Quote:
Originally Posted by Moflow
You know, as we move towards electric cars and everything being blindingly quick in a straight line, I can see a resurgence of the third pedal, simply because sports cars will naturally have to evolve away from having their defining characteristic be "straight line speed relative to everything else." With everything being stupid fast, sports cars will have to be more about style and feel (and hopefully) driver engagement. There's no reason you can't hook up an electric motor to a gearbox (I think i read on jalopnik that Kawasaki has a 4-speed electric sport bike concept) so on paper, there isn't a reason not to do this if the head honchos think they can make the sales numbers work.
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Veering off topic here, but I think this is unlikely
Sure you can hook up an electric motor to a multi speed gearbox, but most road going vehicles won't need the extra weight, complexity and cost given the torque characteristics of electric motors
I can see EV's with two speed transmissions making some sense (improved acceleration at lower speeds and improved efficiency at higher speeds) but otherwise there isn't really a need for more gears except in certain applications such as trucks, off-road vehicles, etc.
In any case, I suspect the third pedal's days are numbered