That thing wouldn’t do for me. I need a van, at least 3 cubic meters of dry space for tools and materials, seats up front for the boys (or kids!) and enough power to haul the aforementioned tons of manure.
I’m afraid the tech isn’t there yet for me.
I am moving away from ICE tools though. Replaced the leafblower with a good old fashioned rake and use a battery driven stonecutter. The chainsaw and thumper still burn petrol. I don’t really see a thumper run on electricity well. That thing is energetic. Compacting soil by hand(foot!) is not an option when you have more than a few square feet to do.
Well, my wife was an early adopter - buying a Ford Escape Hybrid in 2008 - and she is still driving it with the original battery pack and it still does great. It has been a zero hassle car and thankfully reliable. It has had as close to zero mechanical defects as you can expect (I think it has had the starter battery replaced and normal maintenance like tires and stuff). I haven’t done the calculation on how much fuel she has saved over the 12 years she has had it. We ranged through the near $4/gallon gas (I know…that still seems really low to many of you around the world) all the way back down to $1.30 or whatever. Obviously, it saved more money during the peak gas prices period. It was also more economical when we lived in the city since it runs on battery up until about 31mph before it makes the switch to ICE. With her commute being mostly highway now, she loses some of the benefit, but the 4-cylinder ICE engine is super-efficient too anyway.
I’m guessing at the minimum a hybrid would be her next car choice…if not an outright EV. She needs a new vehicle, but is really enjoying not having car payments for the past 8 years or more. Me, I tend to drive my vehicles until they get towed out of the driveway…so my Subaru is still hanging in there for probably another ten years.
Ironically, my last post was my former Volvo XC-40…albeit most definitely not a hybrid
My latest purchase is a 2020 Toyota RAV4 hybrid. (No photo until I can get it washed-lots of winter road dirt…and with these temperatures it’s not going to see a wash for a while.)
This will be our second hybrid. I like the gas savings. Plus, Hybrids in Norway have the advantage of all that battery weight over the rear tires.
I’m the polar opposite regarding clutch and gears. After 30 years of driving cars with manual gears only, a couple of GTI’s and MX5’s included, I truly enjoy the effortless driving and general smoothness of EV driving.
Guess I’m getting old
I have driven every type of road vehicle over the years. Manual, semi auto and full auto.
I cut my teeth on a Eaton twin splitter gear box which was fitted to my first “proper truck” I won’t go into the details as its not relevant other than to say this was the single best manual gearbox ever made. It was extremely hard to get used to. You only use the clutch for pulling away and stopping. The rest of the time it was just timing the revs of the engine to the required gear (which you could spilt into 3 semi gears) and if you cocked up the timing you rolled to a stop. No joke. You stopped, it was a complete nightmare for first few weeks and I hated it. Bit once it was worked out and you stopped grinding and stopping it was magical. You could make it sing. I could weigh 125 tons and still outpull normal trucks and some cars off the lights.
Then I moved on to modern synchromesh gearboxes and the were never quite the same as the “crash” boxes. But they were gentler and more forgiving for newer drivers so the march of progress dictated they became the new normal.
Then we move on to auto boxes.
I HATED Auto boxes in cars and lorries. All the old arguments of “I have less control” “I need a clutch to reverse” everything. I fought and fought to keep away from them, especially when I was doing heavy haulage and oversize.
But they got better. Like REALLY REALLY better. Volvo released the “I shift” box in around mid 2006 and from there the game changed. They improved and improved and now that gearbox is rated up to 500ton straight pull and changes gear so fast (on the double clutch version) that it is actually imperceptible at normal weights. All the other manufacturers Followed suit and now they are the norm across the whole industry. They are not auto in the traditional sense with torque converters and water cooling, they are manual boxes with auto clutch activation and gear selection.
Anyone who says “auto lorries are worse than manuals” seriously haven’t driven one in the real sense.
A little tale to prove my point.
I was 145 ton heavy with a 85 ton digger on the back of my 6 axle low loader and a four axle Mercedes SLT heavy haulage tractor unit (630 horsepower, full auto gearbox) an absolute monster of a machine.
Rule one with heavy haulage. Before you get to the hill. Select your gear, stay in gear, never EVER change gear as when you lift the clutch the weight of the truck vs the torque means the propshaft, gearbox, and everything will basically get up and leave the vehicle and throw itself down the road.
I was going up a fairly steep incline in 4 gear low split. I was accelerating slowly and was rising up through the revs and was just thinking about backing off a bit to keep it in the torque band when all of a sudden (10th of a second if that) my drive cut.
Instant PANIC. you do not want to stop on a hill this heavy. You are in major EPIC trouble. You have to make phonecalls and get a road closure to reverse down the hill and there is no guarantee that you will be able to get the traction to get going again.
As quick as it went the drive came back. The bloody computer had changed gear. It hadn’t just changed gear, it had performed a stupid amount of calculations regarding weight, speed, incline, acceleration and torque and hadn’t changed one gear. It changed 3.5 gears and just cracked on.
This might not sound like much but for that Industry. Having that much help with that job was like the bell X1 going supersonic. I still think about that SLT every time I go up that hill. What a fantasy that would of been 10 years before.
Guys seriously, autos are the best thing to ever happen to vehicles. The computer might not be able to drive the car but I promise they can damn control the gearbox better than a human ever could. Ever. No arguement. They are utterly magical.
Marvellous atory, and well told too. See not only those who fly or sail get interesting stories to tell.
While I like manual shift for the same reason that I prefer the DCS F-14 over the Viper for sheer pleasure of working the machine, when it comes to doing actual work with the machine, I really would love to have single pedal driving like an EV with strong regenerative braking gives.
I’m very excited for the eventual release of the tesla truck. I work with big fleets and I promise you if that thing is HALF as good as tesla make out it is you all need to buy as much tesla stock as you possibly can.
There will be thousands of them in fleets
And this is probably why it’s a good thing I don’t have a garage- I would’ve already stuffed one of the S2000’s that keeps popping up on Bring A Trailer in there. I know that my next daily driver will most likely be an EV (once there’s something on the market in wagon form that can fit a dog, the siblings, and a weekend full of ski or backpacking equipment), but I still really want another toy, for good weather and weekends. And I really want that toy with three pedals and an engine I can tinker with and not have to bust out the soldering iron.
Oh I know that the auto/manual debate was lost LONG ago. It’s not about functionality or practicality. It’s about fun. It’s about the application of a minor skill. To me driving is a joy. Nothing is fun unless it is hard. That’s why bicycles are more fun than tricycles. That’s why tailwheel airplanes are more fun than nose-draggers. That’s why helicopters are (often) more fun than airplanes. That’s why the F-104 was likely way more fun than a F-35. That’s why cooking a fish you caught is more fun than cooking a fish you bought. I could go on all day.
As for EV. I am all for it. I’ve been a back-seat passenger in many Teslas and found the experience stale and surprisingly noisy, although the acceleration was linear and impressive. IC engines are quickly going the way of the rotary phone and the world will be a much better place once they do. I’ll just enjoy the drive a little less.
I absolutely agree with you Eric. If I was going to buy my dream sports car for weekend thrashing, it wouldn’t be an auto. But for day to day. Auto for life lol
Absolutely, last year I had the joy of driving a Peugeot diesel from my brother in law with a auto gearbox. It was so relaxing to drive and damn sporty, and that was even without using the sport mode!
To be honest most decent autos have a manual or semi manual override anyway so while you can’t do Heel and toe braking into corners you have 99 percent of the control you would ever need for fast road driving. Even my Hilux which is a 3.0 full auto has a selector to hold it in a certain gear. While not strictly meant for downshifting, I use it to slow down when I’m towing or for steep heavy decents to save the brakes. If you know what you are doing with them they never cause a problem and only benefit you in the long run. I’ve done 74k on my front brake pads. I stripped and cleaned them last year where they were binding a bit from dust build up as they don’t really get used as I use the gearbox
Nothing wrong with that. When I got the Tesla I kept the Mini (manual transmission) because I just didn’t want to see it go. It was a good thing I did because I found out the hard way that if you bend a Tesla it can take awhile to get it fixed .
My colleague has gotten good support. His model 3 threw a rear half shaft shortly after he got it and it managed to limp home but could not reverse (uses only the rear wheels and the shaft breakage made it essentially an open differential).
They towed it and fixed it, and had to follow up with the factory to ensure more weren’t affected - seems like a mis-assembly, the half shaft wasn’t fully seated so it ended up shearing the end off past the retaining clip.
He got a loaner car too, most dealers here don’t seem to do that anymore.
Then he had a problem with the camera system, they chose to send a tech to him to replace the faulty units on-site as I recall.
So problems - yes, but they’ve been completely up front about things and there hasn’t been any hassle like the normal dealership experience so far.
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