Sunday, August 21, 2011

Electric car with a manual transmission

One of the great advantages of pure-electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf is simplicity. An electric motor drives the wheels through a single-speed transmission. Want to go faster? Just press on the accelerator harder and the motor and single gear spin faster. But an English company wants to challenge that simplistic set-up and make its own electric car that requires a bit more of a hands-on approach.

Morgan Motor Company, a British car maker known for making rag-top roadsters for touring the English countryside, announced that next year it will be building a prototype electric roadster.