The stick shift might survive the electric revolution

https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/manual-transmission-electric-vehicles-future-1234774864/

by rntn • 4 years ago

123 329 4 years ago

quantified3• 4 years ago

I have always seemed to get better mileage out of a stick than a CV or automatic and definitely performance that matches my desires, like engine braking on a downhill. But it really only pertains to a combustion engine. A stick on a EV seems like a rotary dial on my smart phone.

b1124• 4 years ago

But was the rotary ever fun to use?

dottedmag2• 4 years ago

It definitely was.

HideousKojima• 4 years ago

My grandparents had a rotary phone and I always thought it was fun/neat to play around with (they'd unplug it first, obviously). I was about 8 years old when they got rid of it so no idea if it's still "fun" to an adult.

Kaibeezy2• 4 years ago

RX-7, RX-8... oh, wait

fomine32• 4 years ago

It was great for scrolling.

chinabot• 4 years ago

Its basically petrol heads who prefer manual transmissions, I doubt any of them have economy in mind, I have a manual transmission on my hilux EV conversion unless I'm going uphill or have a big load it stays in 3rd from start to finish

ehnto3• 4 years ago

Yep. I love my manual 90s Skyline, but I am really hoping to get a pragmatic commuter EV after driving a couple. I will not miss the gearbox for that task.

I also think EVs tick a couple of boxes that manual gearboxes also do for enthusiasts, which slushbox autos didn't. Always being in a good powerband and engine braking are both features of EVs and manual gearbox ICE cars that I miss if I am in an auto ICE car.

gmtx7256• 4 years ago

In the UK manuals are still significantly cheaper, so the bottom end of the market prefers them as well as the petrol heads

idiotsecant3• 4 years ago

There is absolutely a good reason for transmissions in an electric vehicle, it's just that most EVs elect to remove them for simplicity instead.

I will leave the interpretation of this graph as an exercise for the reader.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/HRUva.gif

hinkley5• 4 years ago

I predict we'll end up with AWD vehicles with two motors. The front wheels will have a motor tuned for the low end, the rear wheels a motor that is tuned for higher speeds, and the controllers will adjust how much power goes front or rear depending on the need for torque, traction and mph.

Right now AWD EVs seem to get slightly lower range, and I would expect that to eventually to even out or reverse, even with the weight of extra equipment.

ilyt8• 4 years ago

Most EVs don't use permanent magnet motors. Try again. The curve you linked is seriously misleading.

Like just look at any EV dyno curve, it is not "torque starts at top and immediately starts falling"

Transmission means extra losses and extra weight tho. It's not just "free" increase in efficiency.

It does make sense but in typical city/reasonable highway speed it's just not worth it

etaioinshrdlu• 4 years ago

Manual transmissions are more efficient than automatic because there is more energy lost to unproductive sloshing in the torque converter in the automatic, whereas the manual has a clutch that makes a near-lossless linkage. Nowadays, I'm sure we could software-automate a mechanically manual transmission to have the same driver experience as an automatic...

ComputerGuru2• 4 years ago

It’s already a thing, but was widely derided by both manual and automatic proponents (for different reasons): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_manual_transmission

loeg• 4 years ago

Nowadays, I'm sure we could software-automate a mechanically manual transmission to have the same driver experience as an automatic...

Paddle-shifters and CVTs, right?

Klonoar7• 4 years ago

This was true decades ago when the dominant automatic transmission was torque-converter junk. This hasn't been the case for some time now, though. The modern automatic transmission (e.g, Porsche's PDK, or any the DCTs, or even the ZF8) will win every time.

Driving a manual is pretty much only for feel or technique at this point, there's no real argument otherwise.

WirelessGigabit2• 4 years ago

That really depends on the brand of car / transmission.

Modern cars with the ZF-8 (which is like the number 1 automatic sold currently) are more efficient than their manual counterparts.

Extremely recent example in the USA: https://www.toyota.com/grsupra/2023/features/mpg/2385/2374

Toyota 3.0 Premium MT (6-speed Manual): 19/27/21 Toyota 3.0 Premium AT (8-speed Automatic): 23/31/26

And if you're like: Oh, the EPA's measurement sucks, here's the WLTP counterpart:

3.0 Petrol Twin-scroll turbocharger (335 BHP), 6-speed Manual: 32mpg / 198 g/km CO2 3.0 Petrol Twin-scroll turbocharger (335 BHP), 8-speed Automatic: 34.8mpg / 183 g/km CO2

Automatic has better mpg and less CO2 per distance travelled.

hnav2• 4 years ago

some of that (the highway rating especially) is gearing, the final drive is shorter and the 6th gear in the ZF manual is not nearly as tall as the 8th in the 8HP. This is a common issue in auto vs manual MPG comparisons these days

quantified3• 4 years ago

Well, I should test drive each. EPA standard and reality don't match. For my stick shift cars, I always beat the EPA mileage.

eMSF• 4 years ago

From what I have seen, VAG DCT models tend to be invariably less efficient than their MT counterparts (and I don't know why ZF-8 would be more efficient than a DCT).

spike0215• 4 years ago

I do wonder how much of this depends on the driving style, though.

In a manual I think you're much more likely to rev out the engine more, shift higher in the rev range, etc.

In an automatic unless you're in full "manual" mode and using the paddles/shifter to emulate that same style, then you're more likely to have the automatic's efficiency.

fooker• 4 years ago

This idea is outdated by about ~5-8 years. You’re unlikely to match the efficiency of a CVT with a 5 or 6 speed manual.

Waterluvian• 4 years ago

Like a record player, if there’s demand, it’ll get built.

seqastian• 4 years ago

Will be pricey though.

gtvwill• 4 years ago

I just wanna see racing ev's with straight cut dog boxes.

Audio Volume Warning. Turn sound way down.

https://youtu.be/dmJH84FnQa8

Sohcahtoa82• 4 years ago

I used to really want one of those transmissions on my BRZ until I heard one in real life.

They are incredibly loud. I wouldn't want to be cruising down the highway at 70 mph with one of them.

I did hear that you can get transmissions that use straight-cut gears for the first 4 gears and then normal gears for the top 2, but eh...not worth how much it would cost just because I like the sound.

nimbius2• 4 years ago

as a heavy diesel mechanic the only application i can see is heavy trucks. current slushbox automatics in the latest series of long hauler over the road rigs is absolutely useless on grade and costs triple to replace and service compared to existing manuals. you dont want an unprovoked shift in the rain or snow when youre dragging forty tons.

bombcar2• 4 years ago

Even those can likely be replaced with hybrids, after all a locomotive pulls a lot more (900,000 tons of steel according to the poet, but I think he's off a bit) and you can't build a transmission for that.

nimbius2• 4 years ago

i think youre right and i think the market will adjust, but the current application is just trying to take what works on local and regional beer haulers and ups vans and scale it up. very myopic and leads to a lot of frustration when logistics companies realize their drivers arent qualified to leave the state with bigger loads because they never learned stick

Animats3• 4 years ago

Well, you can, but the history of locomotives with gearshifts is not a happy one. British Rail in the 1950s had a Diesel road locomotive (not just a railcar) with a manual transmission. The shifting was powered, but not automatic. Hitachi has built some switching locomotives with geared transmissions and a really big 12-plate clutch.

But no, you don't want to do that.

throwawaaarrgh2• 4 years ago

EV heavy duty trucks transmissions are 2-4 gears due to the high torque band. ICE vehicle engines must maintain a minimum idle speed and so a torque converter has to be used to match speed. But EV engines can run just fine at 1 RPM, so the vehicle can easily start from a dead stop in first gear automatically. Just put it in gear and press the accelerator.

ilyt8• 4 years ago

EV doesn't need "gear" in the first place, engine can be directly connected at all times.

There are some EVs that have 2 speed gear box to get max of the performance out of the engine but that's almost exclusively for performance vehicles.

jmcphers• 4 years ago

This went in a different direction than I'd guessed. As someone who still drives a manual transmission car in the US, my guess is that non-electric cars will eventually be a category for enthusiasts.

Those for whom a car is an appliance will gravitate towards increasingly cheap, subsidized, low-maintenance electrics, but there will probably always be a market for gas models for those who can afford them, and my guess is those will increasingly feature stick shifts since they're targeted at the enthusiast crowd.

wrycoder2• 4 years ago

#gaspunk

hnav2• 4 years ago

But probably some other fuel that burns cleaner without NOₓ/CO/CO₂ emissions, maybe hydrogen (no emissions at all) or ammonia (NOₓ only).

ilyt8• 4 years ago

Hydrogen still produces NOx; it is purely the effect of high temperature on atmosphere, the higher temperature the worse it is; so it still needs catalyst and rest of the emission control clown car

AlbertCory9• 4 years ago

I taught a 16-year-old (not my son) to drive a stick. It was easy. I checked online and there's a place that will teach you the basics for $295. I'd do it for half. There's not much demand for that, unfortunately.

The biggest magic tricks to teaching were (1) teaching him to think about gear changes before actually doing them, and (2) being relaxed about mistakes.

For (1) I would drive, and have him tell me when to shift. This gets over the intellectual hurdle of coordinating engine speed with road speed.

For (2), I just said, "OK, you're going to stall the car, and you're going to grind the gears. Everybody does. It's no big deal. Here, watch, I'll do it." Then I'd stall & grind the gears, show him to get out of the grinding, and laugh about it. I think anxiety is the biggest problem.

I'm sure if it's your own son or daughter, it gets more complicated :)

convolvatron2• 4 years ago

don't forget the first time you have to start on a hill. or brake. first time I had to brake hard I forgot to put in the clutch and that was the whole front end.

wrycoder2• 4 years ago

Er, what? It should have just killed the engine.

airstrike• 4 years ago

isn't braking more effective if you don't put in the clutch? it kills the engine, but has the advantage of using said engine to break

Klonoar7• 4 years ago

Many modern stickshifts have hill assist, so if you're fortunate enough to be teaching on a model with this, you either want to temporarily disable it (if possible) or at least communicate the right way to do it and what might happen if they're going to driver an older car.

AlbertCory9• 4 years ago

OMG, that would be sadistic to start like that!

u801e• 4 years ago

This is why I just use the parking brake to hold the car in place. Then I only really have to coordinate the use of the clutch and the accelerator without having to worry about the car moving back, no matter how steep the hill.

You just have to feel the car pushing foward while the parking brake is still engaged and just release the parking brake while the car starts moving forward.

galdosdi• 4 years ago

Those are both really good tips for teaching driving stick, as well as (by metaphor) a lot of other things. Thanks so much for sharing!

csw-001• 4 years ago

This is great advice - I learned a slightly different way…

I’d saved up for a while when I was 20ish, and I wanted a NEW car. Only thing I could get a loan for was the cheapest offering - a stripped manual Honda Fit. I fell in love with it and ordered one from Japan (they didn’t have a fully stripped version for sale in my town, so it was a “special” order).

Long story short, I learned to drive stick for the first time when I picked it up from the lot with zero miles and had to drive it home, and then to work the next day… that first commute was UGLY. But I more or less had the hang of it by the time I got home that night. I still drive that car daily almost two decades later - and I absolutely still love it. It’s never needed one thing beyond regular maintenance in all those 150k miles. They literally don’t make ‘um like that any more.

mathieuh• 4 years ago

Pretty scary that you were allowed to do that, where I am in the world if you take your driving test in an automatic car you only get an automatic licence, but if you take it in a manual car you can drive manual and automatic

onionisafruit• 4 years ago

I learned after buying my first car too. I bought a car from my uncle in Mississippi and had to get it home to Austin. It was rough through Louisiana, but I had it down by the time I hit Texas.

tspike• 4 years ago

I've taught around a dozen folks how to drive stick, and I finally found a method that reliably worked to make it "click" more quickly. When they get in the car, I tell them to forget about the gas and brake pedals and pretend the only pedal that exists is the clutch.

In first gear, I have them release it slowly until the car starts going, then have them push it in until the car rolls to a stop. Take breaks, explain what the clutch is doing. Repeat until they start getting bored.

Then introduce the brake pedal. Tada! You can stop more quickly now.

Finally, the gas pedal. You can push it until the engine shrieks in protest! If only there were a way to get it to quiet down but still keep your speed....

Of course, you need a very large, very flat surface for this method to work. But I've had a lot more success since starting to do it this way.

Wistar6• 4 years ago

This is basically how I taught my son to drive a manual. I used a low-torque Toyota Corolla with a 5-speed manual. I found a large, flat area—a mega-church parking lot—and, in first gear, told him he can do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't touch the throttle. He quickly discovered the point at which the clutch bit—began to engage—and learned to get the car rolling without killing the engine.

After an hour or so, he had mastered the engaging the clutch and I began to add the next steps. A couple sessions and he had the whole thing down.

Eventually I taught him how to double-clutch, rev-match when downshifting, and even how to float the shift with no clutch at all.

Today he owns a manual trans performance car (Z06) and has a great fondness for manuals.

AlbertCory9• 4 years ago

Good ideas.

Watching the tach is pretty unintuitive for someone who's never driven one, too.

technothrasher2• 4 years ago

Yep, this "just start with the clutch pedal" method was how I was taught 35 years ago and it's how I just taught my neighbor's 17yo last year. I've taken my 16yo son out a couple times as well, but he honestly isn't all that into it.

gompertz• 4 years ago

I guess if your engine has enough torque you can get going in first with zero additional throttle... But having driven some serious clunkers myself, a lot of small engines cannot even get the vehicle going without adding a little throttle while letting out the clutch, and just stall.

xputer• 4 years ago

Yup this is basically how I was taught by my instructor in the Netherlands

spike0215• 4 years ago

This is how I learned (via the Matt Farah videos on YouTube), basically. Just go somewhere quiet and flat and learn to get moving in first with just slipping the clutch. You should be able to feather it enough until you have sufficient momentum that you can ease off of it without ever using the gas, and bingo, you're in first gear. Not only is it fantastic for learning how to get into first, but it helps you learn your car's clutch bite point, which makes shifting into other gears even easier.

I still had a horrible first drive from the dealer to the house, probably stalled 20 times (lots of small hills in Daly City, near SF) and annoyed some drivers behind me, but it worked out in the end.

quickthrower22• 4 years ago

Ah new cars! Back in the day you need some gas or it is going to stall on clutch-only driving.

i_am_proteus• 4 years ago

This is essentially how the MSF beginner motorcycle course introduces the manual transmission.

ddingus5• 4 years ago

I was shown that way basically. Works well in my view. Just need some room.

bluedino2• 4 years ago

Another way to understand a clutch is to have someone drive a motorcycle (or better yet an ATV with four wheels, they don't tip over).

kevin_thibedeau• 4 years ago

Motorcycles are easier to manage since you have a dedicated clutch appendage and two options for activating the brakes.

aussiesnack4• 4 years ago

I wonder if there's a kind of collective background general knowledge that has dissipated as auto has become more common? What prompts this is just that no-one I knew had any great difficulty with clutch & gears when I learned to drive (early '80's). Autos (in rural UK) were pretty rare, and everyone before starting to drive had at least a vague idea of how to use the controls, and at least a majority of the boys had a rough idea of the underlying mechanisms.

I lived on a country road and learned when I was 12 by stealing my mother's car (a Fiat 500) before she got home from work. Two or three goes and I was away. Admittedly concentrating on the clutch I did forget to steer and went off-road a couple of times.

throwaway821909• 4 years ago

So much emphasis on thinking about gear changes does seem a bit unfamiliar to me - but it could just be since my first driving experience was also manual, I was learning all this in the background while my main focus was trying not to hit anything.

Never did anything as exciting as you but I do feel like maybe being a passenger for so many years gives you an ear for when a gear change is needed, and you hear "sorry, wrong gear" and feel the lack of acceleration or whatever. As for /why/, I just imagined cycling up a hill.

AlbertCory9• 4 years ago

It's actually to the point now that I've heard people say, seriously, "the way to be sure your car is never stolen is to get a manual transmission."

oxfordmale• 4 years ago

I live in Europe where driving stick was the norm until the arrival of hybrid and electrical cars. I have predominantly driven stick, and only recently driven an automatic hybrid car. From a comfort point of view I do prefer an automatic, although some petrol heads may keep preferring driving stick. However, I suspect it will become a niche within a generation.

dzhiurgis3• 4 years ago

I lived in Europe and I'm back for few months. Automatic rental car costs 2x of normal, so naturally I'm driving stick. I absolutely hate it. It's an absolutely ridiculous bullshit that needs to go (together with ICE's). I firmly believe the only reason stick is still being sold is so that rental companies could gauge their customers.

Thlom4• 4 years ago

Manual is niche in Norway now. The manual sale is close to zero. And you will have problems selling your old manual car. This shift started before EV’s took over the new car market. But it’s not that many years since manual were completely normal. Point is that preferences changes quickly.

dakr• 4 years ago

I had a summer internship where I got bored and read wikipedia a lot. Reading about engines and transmissions there helped me a lot when I learned to drive stick. Being able to visualize what was mechanically happening gave me a little bit better intuition about what to do. I still stalled, of course, but I felt like I had a better roadmap on how to improve.

gerdesj2• 4 years ago

It's also worth noting that you can skip gears. For example going straight from two to four and then six when accelerating hard. It depends on the car, engine size/power, conditions, gradient and a few other things. Same when changing down. I'm personally a fan of using the gearbox to decelerate rather than just the brake.

I'm currently rocking a 20 year old Nissan Micra "Twister" with an auto gearbox - a proper granddad car (I am as it turns out). It weighs about two kilos and has about 2 BHP but it is a bit of a Q ship. I've seen off some expensive cars at roundabouts with some local knowledge a careful choice of lane and a stomp on power when it counts. It does make some odd noises when turning right (a CV boot is quite fucked). Lane one on a roundabout is often quicker than lane two due to less curvature, unless you can transition from lane two to one to straighten it out.

An auto always has some drive engaged so a standing start is often quicker but in a manual you can stomp on the accelerator and run up say 4000 RPM and give your clutch a good old work out whilst using the brake to hold in place. If you have enough power, you can start off in second or ideally you have one of those flappy paddle jobs and stay in first for about a half second and then change up as you go.

I prefer a manual box - you feel more engaged with the vehicle but then an auto can also be played with too. You can make it change up and down when you get the hang of it by blipping the throttle and getting to know what it wants to do in certain circumstances.

matthewdgreen2• 4 years ago

I love the feel of going straight from 2-4 on a car with a really tight shifting pattern. Used to drive my dad’s MGB a lot and boy was that car technically a mess, but the shift from 2-4 on an open country road was magic. As long as you didn’t think too much about the missing 5th gear, the useless seatbelts, or the reverse lights that only came on when they felt like it.

eightysixfour• 4 years ago

I have had multiple manual cars and do not understand what you mean when you say you enjoy a 2-4-6 shift when driving hard. I skip gears when I’m driving slow and some cars, like the Corvette, have gates to force a 1 -> 4 under a certain RPM.

IMO, the best part of a manual performance car is chirping tires (or fully breaking them loose!) on a 2nd to 3rd shift in a turbo car with no-lift-shift.

m463• 4 years ago

You can also not skip gears when downshifting, aka heel and toe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heel-and-toe_shifting

bsagdiyev3• 4 years ago

Yep, it's typically how I get up to speed if I'm driving my girlfriends car. NA6 Miatas had no power stock, so a nice full pot through 1, 2, and 3 then up in to 5th will get me to ~50-60 mph and in to cruising revs.

jojobas• 4 years ago

Nitpicking: in modern car gearboxes the actual gears (cogs) are always engaged, and the grinding noise is made by parts that are sort of designed to take it.

If you grind them a lot they'll still fail, but until they do there's no degradation to the way the gears mesh and transfer power.

prpl• 4 years ago

I learned first on a dirt bike (13). I didn’t drive a stick until I was 19 for a delivery job but it was trial by fire at that point. I had to drive a stick to work my shift.

I drove one later, 25-32. It was fine, I don’t miss stop and go traffic with a stick shift.

eric_h• 4 years ago

I don’t miss stop and go traffic with a stick shift.

I wanted in my heart of hearts to get a manual version of my car (a mini) but i talked myself out of it after getting stuck in a traffic jam for 2 hours in a rental.

The automatic still has paddle shifters so you can kind of drive it like a manual.

kqr• 4 years ago

I like stop and go with manual, any time it's not a strong uphill. Somehow I find it easier to go in and out of neutral, as well as going directly to second, with the stick. I guess it technically should be possible with an automatic too, though.

EamonnMR• 4 years ago

Is there any value in learning how to use the electronic manual override option some automatics have?

postalrat3• 4 years ago

I assume those are there only for fun. Not much different than driving a manual transmission these days.

mpyne• 4 years ago

I have found it useful for driving in hill country (to avoid having to ride the brakes downhill) but beyond that I'm not sure there's much practical benefit. I used to think you could downshift to buy you more time to coast to a stop without having to touch the brake and save some gas, but I think even using the brakes is enough to get a modern car to cutoff fuel flow.

somerandomqaguy• 4 years ago

If you're getting into motorcycling, it's not a bad way to start practicing with it since the electronic override is often like most motorcycle's sequential gear shift.

SoftTalker3• 4 years ago

I sometimes use it in town because modern automatics want to upshift very aggresively to maximize fuel economy. That means the engine is almost lugging most of the time, which isn't really good for it. So I'll use the manual mode to keep the car in a gear that results in a slightly higher engine RPM.

It's not like a real manual though, there's no tactile feedback to changing gears or knowing what gear you're in by the position of the shifter, so I don't use it all the time.

deepspace• 4 years ago

I use it exclusively to downshift when I need more power, quickly. It allows me to drive in ECO mode to save gas, while avoiding sluggish downshifts by doing it manually.

toomanybeersies• 4 years ago

Useful if you need to tow a trailer. Otherwise it's just a novelty.

naijaboiler• 4 years ago

If you're going to teach your spouse how to drive a stick shift, just go ahead and have a marriage therapist on speed dial

Don't teach family members stick shift. Save yourself the headache, and point them to driving school.

therouwboat• 4 years ago

I agree, my aunt got old very cheap car for me and my cousin to learn how to drive, we had one 30 minute session of yelling and I never drove it again.

mnw21cam• 4 years ago

I cycled a lot before I learnt to drive. The concept of gears was very firmly in my head by then - all I had to do was learn to good clutch control. If a wrong gear means you are pedalling too fast or too slow, you get the idea very quickly.

hef19898• 4 years ago

This whole stick shift thing is funny, whole generations learned driving stick in Europe from day 1. Up to the point where using an automatic feels strange for the first couple of kilometers.

chunkyguy2• 4 years ago

Not just Europe, anywhere in the world that isn't US

RickJWagner• 4 years ago

I love to drive manual transmissions, and taught my kids how to drive them.

My last stick car (I'm between cars right now) was a WRX STi. I was teaching my son how to drive it when he made an unfortunate 3rd-gear-to-2nd (while looking for 4th). It was quite an experience.

Luckily, no damage done to car or people. Just a great story for telling later.

bsagdiyev3• 4 years ago

Lucky it was a story and not a money shift!

ddingus5• 4 years ago

You just expressed how I did car competency with my kids.

The best was snow!

Tip for parents who are teaching snow driving in a front wheel drive vehicle: get the car moving and set the emergency brake. The rear tires will lock and the rear end will be all over the place. Pick a wide road with a forgiving shoulder.

They will have to counter steer and keep the front of the car under control. Later, trigger a slide with that brake (assuming your car has one you can use that way) and watch them handle it like a champ!

We had a good time frankly. Drove an older, manual car. Minor damage was not a big deal. Made the whole experience nice, reasonably relaxed, fun.

sprior2• 4 years ago

Correct me I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that EV's like Tesla don't really have a transmission as in gears to change, so as much as I'm a diehard manual transmission fan I figured that was where it ends. Now a clutch pedal that simply allows the vehicle to coast with regenerative breaking disabled sounds like the best compromise to me.

idiotsecant3• 4 years ago

if your only use case is to disengage the regen braking you should probably just have a regen braking disable function, a clutch is an awfully complicated way to achieve that. You could literally have a software 'clutch' pedal that did nothing other than disable the regen if that was your goal.

Although on the other hand the clutch does have a nice property, which is that it works regardless of the state of the control system of the vehicle. If my MCU decides it wants to accelerate me at 500 mph into a wall a hardware clutch would be a nice thing to have!

W.r.t gearboxes in EVs: there is definitely a reason to have a transmission in an EV, it's just that most manufacturers don't include one for simplicity .

https://i.stack.imgur.com/HRUva.gif

sprior2• 4 years ago

That's what I meant. One thing I appreciate about a manual transmission car with its clutch pedal is the ability to coast, not accelerating but not slowing down like regenerative braking would.

NegativeK2• 4 years ago

You're correct; Teslas (and most EVs) have a gear reduction but no ability to change any gears, since they don't really need to. Coasting comes by feathering the accelerator, similar to how you can slowly decelerate in a manual transmission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsa-SxpiCU0 has Ken Block talking about how different driving a high performance EV is, though, since you have full wheel speed range without shifting. On one hand, you don't need to work a clutch to keep turbos spooled up; on the other, you have to be much more precise because you can't let the clutch slip for additional control.

In consumer EVs, though, the car won't really let your wheels slip.

hinkley5• 4 years ago

So here's a crazy idea: Keep the third pedal, and have it adjust the sensitivity of the accelerator pedal.

hinkley5• 4 years ago

If memory serves from the test drives, the new Hyundai/Kia electric vehicles (built on a common platform) have paddle shifters that only manage regenerative braking, similar to how you would use engine braking.

One of the subtler features of my DSG vehicle is that on most downhills it will automatically downshift to maintain speed. On a really steep hill it will start to race, but feathering the brake for 5-10 seconds will convince it to downshift once more. I haven't driven it in the mountains hardly ever, but that's one area where manuals often win out - no melted brake pads, no heat-warped calipers.

In fact I put way more miles on the first set of brake shoes on this car than I would have dreamed possible, to the point I started having mechanics check their records to make sure we didn't change them while it was in for something else.

Thlom4• 4 years ago

Nice thing with EVs is that with regenerative breaking you barely use the brakes at all. When I hade mine in for regular service interval the mechanic told me to do some hard brakes from time to time to keep rust off the brakes!

masklinn7• 4 years ago

One of the subtler features of my DSG vehicle is that on most downhills it will automatically downshift to maintain speed. On a really steep hill it will start to race, but feathering the brake for 5-10 seconds will convince it to downshift once more. I haven't driven it in the mountains hardly ever, but that's one area where manuals often win out - no melted brake pads, no heat-warped calipers.

Can't you just tell the car to downshift using paddles, or force it into low gear using a gear limiter feature?

vouaobrasil• 4 years ago

I love driving stick and I've done so with all my cars...but I'm okay seeing it go. I'd prefer the options to be more environmental, and there are other joys in life. It's not good to be attached to such things.

aussiesnack4• 4 years ago

Seems like a nicely balanced perspective. I don't drive much, but when I do, I much prefer 'manual' (translation of 'stick' to non-US English), and take pleasure in smooth heel-and-toe changes. I'm mostly a motorcyclist and similarly enjoy getting better at smooth braking with changing down and rev-matching.

But if electric motorbikes become usable and affordable to me within my lifetime, they will offer different pleasures (ubiquitous torque, quiet). And outside of driving/riding, there will be enough pleasures to experience and skills to learn for many lifetimes.

fhood• 4 years ago

It's really stupid, but you can't tell me that the idea of a manual electric doesn't appeal to the less rational parts of your subconscious.

ilyt8• 4 years ago

It doesn't.

Driving ICE manual is the whole package. Engine sound, the manual interaction, the little jerk when you miss the rev on shift, feeling of all the mechanics when changing the gear, feeling the vibrations thru the chassis when you accelerate, engine going braaaaAAAAAP and screaming like angry bees when going past VTEC threshold etc.

And the little details like how the notch on the first gear in my Civic ('07 Type-R) becomes lighter when the gearbox oil heats up and the whole rest of smaller idiosyncrasies of mechanical system.

For me the fun is man understanding and controlling machine, it is gone the moment machine pretends it's something it isn't. Not saying electric wouldn't be fun, just that I hope it will be its own type of fun instead of fake.

My car is a bit raw tho, spins to 8.6k RPM and have pretty hard suspension. Typical ICE car isn't exactly that "talkative" and is much more mushier around the edges.

But it is a bit funny to me that if you want high revving NA engine your options are 15+ years old Hondas or top of the line Porsche...

Mistletoe• 4 years ago

I’ve driven stick lots of my life and no it doesn’t. You press the pedal on electric and the smooth instant and seemingly endless application of power is one of the absolute best parts of it.

twblalock4• 4 years ago

It would be like those CVTs with fake shifts: unnecessary, phony, dishonest, and worse than actually embracing the technology and using it properly.

If you want to feel "connected" to a modern car you are out of luck. It won't happen. Adding fakeness to compensate is ultimately unsatisfying.

masklinn7• 4 years ago

you can't tell me that the idea of a manual electric doesn't appeal to the less rational parts of your subconscious.

I can absolutely tell you that. It sounds stupid and burdensome.

And in terms of effectiveness, it's basically homeopathy, or healing candles.

hinkley5• 4 years ago

I haven't driven stick in years, having bought a DSG car, but I still prefer 'driving one-handed' the way you do with a stick shift, and it's clear at this point that some people don't remember being passengers in a manual transmission vehicle, let alone driving them.

Karrot_Kream• 4 years ago

I recently switched from 10 years of driving stick/standard to an EV and the sensation of instant power dwarfs the fun of selecting gear for me. I might just still be in the honeymoon phase, and I barely drive preferring to bike around everywhere instead. But having ample power in every situation from highway acceleration to hill roads pretty much obsoletes everything I used the stick for. I guess I do miss the habit of clutching and heel-toeing but with an EV I get all the benefits with none of the fiddliness. This was not the case when driving anything but the top automatics.

reubenswartz• 4 years ago

Yup. Three pedals to one (plus what’s effectively an emergency break). I miss shifting at times, but the overall experience is much better.

linsomniac• 4 years ago

I've had an EV since 2016, and I'm a huge manual fan, but the things I like about manual are almost without exception already there in an EV. What really grinds my gears, so to speak, with an auto trans is being in the wrong gear for what's coming up, say when waiting for an opening to overtake.

As you say, the EV has smooth, instant power available all the time, and good "engine breaking". The only thing it's missing is the nostalgia of winding through the gears and the symphony of the engine, exhaust, and drivetrain. But the smooth, powerful acceleration, is there in the EV.

thyrsus2• 4 years ago

I feel just the same, with the proviso that I want a mechanical backup for catastrophic software bugs - a fully mechanical drive disengagement, aka shift to neutral. And the emergency, aka parking, brake should have no software mediation either, beyond sensors that signal software to "do the right thing" (park or neutral) with the drive. I haven't started looking at EVs, but one will probably be my next car when my current (stick) irreparably fails.

martinald2• 4 years ago

It's definitely going. When I learnt to drive in the UK 15 years ago automatic cars were completely non existent (if you pass your driving test in an automatic in the UK you are only allowed to drive automatics - so everyone does manual, which allows you to drive both).

Fast forward 15 years and I'm surprised when I see a stick shift car - primarily (very) old taxis/ubers.

throwaway220322• 4 years ago

That's pretty surprising to me. Where I am at least half of the cars in the street are 15-20 year old bangers that are almost all manual.

gmtx7256• 4 years ago

Manuals are still ubiquitous where I am in the UK so I don't agree with that assessment. They are still vastly cheaper than automatics as well.

technothrasher2• 4 years ago

I've accepted they have to go, and haven't had a manual daily driver in about ten years now. So I don't feel the need to have a manual option when I inevitably switch to an EV. But I also have a few classic cars that I can take out whenever I've got the itch. I suspect I'll keep a manual 'toy' car around until I'm too old to drive it.

GnarfGnarf• 4 years ago

I'm a big fan of manual transmissions, but if it adds more things that need adjusting and that can break on an EV, I wouldn't want one on my next (electric) car.

zwieback• 4 years ago

For a long time there was a perception that Europeans are real drivers with their stick shifts and

"didn’t everyone in the world think that American people were babies—with their innocence, their Disney, their inability to drive a stick shift?" (Elif Batuman)

but maybe with EVs and modern automatic transmissions the day really has come to say goodbye to manual transmission. Our family cars have them and my daughter just bought a new manual Civic but not for any real rational reason.

Gare• 4 years ago

No, the reality is that we were (and still are, though a bit less) poor compared to the Americans. I can afford myself a nice automatic car and it is a blessing for me, but most of my compatriots still can't.

thyrsus2• 4 years ago

In the low end models that I'd be willing to pay for, there is no price difference between stick and automatic in the U.S.

toast03• 4 years ago

Modern automatic transmissions are kind of icky, IMHO. DSG is pretty good, except the car I had with one had a speed around 6 mph that was terribly jerky; other than that it was fine. My van has a 9 speed automatic that's awful though, routinely hard shifts around 25 mph, can't engine brake on downhills for anything, even in L.

Hybrid e-CVT is nice though, driving wise and engineering wise.

ComputerGuru2• 4 years ago

I imagine - like with the allegory of mechanical Swiss watches - the manual transmission will see a resurgence of sorts, but not in an EV. I think both ICE and MT will go together hand-in-hand as enthusiast vehicles for weekend drives, home mechanics, or the track. I think slushbox ICE is dead but the combination of MT and ICE will survive as a niche but thriving luxury/enthusiast purchase.

pwarner• 4 years ago

I'd guess the same. People still ride horses, there will be ICE cars. I suspect the Mazda Miata or some similar roadster may by the last ice cars?

twblalock4• 4 years ago

This is why classic cars are going up in value, even cars from the 90s.

People know cars like those will never be made again, and quite a few people who grew up with 90s cars are now old enough to have the disposable income to buy them.

Ultimately new gas cars will be banned. Many governments have already expressed the desire to ban them. That is one of the major differences from the mechanical watch market -- but even in that market, values of vintage watches are going absolutely nuts. In the car market, vintage cars will be the only ICE cars one day.

If you have spare garage space, one of the best things you can do is buy an older unmodified sportscar that had a good reputation in the 1980s or 1990s, hold onto it for 10 years, and sell it for a massive profit. Something like a 911, or Supra, or MR2, or maybe even a Miata.

Symbiote9• 4 years ago

I think the market for this will be very small.

Electric sports cars will have better performance, and be familiar to everyone in a few years. Won't most people want a car they can also drive to work?

I can imagine it will be like a neighbour who owned a very old (1930s?) car. Maintaining it was a hobby, and actually driving it on public roads was something he did only a few times a year.

mprovost2• 4 years ago

Italy wanted an exception to the EU regulation banning ICE sales after 2035 for their supercar industry (Ferrari etc) but only managed a 12 month extension to 2036. After that only manufacturers making less than 1000 vehicles a year can continue to make ICE cars.

ehnto3• 4 years ago

That's probably the size of the market I am thinking will remain. I would love to see a thriving motorsport industry catering to track sports and hill climbs, and then we can happily get rid of ICE cars from our cities.

If all I can do with my petrol car is drive it to the track and for special events, I think I would be content enough. I don't need the thrill of the sights and sounds of racing on my commutes, and I believe motorsport is the only exception that isn't trivial.

rgmerk• 4 years ago

Nah. The sports car market has long relied on cross-subsidy from mass market vehicles.

Ferrari was dying until Fiat bought it. Lamborghini would have died without Audi. Porsche would have died multiple times without VW - and relied on VW components throughout its entire history. American sports and muscle cars were made by the Big Three, and used V8s made for other vehicles.

Without that investment, it will be impossible for sports car makers to make vehicles that meet contemporary roadworthiness standards.

Not to mention that you won’t be able to sell them in the EU, California, New York, and China beyond 2035. Doesn’t leave much of a market.

Maybe there will be a residual business selling ICE sports cars to Middle Eastern plutocrats in 2035, but those plutocrats may have more urgent things on their minds given the long-term demand for oil and gas is headed one way.

CraigJPerry• 4 years ago

What a load of nonsense. The manual gearbox for sports cars died around 2010-ish. Before you protest that you can still buy manual sports cars, hear me out.

The manual gearbox you can buy in any sports car today has obscenely long ratios. Partly this is common sense - almost every sports car for sale today is turbocharged, you don’t need a close ratio box. The other reason if emissions, long gone are the days of the top gear being long, with standardised emission test cycles that have prolonged driving periods at town speeds, now all gears are optimised for lower revs.

It’s not uncommon to find you only need 2nd gear for anything from 30 to 80, i.e. the speeds you’ll spend most of your time on a nice set of twisties.

Why 2010? That’s when the borg warner DSGs broke into the mainstream. No human can match their efficiency nor their shift speed. The only remaining reason in sportscars is for driver engagement. Since then the traditional slushbox auto has caught up, i have a ZF in one of my cars and it’s every bit as fast and just as smooth changing as the DSG in my last VAG.

kfajdsl• 4 years ago

Yup. I love my manual E46, but I'll be the first to admit that modern paddle shifters are better for everything other than vibe, basically.

truth777• 4 years ago

An under-rated bonus of driving stick ... you are practically invulnerable to car theft.

timeon3• 4 years ago

I guess you mean in US.

postalrat3• 4 years ago

I drive a manual Kia. Am I safe from the "kia boys"?

karaterobot• 4 years ago

Enthusiasts

I'm skeptical that manufacturers will include manual transmissions in EVs that actual people can buy in the future, and this article doesn't really change my mind. Their examples are a $135k Porsche, a $265k custom Bronco, a patent somebody filed, and a concept vehicle. This feels like wishful thinking. Enthusiasts will always keep things "alive", but you could just as easily write an article about how enthusiasts have helped the typewriter survive the computer revolution.

Kaibeezy2• 4 years ago

Shifting an EV seems like a gimmick, with not much of a gain, and no substantial consequence for poor technique. A real reason, posted earlier today, is people strongly preferring that experience of manually controlling a complex mechanism, and being unwilling to give it up. I sure won't.

EV Sales Sticking Point: People Still Want Manual Transmissions (hackaday.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33661154

dzhiurgis3• 4 years ago

I'v recently figured I'd rather drive ICE than an EV without radar cruise control. Stick shift EV fucks both ways!

Similarly I'd rather drive car with a shitty capacitive steering wheel buttons (gosh they suck so bad) over car without keyless entry...

UlisesAC4• 4 years ago

A manual EV can make sense. A normal stick is just a torque modifier. If we have a "stick" that limits torque of an EV, with this we can limit the way torque is delivered in each gear, with this the experience of such drive can be similar.

stetrain5• 4 years ago

If you want to artificially limit torque, sure. But it generally isn't necessary.

The only attempts at production EVs with multiple gears have targeted two gears, one for acceleration and one for increase top speed above 100mph for racing or Autobahn cruising.

That's not going to give drivers the "thrill" of a manual transmission.

If what you are seeking is the direct-drive feel of a manual transmission, and shifting to be in the strong part of the power curve for each situation, an EV does all of that just by pressing the accelerator.

Animats3• 4 years ago

BYD makes an electric car with a "manual transmission". It's for driving schools. The transmission is entirely faked with software, as are the engine sounds and the tachometer. You can even stall the simulated engine[1].

[1] https://jalopnik.com/this-chinese-electric-car-designed-for-...

alanbernstein• 4 years ago

I hope it has a giant vibration motor to emulate the lurch.

reticulated2• 4 years ago

For context, I'm British. Until relatively recently automatics were so rare you'd often see an actual sticker on the back of the car warning the driving style would be somewhat different (e.g. braking on downhill stretches).

The vast majority of the cars on our roads in the UK are still manual, but the tide is changing and not just with the introduction of EVs. There exists a legal quirk whereby you're not licensed to drive a manual car if you've passed your driving test in an automatic. Until that legislation is updated, I expect there to remain a strong demand for manual transmissions amongst learner and new drivers.

Personally, I'm of an age where simplicity and convenience are valued more in my life. Parallels include choosing Apple devices where I'd previously been all-in on Windows, Linux and Android; consoles over gaming PCs; and I'd also include home automation despite the initial set-up. Both our family cars are currently (non-EV for now) automatics and I can't see myself or my partner ever voluntarily going back to manual cars. I can push a single button to start, select drive and go. Even the handbrake is automatic.

Anecdotally, my social group is very much of the same mindset. Increased traffic on our small island has all but removed any romantic idealism around driving a sporty manual car on an open road. Now that driving here is more of a chore than a pleasure, anything that helps ease the burden is going to become the default.

timeon3• 4 years ago

the driving style would be somewhat different

Another difference I think is that with the stick, driver needs to be more prepared for moments to come on the road. Like you know that you are going to shift when you see the change in terrain ahead of you and so on. While with automatic this awareness is not required so you can expect the driver without stick to make more sudden changes. Of course not a rule.

Thlom4• 4 years ago

FYI: almost everyone learning to drive in Norway now does so with automatic and as such get a license for automatic only. Guess the same will happen in the UK pretty quick.

gmtx7256• 4 years ago

What about the cost factor? In the UK manuals are still significantly cheaper than automatics.

pornel• 4 years ago

In my anecdotal sample the thinking is changing indeed from "I'll learn manual just in case I ever need it" to "screw it, automatic is available everywhere, and EVs are coming".

runarberg• 4 years ago

In Iceland—until recently—there wasn’t even an option to take the driving test—nor the required driving lessons—on an automatic. You had to take it on a manual. Also most people bought a manual as their first car (as manuals were always cheaper and more available). However among my age some (wealthier) people bought automatic as their first car, and promptly forgot how to drive a manual. It is rear, but I’ve met a couple of people that simply don’t know how to drive a manual (as if they were American) even though they took the driving test and lessons on one a decade and a half ago.

EDIT: Unrelated, but there is also a common myth in Iceland that manual transmission is illegal in San Francisco. I have no idea where it comes from, but after having lived in SF and returning to Iceland I’ve had more then one people ask me about this. (I even owned a manual 4-speed VW bus [known as VW Ryebread in Iceland] while living there).

Symbiote9• 4 years ago

That describes me.

I passed my test in a manual car in Britain, but I never bought a car. I've rented them when abroad, and have an account with the pay-per-minute electric cars, but at this point I don't want to drive a manual if there's an automatic available.

gmtx7256• 4 years ago

I'm UK based and still drive a manual. The main reason being cost. I'm a super infrequent driver (maybe once a week for bulky shops or long weekend trips) and don't want to be paying through the nose for something that is a convenience not an essential. I drive a second hand 2013 Toyota aygo which was super cheap, is zero rated for road tax, incredibly reliable and ultra fuel efficient.

I'd be willing to bet I'm quite representative of other city based drivers who have the option of public transport, walking or cycling. That's why I don't see the demand for manual dropping any time soon.

Symbiote9• 4 years ago

Until relatively recently automatics were so rare you'd often see an actual sticker on the back of the car

How recent do you mean? I know you get manufacturer brands like "5.1 GTI Automatic" on the back, but I can't remember ever seeing a warning sticker.

Currently, manual cars still account for 70 per cent of the 31.7 million cars on UK's roads [1]

so it must have been a fair while ago.

[1] https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2022/th...

reticulated2• 4 years ago

You know what, I believe you're right. On reflection it's more like 15-20 years since I've seen one. Apologies for the bad phrasing.

timeon3• 4 years ago

I prefer stick but at the end of the day it is just a car so I do not care if it will disappeared.

sublinear• 4 years ago

When I learned to drive a stick I did it for fun as an adult and taught myself on a beater car.

After thinking about it a bit before getting behind the wheel for the first time, I simply imagined the clutch as a "lock" on a shared resource. Either the engine or the stick have access to the state of the gearbox, but not both at the same time.

I did witness my parents driving when I was much younger and recall them being very gentle and smooth without riding the clutch too much in 1st so I did the same. Surprisingly I didn't stall my very first attempt, but did as soon as I tried 2nd. Drove around for a bit on this dirt patch and even got it up to 3rd. Practiced downshifting from 3rd to 2nd and braking from neutral to a stop. Practiced lots of 1st gear starts because I was terrified of intersections on real roads with traffic.

So I finally get on the road and come to a stop at a rural intersection with an old man in an even older pickup truck. It's my turn to go... The whole car shakes violently from the worst stall I've ever made until then or since. The old man laughed his head off at me and then went on his way. The embarrassment was so intense I never really had a problem shifting since then.

I might be wrong, but I think this is how people used to learn and just kept it to themselves. :)

bigmattystyles• 4 years ago

It's not the stick I want, it's the clutch. My car can be put from automatic to a manual mode, it's a gimmick.

kwhitefoot2• 4 years ago

What do you want the clutch for?

micromacrofoot• 4 years ago

riding a horse will too

User23• 4 years ago

The manual transmission may well be the best theft control device on the market.

But aren’t even so-called manuals actual drive by wire?

Vecr• 4 years ago

I think there is a mechanical linkage in almost all manual cars. For the steering there absolutely is, almost no cars are actually drive-by-wire in that sense. You probably won't be able to do anything with the car with no power though, because everything has electrically actuated mechanical lockouts, and the engine won't work because it uses an ECU.

BenjiWiebe• 4 years ago

In my 2003 manual you can reach under the hood, grab the lever on the transmission, and move the shift lever inside that way. Purely mechanical. Afaik, the computer doesn't even know what gear you are in (I don't think it even senses neutral.)

WalterBright3• 4 years ago

Learning stick is like learning algebra. Once you get over the stigma "gee, algebra is hard" it's no problem.

For example, a friend of mine taught remedial algebra at the U of W. She'd write on the board:

    2 + x = 5

and ask the students what the value of "x" was. They all fell over into a quivering heap of jelly at the word "x". Then she'd write:

    2 + _ = 5

and ask them to "fill in the blank". They all instantly said "3".

GrumpyNl• 4 years ago

This is a great example of how understanding the problem is the way to to the solution.

thechao• 4 years ago

Then I make my kiddos prove that it's 3. That's the place where understanding comes in: understanding that algebra is operations on the equation as a whole, and not just divining the correct answer.

WalterBright3• 4 years ago

You haven't mastered stick until you can drive it smoother than an auto :-)

caconym_2• 4 years ago

Whenever I encounter the "Robb Report" I am reminded of an occasion in college when some friends and I noticed one of its issues on the newsstand in a grocery store. It came in a special plastic bag with an opaque rectangle printed over most of the cover, presumably to obscure the luxury products advertised therein from proles like us, but by pulling the plastic away from the cover we could clearly see that it was dominated by an image of some kind of miniature recreational submarine.

Since then it has been difficult for me to take anything about the Robb Report seriously. Maybe that's unfair of me.

Anyway, it would be weird if the uber wealthy didn't keep the stick shift around in some form or other, but on EVs it will be nothing but an affectation, like the way modern "sport" luxury cars pipe fake engine noise into the cabin. Just another way for folks who have too much money to waste some more of it.

quicklime• 4 years ago

Sorry, but I do think this is unfair.

There are a lot of people out there who love the way engines sound, and the increased engagement that a manual transmission brings to the driving experience. They aren't all "folks who have too much money", and I really hope this experience continues to be available to those who don't.

There's no denying that cars with DCTs or EVs are faster and better on most metrics. But they are less fun for a lot of people.

caconym_2• 4 years ago

I think you are misunderstanding me a little. My car has a manual transmission and driving it is (oddly enough, since it's not a very fast or powerful car) one of the greatest joys in my life. It's wonderful to be so "close to the metal".

My point here is that the products Robb Report is shilling are not going to provide this experience, much in the same way that the fake engine noise piped into the sound-deadened cabin of some midsize BMW pedestrian-killer doesn't reproduce the true music of a classic euro V8. A stick shift gizmo on an EV isn't going to move you in the same way because it isn't real. It's nothing but an affectation designed to appeal to the vanity of the wealthy.

rnk• 4 years ago

This is a great idea. I didn't teach my kid how to drive stick shift and I feel bad about it. My grandfather knew how to drive heavy trucks and tractors and use those skills in world war II, and I never thought about it but he didn't teach me how to do those things!

karmakaze• 4 years ago

My first manual car was an Alfa Romeo Milano (aka 75). It was the first thing I bought after graduating from university. The guy that sold it to me had it in service for sale. He taught me to drive on his new Milano 3.0L in a town north of the city. The lesson ended with him teaching me how to balance the car on an uphill incline by slipping the clutch.

I picked up my car a few days later and drove it home. I drove that car to its end, loved the high-compression V6 that would engine brake if you lifted the gas even a little.

Sometime much later, I bought my first motorcycle after taking a weekend riding course. The thing that was so hard to learn was doing the mechanical things I had learned but then adding the turn signals and watching for all the traffic was a lot of cognitive load and I took hours to go straight along one road that should've been a half hour.

sgtaylor5• 4 years ago

When I was 16 in 1976, my father and grandfather taught me how to drive stick. I learned on a 1966 rambler classic four-door sedan with three on the column. Nowadays, that would be an anti-theft device. When I lived in the country, most of my cars were stick shift and when I lived in the city I preferred automatics - nothing like driving in heavy traffic, and everyone is driving first and a half. That’s just hard to synchronize with a stick shift. Current vehicle is a four-speed, and I don’t think I’d have anything else.

SoftTalker3• 4 years ago

Yep. Drive a stick and you most likely won't lose your car in a carjacking either.

hot_gril6• 4 years ago

I just want to know this: Can a manual transmission give you any practical benefit in an EV? I think the torque bands of _current_ EVs are so wide that they can perform reasonably well without more than two gears, but could they compromise on that power band or change the final drive to create a faster or more efficient EV with 6 speeds?

If the answer is no, I'm not interested. I've already had enough fun with manual on cars where it mattered.

So far, Porsche has made the case for a two-speed EV, and not just when you're racing. Single-speed ones are less efficient at freeway speeds. But a two-speed manual transmission wouldn't be much fun. Maybe I missed it, but the article didn't explain what it's like to drive the five-speed EV Bronco. What happens when you shift gears?

twblalock4• 4 years ago

EVs were never the threat. Most gas-powered cars are moving in the same direction as EVs because that is where the industry in general has been going for a while: heavy emphasis on technology, apps, subscriptions, safety features like lane keep assist and automatic braking, and eventually self-driving features -- most of which is done in software, and the mechanical stuff is too complex and expensive for most non-experts to fix.

It might sound like I just described a Tesla, but a new gas-powered Volvo does all that stuff too.

majormajor• 4 years ago

The newest stickshift I've driven was a 2018 with computer controlled suspension, fancy-smancy-brake/"torque vectoring" stuff, and optional revmatching on downshifts.

To be honest, with the rest of the car doing so much already to augment my driving skills (it responded beautifully, but it definitely wasn't my skill), the stick felt incredibly anachronistic.

That was the experience that made me OK with it going away in the future... It'll still be there on old cars, which are still a unique experience, but it's a bit off IMO on new ones.

mcronce• 4 years ago

In the process of electric swapping our 5-speed Baja. It will be keeping the manual gearbox.

stetrain5• 4 years ago

Well their examples pointing to the utility of manual transmissions on EVs include:

- A car with a two-speed automatic transmission

- A concept with fake shifting and a fake clutch

- A modded classic car where the first two gears are admittedly not very useful

I don't think those speak well towards manual transmissions continuing to exist in the EV world, at least in the sense that enthusiasts would want them to.

I totally get the disdain for torque-converter automatic transmissions, but an EV drivetrain avoids basically all of the downsides that people have come to expect from an automatic.

arcticfox• 4 years ago

This sounds like they’re making the opposite of the point they tried to make. None of those seems remotely useful.

As an EV driver I’m baffled as to why anyone would want manual. The only real advantages afaik in ICE are better torque control and engine braking, both of which don’t make any sense in an EV. Maybe in an incredibly wimpy EV

kehrin• 4 years ago

The only real advantages afaik in ICE are better torque control and engine braking

I'd argue the majority of manual fans are into them not for any utilitarian reason, rather it's all about the enjoyment that comes from controlling a fun (i.e interesting powerband, characterful sound) engine with a satisfying shifter. Think of it like playing a musical instrument.

I highly doubt manuals will catch on for EVs because the electric motors are super smooth and their torque makes gears irrelevant (the Porsche Taycan being an outlier here).

natch• 4 years ago

Some companies that don’t have much to offer (no supercharger network, no in-car connectivity, etc.) are adding skin deep gimmicks to their EVs. I suspect that’s the most fitting category for this.

UncleOxidant• 4 years ago

In 2020, that number was barely over one percent (or about 188,000 cars)—which might explain why only 18 percent of the country’s drivers even know how to operate one.

It also means less thieves who are able to steal my stick-shift car.

zulu-inuoe• 4 years ago

This comment makes me thankful to live in a place where somebody stealing my car isn't even in my top 100 concerns.

justinator• 4 years ago

I haven't owned a car of any sort in > 16 years, but driving stick is not something I'll ever forget.

jnsaff22• 4 years ago

There is a diy EV conversion community where people sometimes leave the (mostly but not always manual) gearbox in place.

Usually they don’t bother fitting a clutch and most of the time they leave it in either 3rd, 4th or 5th gear. Shifting done either when standing or by relaxing tourque. Even reverse is done electrically but rotating the engine the other ways.

twblalock4• 4 years ago

Even reverse is done electrically but rotating the engine the other ways.

One of the fun things about most EVs is that they could accelerate just as fast in reverse, and hit the same top speed, as they could if they were driving forward. The only thing that prevents it is software.

For example, if it was not limited by software, a Model S Plaid could do 0-60 in reverse faster than any car in the world has ever done 0-60 going forward.

jnsaff22• 4 years ago

There is one nuance tho, specifically with the Model S (not sure about plaid).

The way the Model S motor is laid out, it is often more advantageous to fit it backwards into conversions.

This should be fine, except the motor driven oil pump is meant to run mostly forwards and long periods of running it the other way cause problems in oil flow and might cause pump failures too.

So there is a aftermarket oil pump that fixes this problem.

jillesvangurp• 4 years ago

I'm sure some people would like this but from a technical point of view it's of course a redundant technology in an EV.

The reason manufacturers might like this is because it perpetuates a business model of servicing and repairing these vehicles for them. More moving parts means more maintenance.

A lot of the business with ICE vehicles is in parts and maintenance. With EVs, the maintenance is mostly limited to changing the tires and topping up various fluids once in a while. So, the life time value of the vehicle is actually lower for them. You sell it once and then the owner is really happy with a vehicle that just keeps on going and generally has not a lot of need for regular servicing. Manual gears would be a way of artificially building in some contingencies for that and creating a need for more frequent opportunities for selling and servicing expensive parts.

brenainn• 4 years ago

I don't have an EV, but I did give up manual transmission a year ago or so when my wife and I downsized to one car (the choice was between my 20 year old Subaru and her 5 year old Honda). Not much to say other than I miss driving manual, and am saddened thinking I might never get to again. I've considered buying a shitbox just to do so, but that seems wasteful. On that note, I miss driving shitboxes. Someone left a trolley in the parking space? Just drive into it.

deafpolygon• 4 years ago

For now.

Until all of the enthusiasts die out.

scscsc• 4 years ago

I have an anecdote to offer: in the early 2000s I was learning to drive in a former comunist country. Most cars were Dacia 1310, a copy of 1970s Renaults. The stick was awful, the steering was very heavy (as in lifting weights heavy), the clutch was terrible. It was very difficult to drive one, let alone learn to drive one. Newer and better cars were just beginning to appear, but there were few of these and they were expensive. There were two lines of thought in my circle: (1) that you should learn on a Dacia, because then you will be able to drive anything and (2) you should learn on a modern car, because it is easier. Needless to say, camp (2) won: the Dacias all but disappeared and furthermore, newer cars are mostly automatic.

So I wouldn't hold my breath that the manual gear shift will survive.

nottorp2• 4 years ago

the steering was very heavy (as in lifting weights heavy)

The 1310 didn't have power steering :)

But it can be worse. You could try driving a 2 ton Mercedes with non functional power steering. That's a sweat inducing task.

Anyway, with no power steering you have to keep the car moving at a snail's pace when turning the wheel. No adjusting wheels in place if you're not up to date with your weight lifting. This skill got lost before the skill to drive a manual.

askvictor• 4 years ago

What would be nicer would be an electric 'dumb car'. Some of us want electric, but not all of the gimmickery.

ehnto3• 4 years ago

That's starting to hit the market now I think, some offerings from Hyuandai and Nissan are just a normal modern car with an EV drivetrain.

nottorp2• 4 years ago

Basically, first gear gives the Taycan more access to torque, allowing it to accelerate even quicker; second allows the motor spin at a lower speed while maintaining speed, thus improving efficiency.

That's what I never understood about EVs. Don't you gain some battery life (and thus range) by having a gearbox? Automatic or manual.

masklinn7• 4 years ago

Don't you gain some battery life (and thus range) by having a gearbox? Automatic or manual.

Yes, but that's traded for more weight (thus less range), as well as increased complexity and maintenance.

And at "normal" speeds, you gain very little efficiency, the second gear is for cruising on unlimited autobahn segments. At which point you're getting hosed by aerodynamics anyway.

If it was so valuable every EV manufacturer would use them, but that's not the case, if anything they're getting scaled back (e.g. the original Formula E had 5-speeds).

account-52• 4 years ago

I feel this might be an (north?) American issue. Where I come from the automatic is still in the minority. It feels weird driving a car without proper gears!

cactusplant73742• 4 years ago

What do you mean by proper gears? Automatics have the same gears.

account-52• 4 years ago

Gear stick, I'm in control of changing. I've driven both but in UK you're pretty much taught how to drive with what I'd call a proper vehicle interface. You can get automatic only tests but you're not allowed to drive any non-automatic car.

Herbstluft• 4 years ago

As a european it is always weird to catch glimpses of the stick shift vs. automatic topic. Not because I can't imagine what it's like to not have the ability to drive stick, but because it seems like some kind of heated, ideological debate in the US, and I do not know why. It seems to me as if it is either treated as an arcane art, something to be shunned, a trait of "masculinity", or a trait of toxicity and pretentiousness.

Automatic is very much the minority here and almost everyone learns to drive on stick, even if they switch to automatic later.

While I won't deny that people like that exist here as well, not once have I encountered someone personally or in the form of a news article (in my native language) with strong opinions on the matter.

Edit: when I say "here" I mean my home country, not trying to speak for all of Europe of course

Yaggo• 4 years ago

Europe is wide continent. For example, in Finland most new cars sold are automatic. Hybrids and EVs make big portion of sales (even a majority) and are of course automatic, but it has been a longer trend.

quickthrower22• 4 years ago

In the UK auto vs. stick felt like the ideological debate you mentioned.

Myself having done 10y consecutively of both, auto is a better experience overall. Except when you need that bit of immediate power from smaller engines. This is for my normal A to B driving, I don’t race.

tluyben2• 4 years ago

I hate stick shifts and, born and raised and living in the eu, I have always driven automatic. The interesting comments I get ‘for not being a man’ (as an almost 2m, 100kg hairy bloke) in different countries, is always perplexing. And that’s over the past 30 years since I have been driving. Especially brits think (and say) I am a total wanker for not driving stick. But the dutch (my birth country) have similar emotions.

sschueller• 4 years ago

To me it really depends on the vehicle. I love stick but I do not want to drive a large fully loaded diesel truck through 2 hours city traffic.

e12e• 4 years ago

Automatic is very much the minority here and almost everyone learns to drive on stick, even if they switch to automatic later.

In Norway there's been discussions about phasing out teaching stick as standard - partly because of demand, partly because driving schools need to upgrade their fleets, and want to avoid the need for two sets of cars.

mannykannot• 4 years ago

Unless my experience is very atypical, far from it being controversial, for most Americans it is a non-issue - they literally never contemplate it, any more than they wonder if there is a case for bringing back manual ignition advance.

chunkyguy2• 4 years ago

Outside of USA does anyone else drive automatic? Curious.

klodolph• 4 years ago

I have been living in the US my entire life and the extent of the debate I’ve heard here is:

- Someone makes a joke about how you should get a manual, that way nobody will steal it (because the thieves won’t know how to drive), and

- Someone makes a comment about how they visited the UK and decided to rent a car, and either they paid extra for an automatic or they saved money and drove manual.

It seems to me as if it is either treated as an arcane art, something to be shunned, a trait of "masculinity", or a trait of toxicity and pretentiousness.

I have no idea why you sense this from American culture.

arlort• 4 years ago

I have no idea why you sense this from American culture.

The internet. And it applies to much more than this

You know that in your local social circle very few people have opinions about such trivial topics and you rightly see those with strong opinions as weirdos

But then you go on the internet and something in our monkey brain makes it hard to remember that comments on a thread are not a representative sample. Which is very bad because the kind of people who take the effort to comment on an internet thread are also the kind of people who have weirdly strong opinions one way or another

And because negative opinions are much more likely to be expressed than positive ones you end up basing your model of some other place (the US for europeans, europe for americans, other countries and so on) on samples which over represents the most toxic and negative opinions

JeremyNT• 4 years ago

My wife and I both have historically driven stick shifts here in the US. Initially for budget reasons, since they are of course cheaper.

These days they are harder to find, and that means you have to pay the "automatic tax" on many models. So I would be frustrated to lose the option.

Our current car, a Volkswagen GTI, still has a stick, but it does seem like it could be our last. Even some valets do not know how to park the thing!

grishka• 4 years ago

In Russia, you choose which one you learn and take your exam on. If you choose automatic, it's marked on your license and you can only drive automatic. But if you choose manual, you can drive either.

All car sharing cars are automatic, but other than that, it's really a matter of taste and/or budget. Some people buy manual cars because they're cheaper. Russian-made cars are almost all manual-only, and are cheaper than imported ones.

I got my license on manual, and... I just don't drive lol. Mainly because almost everywhere I go it's easier, cheaper, and sometimes faster to get there on public transit or taxi.

dtgriscom2• 4 years ago

I have an automatic turbo Golf, and I loathe the transmission. It can take over a second between hitting the accelerator and getting some acceleration; if I'm at a stop sign, and the A/C is on, it can take almost two. (Yes, the turbo adds lag, but the transmission is the big problem.) I think a big part of the problem is that it usually starts in second gear for efficiency's sake, which adds time to switch to first when it decides I need it.

On the road, when I need some "ooomph", I need to carefully feather the accelerator; press it too much and the transmission panics and downshifts, adding a full second to the response.

There are shift paddles on the steering wheel which you'd think would give me the control I crave. But if I'm using the manual shifting and then press the accelerator down too far, the transmission decides I don't know what I'm doing and downshifts anyway.

I have yet to drive an electric; I'm looking forward to when my Golf goes belly-up.

tibbydudeza2• 4 years ago

Don't tell me it is a GTi - DSG or just plain auto ????.

bsagdiyev3• 4 years ago

VW has notoriously "squishy" accelerators, so much so that you can get a pedal tuner to try and make it more responsive. Our family Tiguan is like that and the auto box in it shifts like garbage, but not a bad car otherwise.

tibbydudeza2• 4 years ago

Biggest issue is clutch control and to get the bite point right without stalling - as it differs from cars.

Manual cars are cheaper.

The stick shift might survive the electric revolution

Related Stories