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The end of the manual transmission is near?

popularmechanics.com

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Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#771

Post by mrguyorama »

Retric wrote: post #754
bipson wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, snow ? You don't need a pickup for snow!

Moving snow, not driving on it.

Here in the frozen hellscape of maine, nearly all snow mangement is done by dedicated equipment. They use skidsteers, dump trucks, front end loaders with giant buckets or snow blowers, and what few trucks they do have don't plow, they spread dirt or salt, which the dump trucks also can do so they are only used to dirt/salt small parking lots.

Individuals buy push snow blowers or snow blower attachments to their lawn tractors.

Occasionally a business will contract someone with a plow on a truck but that's not common because the contractors who actually deal with this regularly have dedicated equipment that's better than a plow on a truck and using a shitty plow on a standard truck is actually not easy.

Even the parking lot in my private apartment complex is cleaned after a snow storm by a company with multiple front end loaders and skidsteers.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#772

Post by halfnormalform »

The-Bus wrote: post #698
branon wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is dripping with more political vitriol than I've seen in "that country" in a while You can find plenty of more compact pickups - I've been searching for the best one for a while because the Dodge Ram and Ford F150 are just too big. The Honda Ridgeline, the Ford Maverick, the Chevrolet Colorado, the Hyundai Santa Cruz, the Toyota Tacoma, are all more compact, only seat 2-4 people, and have more bed than…

The Honda Ridgeline has a wheelbase that's almost two feet longer than a mid-80s Ford Ranger. The body is almost a yard longer. Bring back small, capable trucks.

A new EV (or even ICE) Chevy LUV would be so cool. Something small, simple, and cheap.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#773

Post by Maursault »

zaarn wrote: post #456
dieselgate wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about deceleration with a fixed gear ratio? I’d assume there’d need to be braking applied without being able to downshift

The electric motor just turns into a generator and charges the battery. Engine breaking with an EV is literally refilling your tank, so to speak. The modern EVs are pretty smart about it and will also apply the breaks sneakily if the engine can't bring up enough resistance (due to battery being charged, too much change in a short time, etc.) I will also add that the break pads in EVs are criminally underused to the p…

Regenerative braking is not Engine braking, which itself is not at all like using brakes other than it slows the vehicle down. Though it is probably most commonly used to spare brake wear, the importance of it is to help the driver maintain control of the vehicle. Active use of engine braking by shifting into a lower gear helps control speed while driving down very steep and long slopes, and to maintain better control in serpentine curves while at high speed.

The simple fact of the matter is it is not possible to engine brake in an EV, because it is not possible to reduce to a lower gear. EV is better than ICE in nearly if not every other way, but let's not take it too far. The driver of an manual ICE vehicle will be able to have better control at faster speeds than an EV on curvy, non-flat roads solely due to the ability to engine brake, but this probably isn't legal driving.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#775

Post by zaarn »

Maursault wrote: post #773
zaarn wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electric motor just turns into a generator and charges the battery. Engine breaking with an EV is literally refilling your tank, so to speak. The modern EVs are pretty smart about it and will also apply the breaks sneakily if the engine can't bring up enough resistance (due to battery being charged, too much change in a short time, etc.) I will also add that the break pads in EVs are criminally underused to the p…

Regenerative braking is not Engine braking, which itself is not at all like using brakes other than it slows the vehicle down. Though it is probably most commonly used to spare brake wear, the importance of it is to help the driver maintain control of the vehicle. Active use of engine braking by shifting into a lower gear helps control speed while driving down very steep and long slopes, and to maintain better contro…

How is regenerative breaking not the same as engine breaking? Other than the lack of ICE in the EV, the engine is being used to slow down the vehicle, it has the exact same effect.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#776

Post by kalleboo »

antiterra wrote: post #712
tomohawk wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The technocrats thought they'd be clever, and they basically outlawed reasonably sized cars for very small marginal efficiency gains. People bought light truck instead. People don't want to drive around in dinky death traps. The CAFE standards for cars are too restrictive. The fleet averages look great, but the percentage of cars as vehicles on the road is low. Cars such as station wagons don't exist any mor…

None of your cited conspiracy really shakes out with reality. Station wagons are still being made but most Americans just don’t want them. There’s a stigma in the US against station wagons (Doug Demuro style enthusiasts notwithstanding,) similar to that against minivans, and this has resulted in less US wagons for decades. In some cases they’ve been rebranded as SUVs (eg Subaru Outback.)

Yeah the fashion went Station Wagons -> Minivans -> SUVs -> Crossovers

Each step of the way they went out of style when people went "eww that's a car for soccer moms"

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#777

Post by yencabulator »

Retric wrote: post #755
yencabulator wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best-selling car brand in Norway is Tesla. Pickups are not good in snow, at all, and that you think so puts you in "that crowd" for sure.

Yet, many people also have pickup trucks in Norway specifically to deal with moving snow which is what I was referring to. You don’t need a high percentage of big trucks to do this, but it is utility you get from a truck you don’t get from a model 3.

Sure, regular sedans are no use for plowing private roads or parking lots. (Anything municipal gets plowed with larger trucks.)

As you say, you don't need very many pickups for that. The fraction of American pickups that are used for snow plowing is pretty much irrelevant to this conversation.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#778

Post by mrguyorama »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #163
hinkley wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car shapes are substantially about pedestrian fatalities. You can't have those shapes back without murdering people who aren't even driving a vehicle.

Any idiot can see a 2022 ford truck is better than being hit by my 1988 Saab, which a 4 year old is visible over the hood on, as compared to a ford, which, I think I probably couldn't see my wife over the hood.

Talk about a strawman and cherry picking. Now compare your saab to a modern golf

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#779

Post by waffletower »

The popular mechanics article should be back-dated at least 20 years. California just made ICE vehicles illegal this week. They will be completely phased out in 2035. While there are many dual motor electric vehicles, I believe this discussion is entirely unaware of the rapidly changing reality facing motor vehicles.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#780

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

Retric wrote: post #564
raverbashing wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many large pickup trucks are providing real utility to construction, farming, etc. Yes. One in 10 or maybe 20

Let me guess, you don’t live next to farmers or a lot of snow.

Let me guess, you've never heard of the term "Pavement princess".

Yes, farmers use pickup trucks, and they're great for that purpose. Nobody is arguing or disagreeing with you on that point.

Nobody is arguing against the purchasing of pickup trucks in the general sense. We're arguing against the purchase of a pickup truck as a daily driver. Something that will be used to commute and buy groceries.

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