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| Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) info - interesting stuff! |
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| PeteH:
--- Quote from: james_s on July 02, 2022, 09:21:39 pm ---... I'll give up a manual gearbox when I eventually get an EV. --- End quote --- Coming from a manual transmission to an EV - the experience is very similar. Engine braking vs. Regen. Driving an EV, you feel just as coupled to the car if not more (like you're always in first gear) - depending on the make/model I guess. |
| tom66:
--- Quote from: coppice on July 01, 2022, 09:11:41 am ---There is a weird thing in the UK licence conditions. You can drive a delivery van with a car licence, but not a large truck. That seems reasonable. However, you can also drive a full sized double decker bus with a car licence, as long as nobody on board pays. If anyone pays anything for their ride you need a "public service vehicle" licence, where you get tested driving actual buses. --- End quote --- This led to what could be described as an amusing exemption for bus lanes: some people literally bought buses to drive in those lanes. You could find something like a small minibus and drive it around on a car licence, using the bus to skip traffic. Councils weren't slow to update signage to "local" buses only, i.e. those registered with the local council. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 02, 2022, 09:41:58 pm ---Over here, automatic cars are the exception rather than the rule. I wonder what made them this popular in the US? What's the history behind it? --- End quote --- Wide open highways across vast distances is one aspect, lazy people, a period of immense affluence and technological development following WWII when all manner of fancy automatic gadgets to ostensibly make life easier were all the rage. Then there is the historically much lower fuel prices here, until the last 20 years or so an automatic transmission came with a quite significant penalty on fuel economy. Probably 98% of the cars on the road in the US have automatics. A few years ago my uncle bought a brand new sporty BMW and he had to special order it with a manual, they did not have a single manual equipped car in stock on the lot. |
| bdunham7:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 02, 2022, 09:41:58 pm ---Over here, automatic cars are the exception rather than the rule. I wonder what made them this popular in the US? What's the history behind it? --- End quote --- Large heavy cars with large displacement engines were common 5 decades ago and manual transmissions were impractical and not offered in those models. My first car had a 7.5 liter engine. People just got used to them, I guess. Then when cars got downsized, manuals did make a comeback for a while, but automatics were almost always at least an available option if not the predominate (or only) configuration. |
| tom66:
--- Quote from: bdunham7 on July 02, 2022, 09:59:59 pm ---Large heavy cars with large displacement engines were common 5 decades ago and manual transmissions were impractical and not offered in those models. My first car had a 7.5 liter engine. People just got used to them, I guess. Then when cars got downsized, manuals did make a comeback for a while, but automatics were almost always at least an available option if not the predominate (or only) configuration. --- End quote --- I don't buy the idea that a large and powerful engine makes a manual transmission impractical. If anything it makes a traditional automatic problematic - you need a large torque converter and more cooling. Whereas a manual transmission can probably get by without cooling the clutch and with just a bit more metal in the gears. In fact, some of the most powerful vehicles were offered with manuals only if you look back in history, e.g. old Lamborghini and Ferrari models. The use of automatics was purely down to customer convenience & low cost of fuels in the USA. Truly an interesting difference in how policies can shape an entire market. Higher taxes drove Europe to smaller, more efficient cars. It's not a bad outcome! The USA will get there eventually as fuel passes $8 a gallon. |
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