I'm stuck on this personally. I love my manual, I have a tiny little Mazda 2 and I have driven that thing absolutely everywhere because I can control it better than any automatic I've ever driven. But I've been casually looking for a new car and I'd love to have an electric, but I don't want to lose that level of control and everything I love about a manual.

What do you all think? What's your take?

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[–] makeshiftreaper 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I went from a manual '08 wrangler to a' 23 model 3 and I gotta tell you, I'm so much happier with it. Granted, I live in the city now and driving a stick shift in and out of parking lots daily was a major pain in the ass, but I still think I'd be happy back in the suburbs. Here's my first thoughts:

Electricity is wayyyyy cheaper than gas. Plus you can charge whenever you aren't using the car if you have a garage.
I know jeeps aren't sporty cars but my model 3 feels 100x more responsive than a jeep. Consider that electricity starts working immediately. To start a manual you need to take your foot off the clutch, push in the gas, let that gas get to the engine, ignite, and then the car moves. Sure that process takes less than a second but it's hard to overstate how fast electric cars can go immediately
Electric cars are all inherently newer and have a lot of cool new features. Auto parking, self-driving, adaptive cruise control, voice activated commands, driver profiles, and more made it feel like I went from the stone age to the industrial revolution overnight

That's not to say it's all sunshine and roses. Some downsides:

I'm definitely a worse driver now. Manuals keep all 4 limbs focused on driving and make it really hard to get distracted. This is kind of a wash because the self-driving feels way safer on the highway than a human driver
Recharging is not as easy as refueling. As long as you plan ahead this isn't an issue but you can't lazily say "oh I'll get gas in the morning on the way to work" and you have to spend longer on road trips. During my day to day I actually save time because I just plug in when I'm going to be home anyway. Plus some places have free charging

And lastly this is kind of medium:

People can borrow my car. I like having a car my girlfriend can actually drive when it's relevant but other people want to try to drive my car and sometimes it's a little annoying

I don't think we're ready for everyone to go electric but if you're the type to not drive everyday and live in an area with decent access to chargers I think it's worth considering

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just to clarify, you don’t have to hit the gas, you can just let off the clutch

[–] makeshiftreaper 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What a weird nitpicky thing to argue about. Sure you can start a manual by easing off the clutch properly but that's obviously not what we're talking about. We're talking about the differences between driving manual and electric and that's clearly the use-case people will have 95%+ of their driving time. What do you think you're adding to this conversation?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

He's not arguing? Why so negative, that's a good tip. I wish someone told me that when I was learning, I just sort of figured it out later.

[–] fishos -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

They're being pedantic when the main takeaway is "it's more complicated" and this person is going "well, actually... You do X, not Y (in this chain of events that's still more complicated than just pressing the gas pedal)".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Is being pedantic a sin here? I see nothing to suggest that they disagree with the overall point, they just want to build a more complete picture.

I could just be overly optimistic about their intentions though

[–] fishos -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

The conversation is people who already know how to drive stick and their opinion on electric. People just learning to use stick aren't relevant and nitpicking over EXACTLY how a stick works isn't relevant when the main topic is "how does it feel compared to an electric?". "Oh, well the clutch can actually make you go just by releasing it and you're able to crawl" is completely irrelevant and only stated to critique and sound superior. I can crawl too in my automatic car by letting off the brake. That's not relevant here either.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

See, I didn't read the comment as critical at all, just a friendly clarification to use their terminology, so I guess we just have to disagree there

[–] makeshiftreaper 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thank you. I wasn't saying they were wrong, I was just asking what compelled them to say what they said. It doesn't add to the conversation, it isn't for anyone who would be reading this discussion, it just seemed to be a comment made to make them feel better about themselves for being superior to other internet nerds

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's tangently related, we're not on stackoverflow.

And I dunno, you could very well be right about their intentions but I feel like you guys are jumping to conclusions. There's a pretty massive gap between "if you didn't know, you can start with just the clutch" and "ev's r gay", so until they actually follow up with something like "ev's r gay", I'm going to assume that they were sharing in earnest. Let's just chill, lemmy doesn't have to be as abrasive as other social media can be

[–] fishos -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There's a time and a place for everything. Situational awareness is important. Just because you have something to say doesn't mean it needs to be said. Quality is important and just throwing anything into the conversation simply because you want to be heard, regardless of what the actual topic is, isn't helpful.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Again, we'll agree to disagree on the quality of the reply. I think it was a fair comment, and I'm glad they shared. I've got nothing else to add, so have a good one