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Toyota to offer manual gearbox in next-generation electric cars
(www.autocar.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Electric Vehicles
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It would be great if they could make a cheap electric car for the masses before filling niches.
People in niches generally pay more. EVs are more expensive and made in smaller quantities (until production ramps up, maybe). So making EVs to appeal to a niche consumer with disposable income can be a smart move to jumpstart the EV business.
That's (one reason) why Tesla started with luxury sports cars. Car enthusiasts and other lovers of manual gear shift are another interesting segment to try and tap. I wonder what other segments they might go for? Racing? Off-road? Delivery? Taxi? Commercial transport?
It's tricky though. You don't see a lot of EV motorcycles, but I think that's because ebikes are a better power/weight ratio for the form-factor and use case. No one's getting a Harley to save the environment.
The biggest reasons ev bikes suck are: shitty range, weight, cost.
Bikes are small, batteries are heavy. The Harley live wire, for example, can do less than 100 miles on a charge. Second, but part of that first point, they're HEAVY. My bike weighs ~360lbs. An energica sport bike is in the high 500lbs range. Thirdly, they're obscenely expensive for worse performance, handling, weight, range. If someone could produce a 400lb bike with a ~200 mile range I might be interested.
I'm biased, but 99.99% of my riding is in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, there's no chargers out there and there won't be for decades.
I've not seen an attempt to make a practical electric motorcycle. I've only ever seen attempts at superbikes. Give me an electric Ninja 250, something that can comfortably handle a couple hours of highway driving so you could handle a commute from one small town to another small town and I think it would be an actual product.
There are plenty of practical e-motobikes, they're just made for people in normal countries where you don't need to ride for more than 10-20km.
Kawasaki recently launched some entry level electric Ninjas, but they're complete garbage for the price. $8000 for a bike with 10hp, 55mph top speed, and 55 miles of range. That should've been $4000 or less.
Just get a $3500 Grom with the same power and speed but also the fun of a mini-bike or a $6000 Ninja 400 with 5x the power and still 55mpg.
Kawasaki also just announced a hybrid Ninja motorcycle that actually looks really intriguing, but we don't know the price yet.
Wow yeah that is garbage.
This stuff trickles down. AC, auto headlights and windows, touchscreens, information centers, etc were all luxury options for luxury cars....