Zupra1776
Well-Known Member
I'm surprised car manufacturers don't do something similar to motorcycle manufacturers. If you look at modern day motorcycles they have these absolutely massive, unsightly, heavy, and extremely restrictive slip on exhaust systems to meet EPA regulations. The end user simply loosens one bolt and tries to hit a three pointer into the garbage bin.
I've always wondered why car manufacturers of sports cars don't just slap some obnoxiously restrictive, heavy, and silent axle back exhaust to every car giving the domestic terrorists at the EPA what they want and then giving a wink to the consumers with an axle back that's got all its bolts glazed in Anti-seize and prime for a quick replacement.
I've always wondered why car manufacturers of sports cars don't just slap some obnoxiously restrictive, heavy, and silent axle back exhaust to every car giving the domestic terrorists at the EPA what they want and then giving a wink to the consumers with an axle back that's got all its bolts glazed in Anti-seize and prime for a quick replacement.
H2O_Doc
Well-Known Member
Axel back isnāt the focus of EPA enforcement, itās up to the point of the catalytic converter. Other state enforcement might address axel back, but not EPA. EPA is regulating emission. Now, if youāre griping about the physical restriction that comes from the modern catalytic converter, Iād respectfully push back. Current national Ambient Air Quality standards save lives. And, if you never saw L.A. in the pre-catalytic converter days you missed a stinking brown mess. I donāt want the kind of air that the Chinese have to breath and am glad for air quality improvements in this nation over the last several decades.
Zupra1776
Well-Known Member
For the average driver, commuter, consumer, sure....I don't hate the environment and certainly don't want poor air quality, but these restrictions are also slowly killing the performance market as this video highlights. My point here is performance oriented vehicles need either some form of an exemption, work around, or solution so as to not be castrated to the point of extinction.
KahnBB6
Well-Known Member
There won't be any kind of legislative exemption for high performance and highly driver-focused vehicles per se, much as that would be nice. It's not going to be difficult to make fast vehicles with new green technology anyway which is where all legislation and policy is pointed towards.
The long term difficulty is really to do with what level of commitment manufacturers will have to fun, engaging and singularly driver focused performance cars in the future. It would be impossible to legislate that they make "fun" cars when the very definition of and expression of a "fun car" is different for so many people. Putting that into any kind of legalese wouldn't be very effective and it would probably be gamed similarly to the way CAFE was from the early 1990's to the present where the result has been a marketplace overtaken by comically massive pickup trucks, SUVs and crossovers with ever fewer sedans, hatchbacks, coupes, convertibles and wagons left and even fewer enthusiast and performance "fun" models.
The sound regulation recently affecting the Porsche GT3 M/T and other manual performance cars (as well as the Tesla Model S Plaid apparently...?) seems to me a bit much. In general most cars are quieter than they've ever been with far less common high performance models being the exceptions.
Manual variants having to be geared extra long just to meet noise and CAFE fuel economy requirements along with a skip-shift feature in some cases just sucks in general. But still... in a non-hybrid gasoline performance car I'll still take a compromised manual transmission option even if it is slightly slower than the automatic that can easily pass those tests.
Even some implementations of hybrid gasoline-electric powerplants can handle a manual transmission as Honda proved (though somewhat underwhelmingly) with their CR-Z 6-speed manual.
Not EVERY car needs a manual transmission but for as long as internal combustion engines are still sold they're no-brainers for enthusiast fun cars, high performance and even some specialty cars that only the mega-rich can afford (Gordon Murray's T.50 currently).
....
It won't be too long before full EV's and hyrids are the norm in the marketplace and by then traditional manual transmissions certainly won't be a thing with any offerings.
Even if a few new performance EV's have two-speed or even at maximum 3-speed gearboxes they aren't going to be manually shifted gear ratios. I think shifting a Powerglide 2-speed automatic or manually shifting a TH400 3-speed automatic in extreme performance cars is interactive fun. Maybe in coming years there will be a couple of oddball fun options *like* that? Doubtful... but it might be fun. Maybe Dodge will try some version of button-shifted 2-speeds or 3-speeds in their future EV muscle cars as a special mode.
In general though most future designs will just use a torquey motor with a one speed gear reduction. Although I still think at least two speeds is better with a high performance EV. Porsche seems to think so. Shifting generally won't be a thing at all with most EVs.
With gas cars you definitely need many gears and since the engines wind up to their torque and horsepower peaks at different RPMs it's so much fun to shift those gears.
But with these regulations tightening ever more it's looking like the traditional manual transmission will be regulated out of possible sale long before the internal combustion gasoline engine is truly phased out. Not tomorrow or next year but in just a few short years from the way the writing on the wall looks. There's still some time for manufacturers to offer them even with some compromises and thus still some time for customers to buy them.
....
The MUCH larger picture that concerns me even after three-pedal manual transmission combustion cars can't be sold any longer is how many truly driver-centric-first-and-all-else-second fun enthusiast cars will be offered and how on the mark to that ethos that those offerings will actually be.
ONLY going fast in a straight line isn't what makes a great enthusiast driver-oriented model special and desirable. Neither does a dashboard dominated by distracting touchscreens, few to no physical buttons for common controls and no instrumentation above a mostly round (not yoke shaped) steering wheel. It's a big plus if it's fast 0-60 but that's not the primary reason people love special cars that eventually become iconic cult classics.
And at present time that's still why some people continue to love traditional manual transmission models (ie: they're really fun and engaging to use) and in the future when three-pedal manuals will be truly absent from all new cars that passion and desire for truly fun and engaging cars will continue to persist and will probably be even more important for performance and enthusiast model vehicles that are specifically marketed towards car lovers (assuming absolutely everything isn't an SUV or crossover by then).
For now though I could care less if the gearing has to be a bit longer with a traditional manual car. The longer gearing sucks even if there is a legitimate reason for it (fuel economy I get but not so much the noise regulation)... but even with that limitation it's still the option that gives the most fun and smiles per mile in a gas combustion performance/fun/enthusiast car.
The long term difficulty is really to do with what level of commitment manufacturers will have to fun, engaging and singularly driver focused performance cars in the future. It would be impossible to legislate that they make "fun" cars when the very definition of and expression of a "fun car" is different for so many people. Putting that into any kind of legalese wouldn't be very effective and it would probably be gamed similarly to the way CAFE was from the early 1990's to the present where the result has been a marketplace overtaken by comically massive pickup trucks, SUVs and crossovers with ever fewer sedans, hatchbacks, coupes, convertibles and wagons left and even fewer enthusiast and performance "fun" models.
The sound regulation recently affecting the Porsche GT3 M/T and other manual performance cars (as well as the Tesla Model S Plaid apparently...?) seems to me a bit much. In general most cars are quieter than they've ever been with far less common high performance models being the exceptions.
Manual variants having to be geared extra long just to meet noise and CAFE fuel economy requirements along with a skip-shift feature in some cases just sucks in general. But still... in a non-hybrid gasoline performance car I'll still take a compromised manual transmission option even if it is slightly slower than the automatic that can easily pass those tests.
Even some implementations of hybrid gasoline-electric powerplants can handle a manual transmission as Honda proved (though somewhat underwhelmingly) with their CR-Z 6-speed manual.
Not EVERY car needs a manual transmission but for as long as internal combustion engines are still sold they're no-brainers for enthusiast fun cars, high performance and even some specialty cars that only the mega-rich can afford (Gordon Murray's T.50 currently).
....
It won't be too long before full EV's and hyrids are the norm in the marketplace and by then traditional manual transmissions certainly won't be a thing with any offerings.
Even if a few new performance EV's have two-speed or even at maximum 3-speed gearboxes they aren't going to be manually shifted gear ratios. I think shifting a Powerglide 2-speed automatic or manually shifting a TH400 3-speed automatic in extreme performance cars is interactive fun. Maybe in coming years there will be a couple of oddball fun options *like* that? Doubtful... but it might be fun. Maybe Dodge will try some version of button-shifted 2-speeds or 3-speeds in their future EV muscle cars as a special mode.
In general though most future designs will just use a torquey motor with a one speed gear reduction. Although I still think at least two speeds is better with a high performance EV. Porsche seems to think so. Shifting generally won't be a thing at all with most EVs.
With gas cars you definitely need many gears and since the engines wind up to their torque and horsepower peaks at different RPMs it's so much fun to shift those gears.
But with these regulations tightening ever more it's looking like the traditional manual transmission will be regulated out of possible sale long before the internal combustion gasoline engine is truly phased out. Not tomorrow or next year but in just a few short years from the way the writing on the wall looks. There's still some time for manufacturers to offer them even with some compromises and thus still some time for customers to buy them.
....
The MUCH larger picture that concerns me even after three-pedal manual transmission combustion cars can't be sold any longer is how many truly driver-centric-first-and-all-else-second fun enthusiast cars will be offered and how on the mark to that ethos that those offerings will actually be.
ONLY going fast in a straight line isn't what makes a great enthusiast driver-oriented model special and desirable. Neither does a dashboard dominated by distracting touchscreens, few to no physical buttons for common controls and no instrumentation above a mostly round (not yoke shaped) steering wheel. It's a big plus if it's fast 0-60 but that's not the primary reason people love special cars that eventually become iconic cult classics.
And at present time that's still why some people continue to love traditional manual transmission models (ie: they're really fun and engaging to use) and in the future when three-pedal manuals will be truly absent from all new cars that passion and desire for truly fun and engaging cars will continue to persist and will probably be even more important for performance and enthusiast model vehicles that are specifically marketed towards car lovers (assuming absolutely everything isn't an SUV or crossover by then).
For now though I could care less if the gearing has to be a bit longer with a traditional manual car. The longer gearing sucks even if there is a legitimate reason for it (fuel economy I get but not so much the noise regulation)... but even with that limitation it's still the option that gives the most fun and smiles per mile in a gas combustion performance/fun/enthusiast car.
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