Auto v Manual - New Volt
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Auto v Manual - New Volt
From all the threads I've viewed on this, and many other, forums pertaining to manual v. automatic transmission discussions, viewpoints, flames, etc., I thought the following snippet from a review of the new Volt was funny - so I thought I'd share. Now, don't get me wrong. Manual transmission in a perfromance car - I get it. I drive an automatic due to a bum knee that I don't want to get worse, but my preference would be to run through gears in my GT/CS... just shouldn't press my luck. The writer, Gene, is not an automotive journalist - he is a humorist that writes a weekly column in the Washington Post. He wanted to hate the Volt, but ended up being OK with it for what it is. Anyway, I'm sure many can relate to his 'clutch/stick" thoughts - albeit in a humorous manner.
By Gene Weingarten
Sunday, January 30, 2011
This would be a good time to address an issue I'd hoped would be pivotal: This car is designed to annoy people like me, by which I mean obnoxious, proselytizing proponents of clutch-and-stick driving.
I consider Americans' love affair with the automatic transmission to be a national disgrace, symptomatic of our softness as a people. This preference is lazy, unsophisticated and dumbed-down -- as I see it, philosophically inextricable from our lard-butted, couch-potato affinity for junk food, junk TV and celebrity gossip.
The Volt doesn't come with a stick shift option. I was poised to hate it for that reason alone, if necessary -- my fallback position -- until I learned that the car, basically, has no transmission at all.
That's the nature of an electric motor drive train: It speeds up and slows down smoothly without the need for "torque mediation," a term I just made up because I don't understand the actual physics. The Volt motors are almost always operating at one gear speed. The Volt's acceleration is smooth and steady; you don't experience that familiar, momentary, squishy ebb in power during automatic-transmission gear changes.
Disrespecting this car because it doesn't have a clutch seems churlish and off-point, like disrespecting dogs because they don't have gills.
By Gene Weingarten
Sunday, January 30, 2011
This would be a good time to address an issue I'd hoped would be pivotal: This car is designed to annoy people like me, by which I mean obnoxious, proselytizing proponents of clutch-and-stick driving.
I consider Americans' love affair with the automatic transmission to be a national disgrace, symptomatic of our softness as a people. This preference is lazy, unsophisticated and dumbed-down -- as I see it, philosophically inextricable from our lard-butted, couch-potato affinity for junk food, junk TV and celebrity gossip.
The Volt doesn't come with a stick shift option. I was poised to hate it for that reason alone, if necessary -- my fallback position -- until I learned that the car, basically, has no transmission at all.
That's the nature of an electric motor drive train: It speeds up and slows down smoothly without the need for "torque mediation," a term I just made up because I don't understand the actual physics. The Volt motors are almost always operating at one gear speed. The Volt's acceleration is smooth and steady; you don't experience that familiar, momentary, squishy ebb in power during automatic-transmission gear changes.
Disrespecting this car because it doesn't have a clutch seems churlish and off-point, like disrespecting dogs because they don't have gills.
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