[dileepcm]

I believe that it depends on the definition of 'The pleasure of driving or riding'. It can and will vary from person to person. It is a fact that a lot of people will find driving pleasure driving EVs. As time passes by and EVs gather more and more momentum, the following will just grow and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Classic cars will always find its interests but does not really mean that EVs are all boring. Probably they are boring today, but not going to be for ever atleast for a good number of drivers for sure in my opinion. The Teslas of the world have already proven that EVs can be as good as some of the top end cars and its just a beginning.

[giri1.8]

We can answer this by asking few questions from the past! Will 4-stroke make riding boring? Will more safety equipment make cars boring? Will fast shifting automatics make driving less engaging?

Answer for all the above in YES! But our benchmark is always what we experience everyday or comparison to other current technology, never with anything from the past.

Electric cars are inevitable, given how much we are polluting by burning fossil fuel, they might be less engaging, but will make our lives better

[anand.shankar]

Well of you ask me, most Indians have nothing to loose. All we have here are few boring 4cyl engine options that produce at the most about 100 odd bhp. This is what's mostly within reach for a common man. Even those are being replaced by 3 cylinder duds. With the entry of EVs may be, maybe, theres a ray of hope. A faint chance some kick a$$ powerful affordable electric may hit the market in sometime.

[Par_neon]

Well the one topic that is definitely getting discussed a lot these days and will be discussed more in the near future

IMO a lot depends on how one defines driving pleasure
- For some people humming songs while cruising on the highway is driving pleasure
Can EV's do that - yes, so here EVs are not going to spoil the pleasure.

- For some driving fast is driving pleasure
Are EVs up to it - Yes and i think more than the conventional cars due to their high power outputs.

- Some people find driving pleasure in 0-100 timings , EVs do that better too with the kind of torque that they have. Yes the engine noise is missing but many manufacturers are now providing an option for playing dummy engine sounds through the speakers, Now we don't know how effectively they are but even if they are not, they will surely improve over time.

For me personally and i think for many driving enthusiasts, the real driving pleasure is in driving over curvy roads and the ghats with all their hairpins and the ascents and those descents.
And i know many of us think that EVs may not be able to match up to conventional ICE / gearbox combination.

But i choose to differ, EVs have a lot of torque that makes up for the acceleration, EVs conventionally have a low center of gravity and better weight distribution - that calls for better handling dynamics than a ICE car, that going to help a lot while making the car stick to the road when negotiating those beautiful curves at good speeds.
The upscale EVs ( the likes of Tesla ad The Jaguar I-pace) have a battery regen setting which is EV parallel to Engine braking. A high regen seting can make up for good engine braking which can make those ghat descents exciting.
Coming to the awesome feeling of changing the gears, that is something that we are definitely going to miss but then again we are also missing it in the automatics (Yes there's the option to paddle shift but still stick shifts are a different game than the paddles).

Last but not the least, some people find driving pleasure in the off-roads and taking the vehicle where no one has before.
- Now this is something that the EV manufacturers are yet to give a detail look. But JLR (and naturally Tata will follow) has committed itself to provide a electrified option for their every model line post 2020, so i think we are going to find that out in the near future.
But again i feel EVs wont suffer much due to their high torgue, balanced weight and less moving part characteristics.

The picture will be clear when we actually get to drive an EV in the above conditions and lets hope we won't have to wait longer for that.
But till then lets continue to enjoy the ICEs and the manual shifts for when the EVs do come ICEs won't last long.

[nishsingh]

My brother got a Tesla as a ride when he booked his Uber.
He really was blow away by the silent ride and the acceleration. True he wasn't driving, but if driverless cars are the future (in say 15 years), does it really matter if the driver is having fun or not as long as the passengers have fun?

[PapaKiloSierra9]

I believe that ICE in cars are bound to be batteries and motors, which for me will take the life out of the cars. After all, the general public thinks of electric cars they think of those battery-operated ones we see in malls. And the thrum of motor, the vibrations of gearshift lever and the burst of energy and noise on pressing the throttle on those ghat sections is what brings joy in the driving experience.

I feel that in the near future, with exorbitant pricing, current bulk of batteries and slow charging, electric cars will be limited to a niche segment of buyers who already have other ICE cars in their garage as primary cars. And I feel that it will take at least 2 decades to make a reliable and cheap electric car for the masses that can truly replace ICE. And that time is also needed to create new infrastructure for the electric cars, especially in a country like ours where we only just about generate enough electric power for our current requirements. That means new power plants, electric lines, charging stations like fuel bunks of today.

The most futuristic while being practical in the near-future is hybrid power, where the engine charges the batteries and motor provide torque in the wheels. This technology, while pretty common is still ridiculously expensive. We'll have to wait till our innovators and engineers and manufacturers make it trickle down to mass-market cars.
I'll know that we are on the right path when Maruti sells 15k hybrid (real full hybrid, like Prius or Chevy Volt) cars a month.

[vivekrvcse]

The EVs may also get configured to have the acceleration experienced by other desirable cars? Imagine putting your Tesla into BMW M5 mode one day and then GTR mode another day

[mohit]

I am going to reply as an owner of an electric vehicle (Albeit not a Tesla but a Ford Focus).

Things I like:
- Silent ride - I came from a Canada spec civic which has atrocious sound deadening so the Focus is a very welcome relief.
- Instant torque - Passing cars and merging onto highways is much easier. While its just a puny 140 HP car, the push back into the seat is good fun.
- Handling - The car has almost 50-50 front/rear balance so handles reasonably well and brakes without diving much.
- Economy - No fuel and no oil changes means the running costs are very low.

Its not a performance car by any means but is a joy to drive in day to day commutes. It actually has made me a better driver as I now try to accelerate and brake as smoothly as possible (gotta get all that kinetic energy back into the battery ).

OK there is no fun sound and there are no gears you can change (single speed transmission) but I have a feeling that just by sheer brute performance and low centre of gravity, electric cars will become the future of racing as well. Drive one - you just might like it!

[NowNew7]

Originally Posted by MaheshY1

... I can't stand an automatic transmission. It feels too disconnected.

...Perhaps the feeling of not being in control will encourage more drivers to adopt 2 wheels.

Exactly why my signature punchline is what it is ever since I joined TBHP! There's no driving pleasure with a manual in back to back traffic, couple of hours every day so AT is what's needed there... and NOTHING beats the (manual) 2-Wheeler on the highways for a thrill.

Originally Posted by dileepcm

I believe that it depends on the definition of 'The pleasure of driving or riding'.

Well said Dileep. The pleasure of driving for me is being free from traffic, no pressure to make it to a particular destination in a given time, accompanied by company I like, and the ability to see new places and stop whenever I feel like to satisfy my curiosity. An EV with the range issues addressed would hit all the check boxes for me!

[terra85]

Just today was seeing the enjoyment on my sons face when i picked him up from school in the car. Cant help but all the recent news about the end of the road for petrol and diesel cars makes me sad, we as indians only started enjoying good cars from late 90's. Now in 10-15years all the cars will be just like washing machines wont have any character. Wonder what is going to be the future for relics like us. At the same time all the next generation is going to enjoy is the electronic sound of a v8/12 and may never even see one. I even wonder if its right to make him indulge in the same passion that we had as children in cars . I think as petrolheads the next decade will be the last. All major manufacturers are slowly going to stop developing their petrol engines probably and definitely diesel . Just a rant

[DrPriyankT]

If teslas are going to be standard of how electric cars will be, the future bodes well in terms of performance . But I completely agree, electric vehicles cant match the character of petrol or diesel cars.

[Brishti]

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

If teslas are going to be standard of how electric cars will be, the future bodes well in terms of performance . But I completely agree, electric vehicles cant match the character of petrol or diesel cars.

Forget Tesla I test drove Kona and in sport mode its a handful. When I drive my Octavia 1.8TSI in S mode I get similar feeling and with some music going on the engine is not audible at all.

So how to differentiate the Octavia 1.8TSI and Kona well other than physical characteristics the Kona seems to have a better motor to wheel transfer. In fact the tiny lag you get with the DSG in the Octavia is absent for Kona.

Kona is too tiny for the price but once something like Octavia comes with similar price its a dead comparison but its not a bad thing I would exchange my petrol with a electric one but infrastructure has to come up first.

[salilpawar1]

I think EVs will eventually get their own 'character' in their own unique way. Remember the era when many petrolheads became dieselheads overnight after the advent of turbodiesel and CRDi tech? There are quite a few things that determine the character of a car e.g. a Swift and Punto with the same diesel engine behave very differently

Personally, I think it's not electric motors but the below 3 things that would be the death knell for petrolheads:

1. Ultra efficient, affordable and high speed public transport

2. Autonomous driving tech

3. Reaching the limit of what humans can drive 'manually' e.g. 0-100 kph in say 3 seconds or a top speed of 300+ km/h becoming a hygiene in mainstream EVs. This is in a way related to point 2.

[locusjag]

When I was a schoolboy in Jamshedpur around 1998-2000, minimum winter temperatures would dip to 4 degrees Centigrade. Water would freeze in the pipes and we would freeze within our homes. Now? The minimum temperature in the town during winter seldom dips below 14 degrees C.

Erratic seasonal climates are here to stay meanwhile; in the end of 2013 when I was in the US, we had a never-before level of frozen winter. The winter in the end of 2015 and 2016 had some days in between when it felt like summer and Spring's Cherry Blossoms were fooled into blooming. Those plants withered away when the bone-chill returned quickly. Meanwhile, ski resorts in New Hampshire had to employ snow-making machines in order to keep their customers happy. That was a first for them.

India is now facing huge variations in rainfall. We had a once-in-a-100-years event in December 2015 when Chennai received 4 metres of rainfall within 3 weeks. Now, there's very little of it.

Throughout the winters of 2016 and 2017, researchers found the Arctic ice cap's thickness to be abnormally low. The ice went totally missing in vast swathes of the region.

Against the backdrop of these ominous storm clouds - ICE automobiles don't stand a chance. Whether they really contribute to global warming or not, the powers that be are hellbent on driving them to extinction. That's the zeitgeist we need to contend with.

Yes, we will be the last of the petrolheads. In any case, the next generation has seen automobiles since they were babies. It simply isn't aspirational for them.

[srini1785]

Abhi picture bhaki hai mere dost.

ICE driven vehicles are not going to disappear overnight. We still have 2 strokes motorcycles running and enthusiasts will not let them die. Its just that the Multi meter got added to our tool kits. The name "motorhead" is valid still .