Why does combustion engines need multigeared transmission while electrical engines can make due with a single gear?

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So trying to figure out why electrical engine only needs a single gear while a combustion engines needs multiple gears. Cant wrap my head around it for some reason

EDIT: Thanks for all the explanation, but now another question popped up in my head. Would there ever be a point of having a manual electric car? I’ve heard rumors of Toyota registering a patent for a system which would mimic a manual transmission, but through all this conversation I assume there’s really no point?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Internal combustion engines have extremely RPM dependent efficiency. If you try to run a car engine at 10000 rpm it will give you **awful** efficiency. It will also degrade the engine faster and require more repairs.

A transmission is a way to change the RPM from the engine to a different RPM of your tires. This allows you to drive any speed from 0 to well over 100 km/h in a similar RPM range, and thus hugely improves efficiency and reduces the maintenance required on the engine. It also increases the top speed of your car, since running a combustion engine at the speeds required to go to a cars top speed would simply not be possible without destroying a conventional engine.

A transmission also allows you to trade on a constant engine RPM to lower Tire RPM but higher torque, or vice versa, depending on what you need.

Electric motors have non of those disadvantages. Their efficiency (and their torque) is almost completely independent of their rotational speed, so there’s no need for a transmission

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