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Have you driven an electric drivetrain vehicle? (Serious question) I've driven the 2014 ELR (for a week) and test drove a Tesla. The Tesla of course had much b

by csours 11y ago

Have you driven an electric drivetrain vehicle? (Serious question) I've driven the 2014 ELR (for a week) and test drove a Tesla. The Tesla of course had much better acceleration[1], but even the ELR was satisfying to drive. With an electric drivetrain you don't have to downshift (or wait for a downshift in an automatic transmission). You don't have to wait for a turbo spool. You don't have to wait for any lags at all. Its really amazing, and I think it must be the future of automotive. 1. In my opinion the 2014 ELR was a beautifully styled high-luxury vehicle with mystifyingly poor performance. I don't know what they were even thinking. The 2016 was a bit better, but still suffered from (I assume) beancountering.

dsfyu404ed 11y ago
I've driven someone else's EV conversion (pretty much irrelevant in terms of performance) and ridden in a Volt. Dollar for dollar it's nothing special. Compared to similar econoboxes the instant torque is cool. Compared to similar vehicles (Civics and the like) it's a ripoff. Compared to similarly priced vehicles it's slow. I'll agree that as it stands now electric stuff has to be the future from a purely numbers perspective (emissions will be a bigger issue, demand for oil will rise, methods of getting it will become more expensive, etc, etc) but at this point it's not worth paying the premium for unless you've just got to be an early adopter, live in an area with massive subsidies or want to one up your Prius driving neighbors conspicuous environmentalism.
- csours 11y ago
  I agree that electric cars have some way to go. Automakers have to put smaller and more efficient internal combustion engines to meet fuel economy and emission standards. You can put very powerful electric motors in cars without increasing CO2 emissions significantly. I do worry that low fuel prices are doing strange and bad things to the market. I think if there were a republican president in power now, (s)he could raise taxes on fuel to help normalize the market, but there's no way Obama could do that at this point in time.

by csours 11y ago

dsfyu404ed 11y ago

I've driven someone else's EV conversion (pretty much irrelevant in terms of performance) and ridden in a Volt. Dollar for dollar it's nothing special. Compared to similar econoboxes the instant torque is cool. Compared to similar vehicles (Civics and the like) it's a ripoff. Compared to similarly priced vehicles it's slow. I'll agree that as it stands now electric stuff has to be the future from a purely numbers perspective (emissions will be a bigger issue, demand for oil will rise, methods of getting it will become more expensive, etc, etc) but at this point it's not worth paying the premium for unless you've just got to be an early adopter, live in an area with massive subsidies or want to one up your Prius driving neighbors conspicuous environmentalism.

csours 11y ago
I agree that electric cars have some way to go. Automakers have to put smaller and more efficient internal combustion engines to meet fuel economy and emission standards. You can put very powerful electric motors in cars without increasing CO2 emissions significantly. I do worry that low fuel prices are doing strange and bad things to the market. I think if there were a republican president in power now, (s)he could raise taxes on fuel to help normalize the market, but there's no way Obama could do that at this point in time.