Cool, but the Tesla story already made it feel like a spiritual successor to the DeLorean.
DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
191–200 of 343 posts
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#192> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has completed a regulation permitting low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to begin selling replica cars that resemble vehicles produced at least 25 years ago. Congress enacted a DeLorean Motor Company-backed bill backed by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) DeLorean Motor Company, and others into law in 2015, which streamlined requirements for…
> They could even do a stickshift EV if they wanted to, though most car companies seem to not think it's worth the complexity/maintenance, and I get the impression that electric motors are hard on transmissions. Electric motors have a wider power band, so there’s less need for gear shifting. They could get more efficiency with multiple gears, but it’s be a smaller benefit than in an ICE vehicle. One of the big early…
Porche Taycan has two speed transmission and Bosch has a turnkey 2 speed for EV applications. But seeing the numbers the Taycan puts down show it isn't a humongous difference like in an ICE. Probably not worth the cost/complexity as we see the Lucid Air can do qtr mile times in less than 10 seconds and soon upcoming Plaid Model S will have a possible quarter mile time of under 9 seconds and 200mph top speed.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have analog control over the regen braking with the accelerator pedal. Push down to accelerate, lift up a little to maintain current speed, lift up a little more to start slowing down, lift off all the way for maximum regen. It takes a week or two to unlearn the habit of "popping" your foot off the accelerator anytime you want to coast without necessarily slowing down, but after that it basically feels like your…
If you judge distances well you can still pop your foot. The deceleration curve is optimized to be smooth (minimize jerk?).
After a week you can judge pretty well. I use my brake pedal maybe once a week nowdays unless i'm driving alone and wanna feel some Gs.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point some manufacturer made a car with optional "stick shift" - with a stick that's just some switches and the effect on driving behavior/torque/... entirely done in software. (Right now electric is hot and new, so nobody is doing much to make an electric car pretend to be something it's not, but that could switch around when electric is the standard)
Subaru CVTs already have essentially this feature. The transmission doesn't have gears (duh, it's continuously variable) but it still has the ability to manually shift to predefined ratios.
And it's horrible. I was a dedicated manual driver, but 3 years in an Outback with CVT and flappy paddles - it's miserable as an analogy of shifting. You can trigger several "down shifts", but there's some elastic feel in the system that doesn't convert to slowing the car via engine revs or give the feeling of immediate power. I gave up on the paddles early on.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#195Why would I want an electric version of a fat, slow, heavy car? Oh, right, because Back to the Future . And gull-wing doors, let's be honest.
Because the design looks cool and presumably an electric version wouldn't be slow.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
100%. They hit the nail on the head when they said an electric Morgan or Cobra might be a bridge too far, but for the DeLorean, it's a good approach. The DeLorean was never about the relatively anemic, not particularly inspiring-sounding motor, whereas the combustion engine in the former two vehicles is a big part of the appeal.
> Cobra The magic of the Cobra is the snorting, belching, bucking, roar of a V8 that's barely under control. As an EV, no thanks.
I feel like this can change over time and across generations. When I was a kid (80s/90s) I liked the sound of muscle cars, but gradually realized that what I really wanted was something secretly fast and generally quiet. I like cars that appear refined but carry a hidden punch.
Now, brand-wise, yeah, a muscle car as an EV is just weird.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point some manufacturer made a car with optional "stick shift" - with a stick that's just some switches and the effect on driving behavior/torque/... entirely done in software. (Right now electric is hot and new, so nobody is doing much to make an electric car pretend to be something it's not, but that could switch around when electric is the standard)
Subaru CVTs already have essentially this feature. The transmission doesn't have gears (duh, it's continuously variable) but it still has the ability to manually shift to predefined ratios.
Their CVTs also use these simulated gears during normal automatic driving, presumably just to make it feel more like a traditional automatic (which it mostly does, to my untrained senses). Apparently this is important to the car-buying market, although I don’t understand why.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#198TBH I’m surprised Musk hasn’t bought them out yet and “released” a limited edition Model 3 with a DeLorian body kit for like $500,000... if Cyan can release a Volvo P1800 for 500K and you usually need to provide the 50 year old P1800 for them to convert and tune there clearly is a market for these things.
What makes the Deloreans so appealing? From what I’m told, it wasn’t very well made and on top of that it was underpowered. So I get the iconic aspect from movie lore. And I get the founder was very... idiosyncratic —and an underdog and ultimately spiraled into making very unfortunate choices. But other than that, what’s the appeal?
The iconic lore is enough!
And a reboot EV means chance it is well made and overpowered.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point some manufacturer made a car with optional "stick shift" - with a stick that's just some switches and the effect on driving behavior/torque/... entirely done in software. (Right now electric is hot and new, so nobody is doing much to make an electric car pretend to be something it's not, but that could switch around when electric is the standard)
There is a car exactly like this....in China. It's used for driver training, and I suspect it will start being popular elsewhere. In all of EU if you pass your licence on an automatic(which nearly all electric cars are) you can't drive a manual, you have to pass your licence in a manual car. And that's why that car was created, to allow people to pass their test in a manual vehicle and have a licence that allows driv…
Part of me wants to create a fake gearbox and clutch kit for an automatic car that does absolutely nothing, but looks convincing to driving examiners. You can just change "gears" when you feel like it without any actual effect and the clutch is just a dumb pedal.
Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point some manufacturer made a car with optional "stick shift" - with a stick that's just some switches and the effect on driving behavior/torque/... entirely done in software. (Right now electric is hot and new, so nobody is doing much to make an electric car pretend to be something it's not, but that could switch around when electric is the standard)
> nobody is doing much to make an electric car pretend to be something it's not This is actually one of the aspects of the Leaf that most impressed/surprised me - Nissan put a lot of thought in to making it behave like an ICE car with an automatic/CV transmission. For example, when the car is in D mode, sitting on flat ground, if you take your foot off the brake, it'll roll forward at low power. Similarly, taking you…
Don't all electric cars do this? I know all Teslas have this option (you can disable it in settings if you wish).