliable.