Is there any way to make an electric car feel as "involved" as an ICE car?
Hey folks! Car noob here. Yet to own a car as they're mighty expensive here, so I'm planning on buying one that'll last for long while still being fun to drive
I've played car Sims and games and read up on cars my whole life and what I've noticed about ICE cars is that part of why people claim they feel funner to drive than an EV is due to the "involved" nature of it
You have an engine that literally harnesses mini explosions to rotate the axle and propel the car forward.
Oh what's that? The engine can only make peak power at a particular RPM band? Cool, here's this thing called a transmission that utilizes gears and a clutch system to keep your car in the peak power band. It now becomes this wonderfully involved and challenging act of keeping your car I that optimum rpm range by shifting gears. Not to mention, shifting gears IS its own art form and feels wonderfully involved and challenging
Engine needs more power? Install this carefully precisioned machined device called a turbocharger to literally force compressed air into the engine by utilizing exhaust gas that would've otherwise been wasted. Then, the turbo brings with it its own challenge of having slightly reduced acceleration characteristics at low RPM because exhaust gasses just don't flow fast enough at low RPMs (obviously)
And all this? It plays beautifully into shifting and deciding your gears ratios so your Low RPMS don't feel too weak. Or you could use innovative techniques to reduce turbo lag
Orrrr you could get a supercharger which literally feeds off the engine to feed it more compressed air to get more fuel into the engine for moar power
And then automatics. Sure, many might hate them, but there's something oddly beautiful about old valve bodies of transmissions that are LITERALLY COMPUTERS RUNNING USING FLUID INSTEAD OF ELECTRONS AND TRANSISTORS. How cool is that??!
And of course, the sound. Fluid dynamics, your exhaust headers, engine design all fit into each other to create a unique exhaust sound (to the point Lexus got Yamaha to design the LFA motor just to make it sound more pleasing to the ear)
Then there are EVs. Motor accelerates instantly. Near uniform power band. No transmission because the power band is uniform and acceleration is instant. Turbo and super chargers? This thing doesn't use air so they're not used at all
Everything about them feels "ideal" and "sanitized". There's no room for human input, or any way to challenge yourself by extracting the best out of an EV because it works right off the bat. Is it simple? Sure. But is it fun? There's nothing to engage yourself with, no shifting, no modification that you can make that are beautiful from a physics perspective , so it's just "sanitized" and "boring"
Is there any upcoming addition or innovation to EVs that can add human involvement and thus make them "fun" to drive or is this endgame for EVs (that they just work "perfectly" constantly) ?
Petrol is pricey in my country and by the time I get enough money to purchase a car, getting an ICE would be hard, let alone getting early 2000s JDMs (which I absolutely adored as a kid), so my only options then would be EVs
Posted Apr 5, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC