LogFAQs > #962516932

Questionmarktarius posted...

Is there a good reason why an electric car wouldn't want a gearbox?

Basically it's because they're not bound by the limitations of combustion engines.

The power of a car comes from the energy output from the fuel igniting in the cylinders inside the engine. There are limits to how much power can be transmitted to the car's wheels by the crankshaft if you stay in a single gear so you shift up to force the car to use more energy to turn the crankshaft but in turn transmit more power (each revolution of a larger gear transmits more energy, at the expense of requiring more energy to crank).

You take out the use of combustion and you remove the need for cylinders and thus no transmission is needed either. Your car just accelerates in a smooth curve from zero because you can impart the power of the engine directly to the car's wheels without passing through a crankshaft.