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Comment by costcopizza | Hacker News Reader

IMO EV sports cars will be mainly for style, as many of the fun parts will be gone: Feel of transmission shifting, actual engine sound, engine character (do you have to rev it out? Or is power instant?), and for the foreseeable future ICE will be lighter.

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You have a Stockholm syndrome. Those arent fun parts, those are the drawbacks of contemporary technology.

Maybe for a commuter car. Those are definitely fun parts of fun cars (e.g MX-5, 911 GT3, anything Lotus, S2000).

Hahah! For enthusiasts they absolutely are the fun parts. And I say this with plenty of seat time in EVs.

You can put a gearbox on an electric car (the Porsche Taycan has one). If it's fun and not reliability or peak efficiency you're concerned about, why not? You could also hook the motor to a high-rpm ducted cooling fan so that it makes a jet-like sound.

I find this a little bit of an odd statement -- what about the whole experience of simply driving a car fast, and the thrill of being able to take straight lines and curves as fast as possible? Surely the better power curve and eventually better weight distribution will result in a more track ready car that's simply more fun to drive because it's just plain faster.

Of course, I can understand the complaint that such a machine, superior in performance as it may be, may lack character...

Faster doesn’t necessarily mean more fun. That’s the entire miata philosophy. It’s an underpowered slow fun car.

> the thrill of being able to take straight lines and curves as fast as possible

I'm trying to enjoy myself, not go to jail.

The feel of instant torque is awesome though. It's fun drive fast without the headache-inducing roar.

> The feel of instant torque is awesome though. It's fun drive fast without the headache-inducing roar.

I’ve never heard anyone say this except people who aren’t auto enthusiasts…

That's a No True Scotsman when EV enthusiasts don't count as auto enthusiasts.

Think of hypothetical scenario where EVs were the norm first. I don't think EV people would consider switching to ICE as increasing fun: much more complex, louder, hotter engine with worse torque that needs extra hardware and operations to avoid slowing you down.

The noise and gear shifting is only associated with power/speed/fun because that's how cars used to work.

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