What might electric cars mean for brisk driving?
Discussion
How might EV's move on the art of driving? Do people want effectively 'one pedal' cars or to stick with acceleration and braking on separate controls? Or do we just want a knob to select this depending on road, mood or conditions like brake bias?
Will manual gearboxes retain their place like on the prototype Morgan made?
What will instantaneous torque vectoring on two or four wheels mean in the real world?
If you plan a 15 mile journey instead of a 150 mile one in your electric sports car will it automatically make 1000bhp available instead of 200?
etc. etc.
For a long time I have wanted an electric tech-fest sports car which can double up as an efficient commuter, it saddens me that so much effort goes in to making tedious stuff like electric Golfs. Maybe the Nissan Bladeglider will deliver on the promise?
Will manual gearboxes retain their place like on the prototype Morgan made?
What will instantaneous torque vectoring on two or four wheels mean in the real world?
If you plan a 15 mile journey instead of a 150 mile one in your electric sports car will it automatically make 1000bhp available instead of 200?
etc. etc.
For a long time I have wanted an electric tech-fest sports car which can double up as an efficient commuter, it saddens me that so much effort goes in to making tedious stuff like electric Golfs. Maybe the Nissan Bladeglider will deliver on the promise?
Max_Torque said:
It can, but we don't yet have a robust way of sensing driver "mood" (see below). There are times for example, when i just want to sit on the motorway at 65mph, cruise along, and am happy to let my car get max economy, through say using a "sailing mode" or whatever. Other times i'm in a rush, or whatever, and i want to drive more aggressively, when sailing would no be so welcome. Having a basic driver operated "mode" control could make this sort of change easy to implement and obvious to the driver.
I'm completely against having everything "configurable" by the driver though for two reasons:
1) most people will not be able to understand what they are actually changing
2) most people, not being experts, will end up having very non optimum settings for a lot of the time
NOTE: current cars do have adaptive logic to work out how the car is being operated, but this logic, which uses factors such as how fast you apply the accelerator, or how much lateral g you are pulling is a massive compromise between response and stability.
For example, kick down on a modern multispeed autobox. If you trundle along slowly for 20 miles, the system will adapt and enter a "lazy response" mode, to make things as smooth/economic as possible. But then you want to just kick down and overtake a single dawdling car, and urgh, the gearbox takes about 5sec to kick down. That sort of thing feels terrible to me! Generally, drivers like repeatable and linear responses. i.e. the car does the same thing everytime.
Years ago my Dad had a Mitsubishi Colt with a 'fuzzy logic' adaptable auto box. Although quite pleaant most of the time it was useless for brisk but responsible driving.I'm completely against having everything "configurable" by the driver though for two reasons:
1) most people will not be able to understand what they are actually changing
2) most people, not being experts, will end up having very non optimum settings for a lot of the time
NOTE: current cars do have adaptive logic to work out how the car is being operated, but this logic, which uses factors such as how fast you apply the accelerator, or how much lateral g you are pulling is a massive compromise between response and stability.
For example, kick down on a modern multispeed autobox. If you trundle along slowly for 20 miles, the system will adapt and enter a "lazy response" mode, to make things as smooth/economic as possible. But then you want to just kick down and overtake a single dawdling car, and urgh, the gearbox takes about 5sec to kick down. That sort of thing feels terrible to me! Generally, drivers like repeatable and linear responses. i.e. the car does the same thing everytime.
It did change the transmission characteristics quite significantly but was very slow in determining what was going on. It would therefore be relaxed and unresponsive during the thrash, wake up to what was happening just as you hit a 30 limit, hold about 5000rpm in 2nd all the way through some sleepy hamlet then revert to 'mogadon mode' just as you reached the derestriction sign and wanted to thrash some more.
Some bold statements coming out of this article:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/nissan-...
I have to admit to being a bit of a fan of the whole Bowlby deltawing-type concept and to having a sneaky suspicion that electric power might open up a whole new chapter in fast driving on the road so I am probably a bit biased but this looks very promising to me....
What do others think?
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/nissan-...
I have to admit to being a bit of a fan of the whole Bowlby deltawing-type concept and to having a sneaky suspicion that electric power might open up a whole new chapter in fast driving on the road so I am probably a bit biased but this looks very promising to me....
What do others think?
So far we have talked mainly about power but are there any opinions about how handling may be affected? Will instantaneous torque vectoring on two or more wheels really change the way we approach road driving or will it be a subtle affair?
Will slow in, fast out still be as relevant or will it be best to pitch in as fast as you dare, keep your foot in and aim for the exit?
Will slow in, fast out still be as relevant or will it be best to pitch in as fast as you dare, keep your foot in and aim for the exit?
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