You guys need to stop

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

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 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.

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

https://youtu.be/4U41OxHiqI8

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:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/10/toyota-has-built-an-ev-with-a-fake-transmission-and-weve-driven-it/

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)

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.

Some have multiple speeds. I think the Porsche has 2 speeds for quick acceleration.

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 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.

A lot of autos you can use the gear selector to determine what rpm you want it to shift at, or use it to downshift. Most people just throw it in D and wonder what the other selector positions are for.

Also a lot of small manual cars suck for highway driving cause they cruise at a higher rpm.

Eh, it really depends how heavy your clutch is. Exonoboxes (Saturn SL2, Sonic) or sporty cars with lower torque numbers (Miata, Celica, Fiero, Prelude, S2000) = no biggie. Higher torque (V8 Camaros and Trans Ams, Corvettes) usually have an assist spring to help you hold the petal to the floor, but engaging/disengaging take more leg effort.

/late 30s guy who only owned one auto that was converted prior to buying an RV

On a side note, modern manuals kind of suck. They hold revs when you pop the clutch for emissions reasons, which makes the 1-2 shift especially kind of suck. A lot of them also barely engine brake and dual mass flywheels on higher output engines can clunk if you unload them hard. Although regen braking isn't super thrilling, it's way more engaging that engine braking in basically any model year 2010+ vehicle.

What was the pedestrian points system again?

• 10 points for every child
• 20 for every adult
• 30 for a pram
• 50 for a pushbike

Were there any others?

Go hit and run and rack up those points now!

why no banana? fukc you

See if there are any autocross groups in your area. Cheaper and safer than a track day with 95% of the thrill.

On the one hand, I agree, but on the other hand, it's one of the most dangerous times to drive

I miss my manual transmission sometimes. Though after having an AirBNB in the mountains, I did not miss it. I never want to stop on a hill that steep in a manual.

99% of people want just that. a -> b with a level of safety, fuel efficiency, comfort and a cell phone to distract them. Nobody wants to be constantly pumping the clutch in slow traffic on a daily commute. I have an automatic, and it’s perfect for DD. We also have a small, 6-cyl with a standard, and that car is a ton of fun for evenings out and weekends. I wouldn’t want to make myself or the car suffer in a metro area traffic jam moving at a snail’s pace.

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.

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.

Nissan had probably the most reliable motors through the 80s, 90s and early aughts, then the Renault thing happened . . . so yeah you're right.

On a Nissan CVT? absolutely.

*Modern Nissan.

I genuinely believe the K24 is the second best engine ever made, even better than the 22RE.

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

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.

That's a myth, new cars are much safer, like insanely so. It's not even close.

And it's on /c/shitpost. I don't think op has the problem with taking things seriously.

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.

What manual Mercedes is for sale in the USA? I've never seen one, that could be a whole lot of fun!

lmao

Oh yeah just like your guns, healthcare, abortion rights, politicians..

YES, thank you!

That automatic transmission control is really dreamed up by someone utterly deranged.

You think that's bad?

May I present the manual transmission on the Ford Edsel:

Yes. Those are transmission buttons on the steering wheel. There's also only two of them when you're actually driving that matter so it might as well be automatic.

Oh damn I wasn't expecting to see a 2023 car with an AUX port

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?

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.

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.

Why do I feel it would look like the Homer?

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 :(

Remember the kia challenge, that was literally kids running scripts they found online to steal cars

I made this https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/7313361f-9bb2-4f55-8510-a5ef85eab693.webp

I don't have a problem with convenience features, but the laws that allow manufacturers to spy on me can fuck off

2006? One of the last good years, for sure, but about two decades past the peak.