[jstelly]

I also have a model S, but I have owned a couple of other high performance gas cars that are much more responsive on the 55-65 or 40-70 acceleration test (passing at highway speeds). That's the only common case where the tesla loses to gas vehicles, and then only high performance gas vehicles (e.g. 300HP+ coupe/sedan models).

But the 0-30 thing is exactly right in my experience. Even more powerful vehicles don't have the instant and smooth acceleration feel of an electric motor.

[acchow]

This is due to the rising power curve of ICE.

[epistasis]

There's that, plus the time that it takes for the automatic transmission to decide that yes, you really do want to accelerate, and yes, maybe it ought to get around to increasing the RPMs one of these seconds.

Electric cars opened my interest car performance. I now have a higher performance ICE than I ever thought I would spend money on, but I still miss my tiny little electric Fiat 500e, even though my ICE is definitely better at 40-80mph.

Fiddling with gears, monitoring RPM, what a terrible system. Feels like a steam engine after being in an electric.

[jdhn]

>Fiddling with gears, monitoring RPM, what a terrible system.

For some of us, this "terrible system" is one of the best parts of owning an ICE vehicle with a manual transmission.

[dcwca]

I can totally see how that would be true. You build muscle memory and positive associations around the operation of the machine. But you've gotta see too how it's akin to turning a rotary phone dial.

[bagels]

In some ways, yes, but excluding dual clutch transmissions, manual transmissions really do have a performance advantage while rotary phones did not have any advantage over touch tone other than, maybe at one point, cost.

[adrianN]

I doubt that there are many drivers who can outperform a modern automatic transmission.

[greglindahl]

Most electric cars have only 1 gear (including reverse), isn't that a manual transmission? :-) It doesn't automatically shift...

[m3kw9]

That's no excuse