The author of this article just seems to fundamentally misunderstand (or deliberately ignore) why people like to drive. Just a lot of, “I don’t like it so nobody should.”
I like to drive because it gets me places. If you are driving fast for fun, that’s reckless driving. It should only be on a racetrack. People who drive like they are in The Fast and Furious are dicks. People who ride loud motorcycles to draw attention to themselves have mental health issues.
Not all “fun driving” is reckless driving. Endangering other people is never right of course. But the majority of people with car hobbies are very safe drivers.
If driving is not really your interest, that’s totally fine. I don’t personally see much appeal to it either. But that doesn’t mean you should yuck other people’s yum.
Yes and Id like to put in my two cents. I love driving. And it’s been my experience, having owned both manuals and automatics, that it is way more attainable to achieve fun engaging driving experiences safely when I drive manual. It’s far more difficult to attain that safely when driving automatic. The reason is that automatic cars are usually only fun when accelerating, turning at high speeds, or recklessly speeding. Manuals can be fun pretty much no matter what you do. So it’s perfectly reasonable for me to expect to have a good time when driving safely in a manual, and in my experience there is little to no motivation to pull unsafe maneuvers in the name of having fun. Point is there are in fact people who drive for fun who don’t feel the need to drive recklessly.
People simply live on their own bubble and don’t try to understand others who may be different.
Humanity is narcissistic.
Not a fan of all of these fake features being added to modern cars. Fake air vents, fake tailpipes, fake engine noise being piped into the cabin, fake transmission shifts, it all seems so pointless and a waste of engineering effort.
Honestly a fan of the idea of EV Conversion, because at least I would be 100% in control of that car and that it would have no unnecessary gimmicks added to the car. (Even better that you don’t have to pay any subscription.)
I hope the fake engine noises are a voice recording of someone going “vrem! vrem!”
That’s the one feature I’m onboard with for security reasons, but it would be cool if we could gradually switch to new, less annoying noises.
So… cars are toys for grownups?
It’s kind of adorable.
I live in a country where manual transmission is the default. I drive a manual and I’m fine with it. This idea of fake manual transmission is bizarre to me. Who is it for? Car enthusiasts will know it’s fake and avoid it and surely your average driver will not care and would actually appreciate the simplicity of automatic transmission.
> I live in a country where manual transmission is the default.
Basically, the world except USA/Canada.
I learnt and drove manual for my first 8 or 9 years, then switched to auto, in the beginning it’s quite strange I agree. Then, yes, manufacturer added paddle on the steering wheel or a +/- shifter. I have one and my latest car, never used it, it’s always on “D”, and as it’s an hybrid I’m not sure playing with fake gears will help saving gas.
My biggest pet peeve are auto manufacturers adding fake shifts to CVTs.
Not only it feels and sounds awful, then what’s the point of a CVT then? I know “regular” drivers aren’t used to it but it’s a freaking CVT. That’s the whole point.
