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Comment by calmbonsai | Hacker News Reader

The entire notion of an "electric muscle car" seems like a non-starter to me.

A "muscle car" is not just about performance numbers.

It's about combustion, noise, smell, glorious inefficiency, and nostalgia--none of which even the highest performing EV can deliver.

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Tesla reached this crowd with performance/plaid models. Enough nostalgia, pollution and noise comes from any lifted truck, the fun acceleration comes only from EVs. My absolutely lovely family car is faster than most of these muscle cars and even high end BMw models.

Yes Tesla has enough noise from creaking plastic and cars passing by to be on edge everytime XD

I find the EV driving experience to be lackluster compared to even a modest sports car from the 90s.

Straight line speed and acceleration is nice but it's like 20% of the experience. Most car enthusiasts evolve beyond this as their #1 priority once they graduate from high school.

Over time people that find that stuff fun is going to die out and EVs will become the new norm. It's just a matter of time.

You said it. Non-car people seem almost unable to understand the concept of "pleasure of driving" beyond speed.

When I tell them that no current electric car could replace my MX-5 ND and try to explain why, their eyes glaze harder than ceramic.

Nothing EV is like an MX-5 they are superb.

I would cheekily suggest the next step isn’t a car, it’s a motorcycle.

I finally let go of motorcycling when I got my MX-5 convertible. 90% of the fun, none of the hassle or worry.

I lurved my Miata, so much fun from so little hp, the best shifter in anything I've driven.

My one pedal drive Model 3 is also a blast, it handles like nothing I've ever driven. Not having to wait beat to get the engine in the powerband is amazing.

I sometimes miss the extra puzzle of shifting gears to keep the engine on the cam, but most days you're just rowing through gears on the commute home (which is now fairly stress-free thanks to FSD).

(I rode motorcycles exclusively for years before I got my first car, from an R69S to Yamaha 180 scooter and lots in between.)

You are not "car people". You are "ICE people".

I understand the joy of an ICE (the noise, the vibrations) but for driving I now purely prefer EVs. I live in the mountains, and always having the maximum power available whatever the speed is soo much fun in the winding roads. Now I find ICEs underperforming and boring.

This is extremely subjective but the 80% of the experience for me is cornering. What I care in a car is: does it handle corners well? Does it brake well? BTW, those are also important points for safety.

Acceleration and speed are nice to have but there are speed limits so they don't matter much. Any car from this century has enough HPs to reach the limit quickly (skip the very small and very cheap ones with 600 cc engines or less.)

And about noise, I'm probably nearly alone in this cohort: it's a technological accident. The more silent a car is, the happier I am. Note that everybody in car races work with earplugs to protect themselves. If only we could make wheels roll much more silently.

Well, obviously, straight-line acceleration has always been an essential component of muscle cars--often to the direct determent of cornering.

My point was that there are several other muscle car salient properties that EVs can never offer.

This one did have noise. Obviously, it was very fake and I don't understand why they would ship it.

https://youtu.be/KWeN2QgiIcU?t=86

I keep trying to figure out what the product development cycle on this looked like. Who did they think they were marketing this too?

Several makers of high performance internal combustion cars found they get noticeably better reviews and sales when they play amplified engine sounds through the entertainment system. They call it "active sound design" IIRC.

I can kinda see how, if you were already playing fake engine sounds on your IC cars, and people who reviewed your EV muscle car were saying "I miss the iconic engine sound" you might feel adding engine sounds to an EV was worth a try.

Muscle cars used to be about throwing tremendous resources into achieving incredible performance - which I can understand. Yes, you get loudness and rumble and smell and whatnot, but it's all in the pursuit of actual high performance. Otherwise, they'd all might as well be tugboat enthusiasts.

It fascinates me how the ICE community is sort of just ignoring the reality that electric vehicles absolutely dominate the track now. I have a feeling it's kind of like Wiley Coyote running past the cliff and not falling down. It may take a couple decades, but eventually ICE vehicles are going to be relegated to Saturday morning car shows because they will just be so utterly inferior to even run-of-the-mill electrics.

You’re right about the performance.

But the feel of a muscle car is a lot of the appeal. It’s like the draw of a Miata isn’t about performance, either.

True gearheads may not care which EV gets down the line quicker. That’s just one part of the equation.

They not need to make a NCIS:Los Angeles car

but silent thief / killer car like Q8 in The Peripheral 2022, sales will be thru roof.

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