I would. In a heartbeat. I'd sell it and buy a boat.

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Forum consigliere

I took my 2013 VW Golf R in for its 210,000 mile oil change yesterday. I drive it almost every day in stop-and-go traffic, and never once have I wished for an automatic transmission...different strokes for different folks, I guess. (And...it still has the original clutch. )

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Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins

My favorite stick shift car was a '67 VW Beetle. A pure fun car to drive. If replacing the muffler about every 25K miles and having no AC didn't bother you.

In my misspent youth I owned -- or was owned by -- seven British sports cars at various times, all four-speeds of course. Three of them were MG Midgets, and they were truly challenging to drive.

First gear in the Midgets (up to the 1974 models) was non-synchronized, with straight-cut gears. You had to be at an absolute, complete, total dead stop to engage first, and when you accelerated in first, the whining noise was unmistakable...I can remember it to this day.

But man, were they fun to drive! It was like wheeling around in a roller skate...

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Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins

Got my TD on a pretty steep hill once...would not pull the hill in second. Stopped dead, shifted to first, and had on hell of a time getting those 50 horses to pull that hill

Sent from my SM-A136U using Tapatalk

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

I earned a lot of things in my misspent youth. One big one was to drive the standard transmission of the era. That was a none synchronized first gear, 3 on the tree, I was about 13 YO and found out how to double clutch. That made cruising in to stops or traffic lights much better than lugging away in 2ed gear. I also drove some of the sticks on as was known then the foreign cars that were showing up here!

Knowing how to drive a none syncro has come in handy for me a few times. One was the last 3 weeks before I had to go in for my first left knee surgery. It was hard to do and hurt to shift gears and knowing how to balance revs against road speed and shift without using the clutch. (large commercial trucks) Of course the clutch was needed for engaging first or reverse!

Now knowledge like that is considered black magic by the people of today.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

I hear this a lot from people without any experience with manuals. The thing is, your subconscious takes over and you don't always think of gear changes. Just like turn signals. For those of us that use them (!) it doesn't take thought, it just happens. Manual transmissions are much the same. Just hang back a little so you're not shifting so much. I've owned far more manuals than autos and vastly prefer them to an auto-magic box that tries to think for me.

Unless old age "takes over" your left knee So far, so good for me, though. Only had one (unmentionable) automatic in >50 years of driving.

My neighbour up the street's 3 kids, 20, 18 & 16 (just got his Learner's), can all drive a standard shift. Good on 'em!

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

I spent twenty years driving the DC beltway with a manual. Never bothered me in the least. My wife drove DC rush hour for even longer than I did with a manual.

I used to teach driving on a Diesel Landrover back in the UK around 1957-8 (for the Civil Defence Corp). Lorries (read trucks in US-English) were also part of the fun, In all you learned to "double declutch" as not synchronized gears. I still enjoy my 2013 Miata with 6 on the floor and AC when necessary. Only 24K miles on it and used on good weather days. Worst US car I ever has was an Olds Starfire with manual shift. Went through 5 clutches in 45K miles because Olds in their second year of selling it put a 6" clutch plate for a 6 cyl engine. The first year used a 10" clutch and the engineers then went to work for Boeing designing and building 737s! Had to point out to the Olds sales reps that I had put over 200K miles on a VW bug with manual and same clutch for all the miles. Dave_n

After seeing all the dead battery powered vehicles due to cold weather...
After learning that it doesn't take much, like a minor collision to total a battery powered vehicle....
After seeing how some turn into mobile crematoriums...
After seeing how much I'd have to spend to put a charging system in my house...
No one seems to know how many charging cycles the battery can take before it turns unless...
Yeah, no.

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Thread Killer.

I am not anti EV. I don't picket nor block the road in front of the Tesla dealer. They just don't appear on my radar.

While we are nowhere near replacing our 2019 Honda HR-V a hybrid is definitely on our scope.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I like the idea of hybrids. No range issues. Battery packs aren't too expensive. My daughter's 2005 Prius gets 35 mpg around Pittsburgh. My 02 Volvo gets 17.

As long as the gas motor isn't a wimpy 4 pot, or even worse a 3. Most hybrids are gutless econoboxes with no thought given to performance.

The Porsche 918 is the way to do a hybrid!

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Common sense isn't so common.

before that, there was the Audi R28 that dominated LeMans.
Porsche and McLaren (P1) jumped in thereafter.

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it just needs more voltage

I’m shocked

China could flood U.S. electric-vehicle market with its offerings

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Sure you did

Speaking of flooding, that's the way to put out an EV fire...

Porsche faces lawsuits—did its EV battery catch fire and sink a ship?



Did a Porsche electric vehicle start a fire that sank a cargo ship and sent some 3,900 vehicles to the ocean floor? That’s what the courts are trying to figure out, as they deal with a year-old lawsuit and, now, a second one more recently filed that claims the car, and the company that made it, are at fault. The Felicity Ace car-carrier ship caught fire, capsized and sank off the coast of Portugal in 2022, on its way from Germany to the U.S...

The suits claim that a faulty EV made by Porsche ignited the blaze, and that Volkswagen Group – which owns all of the car brands mentioned [Porsches, Volkswagens, Bentleys, and Lamborghinis] – didn’t tell Mitsui and Allianz of the “dangers and precautionary measures required to transport an EV.”..

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

Depending on the legal determination of who is at fault and held liable, it could affect the operation of the EV industry in an enormous way.

Cycle count is technically unlimited.
Lithium types decay over time wether or not you use them. Except for perhaps some extreme cases of merciless duty, this end of service life will claim them first

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it just needs more voltage

"Cycle count is technically unlimited."

This is incorrect. Accumulated charge/discharge cycles wear out a battery. Eventually battery capacity and internal impedance degrade to the point where the battery is unusable. The chemistry doesn't matter; they all suffer from charging and discharging.

A good analogy is an ever shrinking gas tank. Charging and discharging is akin to filling and using the gasoline in an ICE fuel tank. Capacity degradation and increasing internal impedance appear as a gradually shrinking tank and slowly clogging fuel lines. You see effects as if you have a smaller tank (battery) with less ability to deliver fuel (current).

My career is aerospace electrical power dealing extensively with batteries, their chemistries and usage equipment. Batteries are not the panacea than many want us to believe. In many cases, they're a necessary evil. FWIW, I worked with parts of the electrical power on Eviation's Alice. By weight, she is more than half LiIon battery. That's a heavy load to get airborne. Unlike a conventional airplane, she doesn't get lighter with fuel burn and there's no weight advantage to taking on a partial fuel load. A technical achievement for sure, but in my opinion, true practicality is a way off. Aircraft – Eviation

I AM CRUDE

Interesting that so many EV necessities-tires, e.g-must be EV specific. A rule for me is to avoid anything that is too proprietary.

Before retirement I was checking out various vehicles as possible retirement rides. Ran across an Edmonds long term test of a Tesla. The only thing that stuck in my mind was that they had premature excessive wear on the rear tires. So, they took it back to a Tesla service/sales center who figured out the problem was incorrect rear wheel alignment from the factory. They corrected the alignment and advised the tires needed replaced. AT $800 EACH! A phone call to Tesla HQ and they generously ate the cost. Apparently crafted for low rolling resistance.

While I expect for short trip type things any tires that'll take the weight would do, if ecars would be your daily driver you might want to stick with the premium rubber.

I've driven a number of automatics, the wife's CVT, and manual tranny's both synchronized and crash box. The automatic I found closest to the control possible with a manual was the (2013 or so) VW automatic. Apparently a close relative of the famed Porsche PDK, I really liked it. Left to itself, it made sure you were in the correct gear for your road speed. And throttle opening.

I'm not a fan of most of the paddle shift automatics. The one's I've driven have a nanny to evaluate your gear ration choice and road speed and decide if the shift will take place.

I won't be trading my Corvette for an EV any time soon!

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Common sense isn't so common.

I drove a VW Beetle for 12 years, still sort of miss the manual 4 speed. That and the rear mounted engine made it a good snow car.
A news story in a local paper, a Swedish EV maker donating a fire blanket to the local PD in a public ceremony with a demonstration on how to use it.

I owned two VWs before kids and too much stuff. One Beetle, one Squareback. I loved both of them, but the Beetle was more fun to drive. It also had a lot of personality. I have often thought of buying a restored Beetle, but it would be totally impractical in my current circumstances. Remember the VW ad about "How does the guy who runs the snowplow drive to work?" On that topic, there is a place here in town that rebuilds and restores old VWs. He usually has a dozen or so for sale. But they ain't cheap. Anywhere from $15K to $35K.

THIS.........

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Does anyone know what a Prius would get for mileage if you took away all of the electric gear and just ran it on its ICE?

Guestimated 27 city and 32 hwy but it doesn't have a normal car transmission and other components.

As stated, it is not as simple as it might seem to simply remove the electric motor and battery from an existing hybrid and run everything with the ICE. Of course there could be a Prius manufactured with only a similar 1.8 L ICE for propulsion. I'd guess that would probably get 25-30 mpg. About what a VW 1600 got.

Improvement in battery efficiency technology will be the new frontier. And not just batteries used for vehicles.

Battery size/density is another frontier to be conquered.
Imagine what products could be made if a battery could be miniaturized, like electrical components have been, yet retain their full voltage and amp rate.
Hand held electromagnetic rail guns anybody?

I'm wondering what how fun things like track days will be impacted by EVs. Back in my sporty car days I could show up with a full tank, drive all day an still have enough gas to get down the road to a gas station.

Clarskon played with an electric Mercedes on Top Gear and at full blast, the battery was drained in something like fifteen minutes (memories are fuzzy about details). I can't see having a track day and having to recharge between sessions. Also, how many charging stations would have to be there?

My grandpa didn't shoot his horse the first time he saw a model T, but he did end up driving a Plymouth.

They should come up with an industry standard battery size and shape, and make them easy to take one battery out and put another in. Then they could ship the cars without batteries for safe traveling and way less weight and simply trade them out for a recharge. Leave the uncharged one at the trade station to be recharged and used by a later arrival. Then it would take a few minutes for a full recharge instead of hours.

I think the EV idea is cool, but I'm not getting one in the forseeable future (probably in my lifetime) until things drastically change for the better.

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protocalldesign.com

What they should do and what they actually do are completely different. They can't even standardize on lead-acid batteries and oil filters after over 100 years.

There was talk of that at least twenty years ago, with one of the ideas posited being that you could pull into a service station and swap a dead battery for a charged on in a few minutes. Of course that went nowhere.

But it is apparently still under consideration or at least talked about. I have recently read several articles mentioning that idea. It might be workable if there were only a small number of standardized EV batteries.

The only problem with that is that now you will need at least twice as much lithium for each EV. Where does it come from? EV's are about 2% of the vehicles on the road now and it is difficult to source enough lithium for those as it is. Now you need at least twice as many batteries which requires twice as much ore mining and twice the amount of smelting to get the lithium which is twice the carbon release. It kind of defeats the purpose of the EV in the first place. Plus you have to wrangle a battery around that weighs about 1500 pounds. Someone is going to have to rewrite the laws of physics to make the lithium EV a viable replacement for the ICE. The only reason it's even getting the 2% it has now is that politicians have figured out how to mine money from it and keep throwing tax dollars at it. Once the government stops propping them up with tax money, the EV will go away.

Road embedded charging would be nice.

Anyone out there that can speak to development of Ultracapacitors vs Batteries?

Ultra & super-capacitor is often misunderstood; it is not a battery replacement to store long-term energy. If, for example, the charge and discharge times are more than 60 seconds, use a battery; if shorter, then the supercapacitor becomes economical. More detailed information is available at the following site:

BU-209: How does a Supercapacitor Work? - Battery University.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

the "bucket" doesn't matter much.
Power out = power in - losses due to heat.
The best "bucket" on the horizon is the solid state battery.
We still have to cram power into it, but it's projected life cycle is to the tune of 70 years, all of its rated capacity can be utilized, and it can sustain physical damage and still work.
Legend has it, early prototypes were used in a drone that had the performance to evade and walk away from a police helicopter.

Where these caps tend to be low voltage devices, which eliminates them from practical consideration, they may be useful within the system to fortify the rails under demand spikes if we come into voltage ratings high enough to be useful.

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it just needs more voltage

The entire passenger compartment below the floor in an EV is full of batteries. How in the heck are you going to swap out a half ton of batteries cheaply or quickly???

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Gary
SWCA 2515

As I mentioned earlier, improving battery efficiency must be the next new frontier. Storing more and more energy in a smaller, lighter, and cheaper battery with a longer lifespan.

In the articles that I read, the proposal was a tray that could be slid out the back of the car and new one slid in. Standard size and connections would facilitate the process. I'm sure that something like a pallet jack would be used.

However, that didn't happen and probably won't for decades.

no real point anyhow as you still need to charge them whether they slide out easily or not.
if "swapped out at the station" you can expect Kentucky fried battery packs everywhere as they get abused like rental cars.
While this might improve the charging issues slightly, it's certainly not solved for the required scale

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it just needs more voltage

Exactly, you're on the road so you pull into a battery station. Ten minutes later, you're headed down the road with a fresh battery and the station charges your old one.

Blue Rhino for batteries.