One of my biggest objections to gasoline cars, now that electric cars are practical, is pollution. Hydrocarbon + oxygen = carbon dioxide + water. Carbon dioxide and water are colorless and odorless. So if I smell anything coming out of the exhaust pipe, it's obviously poison. Why are we subjecting ourselves to poison? Gasoline cars have got to go.
Except when it comes to manufacturing them.
You still can't fly in residential areas at 160MPH.
Whereas big capacitive touchscreen allowed to read text at least twice as fast. And you can actually manipulate websites UI. That's entirely new enabler.
Electric car does not enable you to sleep in it or grow potatoes. It's a great car, but still a car.
Operating multiple pedals to operate a vehicle is a leftover from crude technology. Sure, some people like it that way (a set that includes me). But for most people, once they get used to push pedal a bit to go slow, a lot to go fast, let go to stop - they will love it because it makes more sense.
To operate a internal combustion/geared car, you have to modulate the pedal to match the acceleration rate and gears. Max pedal pressure to start, lightening off, re-pressing when gears go up etc. It's normal because it's what we're used to.
Single gear, peak torque engines are much more intuitive to drive. That's why toddler can handle electric toy cars so easily.
I get it, the car is more dynamic. So what? It's an incremental change.
By the way, if you do not like pedals, there is even better technology, called cruise control.
By multiple pedal I'm talking about accelerator and brake, not accelerator brake and clutch.
The i3 has single pedal operation in city mode. This means it uses regen braking to intelligently slow the car down if you lift your foot off. Brake pedal is for emergency or highway stops only.
It's one of those things that, once you get used to, feel a lot more natural.
Does it add more value than the cost premium of the electric car? Doubt it.
That said, unless we see a significant leap in battery tech, I think we're stuck with ICE cars for the foreseeable future. But we might see hybrid systems from racing more, that enables the car to become far more efficient in the city.
The original iPhone didn't have video recording, had only 2G support (Nokias supported 3G for a while), didn't support MMS, and it didn't even have apps! And of course something like 1/3 the battery life of Nokia phones with 2" screens.
The iPhone at the time "only" had the benefits of a big screen, touch, and an "easy to use interface". But that was about it - which of course was game-changing. But the point is it didn't have "many" benefits over the phones at the time. Quite the opposite (especially from the perspective of Nokia/Blackberry/etc phone users at the time - which were 99% of the people).
Electric cars have maximum torque (and usually much higher than your average gas-powered car in the same class) from the moment you put your foot on the pedal, they give smooth liniar acceleration (no gear changing), are very silent, cost much less to recharge (about 1/5), have 1/3 the maintenance costs, an order of magnitude fewer parts that can break on you, and have the potential to use 100% renewable energy in the future.