The Visceral Joy of Driving: A Love Letter to Cars
I have always been a passionate driver, and my love affair with cars began at a young age. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to spend time with friends who owned powerful vehicles with 150 to 200 horsepower, which I would drive down lovely B roads. The feeling of the engine roaring beneath me, the noise, and the sense of excitement it brought were all part of my driving experience that I cherish to this day. While some may argue that these powerful engines are too loud or too polluting, for me, they are an integral part of what makes driving so enjoyable.
As I've grown older, my appreciation for cars has only deepened. I now enjoy driving high-end sports cars with V6 or V8 engines, which provide a thrilling experience that's hard to match. But I also have a soft spot for electric cars, particularly the Porsche Taycan. There's something special about driving an electric vehicle that feels visceral and exciting, even if it's different from what you'd expect from a traditional gasoline-powered car.
What I love most about driving cars is the appreciation for engineering that goes into their design and construction. Whether it's a classic electric conversion or a modern sports car, there's always something fascinating to learn about the technology behind these vehicles. And let me tell you, some of the projects that come my way are truly phenomenal – from Tesla-drivetrain Land Rover defenders off-roading to vintage voltage conversions that blow your mind.
As I continue to drive and explore different types of cars, I've come to realize that the debate between petrol versus electric or diesel versus electric is not as black-and-white as some people make it out to be. There's no inherent right or wrong when it comes to choosing a fuel type; what matters most is finding the car that suits your needs and preferences.
I've always been proud of my channel, Petroped, for offering a mix of different vehicles and perspectives on the automotive world. I never wanted to pigeonhole myself into being just a petrol-only or electric-only channel – instead, I want to give my audience a diverse range of content that showcases the best of what each type has to offer.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares this open-minded approach, and I've encountered some people who seem to have a strong bias towards one fuel type over another. These biases often stem from personal experience or assumptions about how others perceive their preferred vehicle. As someone who's had the opportunity to drive both petrol-powered and electric cars extensively, I can confidently say that there's no inherent difference between these two types of vehicles.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people make comments that are dismissive or inflammatory towards those with different preferences. These kinds of remarks can be hurtful and alienate others who may not share the same views as us. As someone who values respectful dialogue, I always strive to engage in constructive conversations that encourage understanding and appreciation for the various aspects of the automotive world.
In the end, my love for cars is about enjoying the experience of driving – regardless of whether it's a powerful petrol engine or an efficient electric motor. Whether you're a seasoned driver like me or just starting your journey, I hope to inspire you to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the vehicles we drive every day. So go ahead, get behind the wheel, and find joy in the ride!
Oh, and by the way – I almost lost the ball again! But that's okay; I've got it back now. Anyway, I'd like to wrap up this article with a message about being kind and respectful towards others. Don't be afraid to share your thoughts or opinions, but please remember to do so in a considerate manner.
As I head out for my next adventure – a lovely dog walk on the beach – I'm excited to share more content with you all through Petroped. From classic electric conversions to high-performance sports cars, there's always something new and exciting on the horizon. Don't forget to subscribe and follow me on social media for updates, and who knows? Maybe one day we'll even hit the road in a W16 Bugatti!
The Final Word
As I take my pup on this lovely dog walk, I'm reminded of the importance of appreciating the world around us – including our cars. Whether you're a petrolhead or an electric enthusiast, there's always something to learn and discover about the vehicles we love.
In conclusion, let's all strive to be kind, respectful, and open-minded when it comes to discussing our favorite vehicles. There's no right or wrong; what matters most is finding joy in the ride. So go ahead, get behind the wheel, and let's celebrate the beauty of driving together!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enuh hey guys and welcome to petrol bed now i've got something i need to get off my chest the dogs need to need a walk and it is a beautiful day so i reckon we head to the beach these two come on go go go go go go right get in the car come on come on can you get it room we've arrived at the beach let's unleash the hounds now i've come down to west wittering beach which is our favorite haunt we come here a lot but let's just get them out gently back wait there a minute wait let me just lift you down you're just going to jump down are you and then the most important thing the wang yes my dogs have an unhealthy obsession with the wanger yes these two just love the beach wait ready so what is it i've got to get off my chest by the way welcome to west wintering beach the bonus of coming down here on a weekday is literally nobody down here it's phenomenal the tide is on its way out which is good as well the girls just love it running around anyway what is it that i need to get off my chest well as you will guess by the title i've done a few ev reviews recently by the way she's got a squeak in a ball it's really annoying after a while i've done lots of ev reviews recently um and the one thing that's really struck me and i don't know whether it's getting worse but it's always been pretty bad is how militant ev owners are in the comments section of any kind of social media post but normally a youtube comment and what i need to do is i want to preface this before i kind of go on and just give you some background to me so my channel is called petrol ped and i called it petrol ped one because everybody calls me pedro or ped and i'm a petrol head petrol ped i thought it was quite clever at the time but just because my channel is called petropad doesn't mean to say that i can't appreciate or enjoy electric vehicles or hybrids or diesels for that matter i mean nobody nobody has a go at me because i review a diesel car and go but your channel's called petrol pad and i really do think that you can you don't have to sit in one camp or the other and berate the other i really do think that as a i love petrol cars um i love the noise of a v6 or a v8 or a v12 the visceral feeling you get when you're driving one there's nothing like it it's phenomenal especially if it's got an amazing manual gearbox you know me i love drivers cars but i also really enjoy driving electric cars and i think all the work i've done with vintage voltage as well looking at electrifying the classics and having been very lucky to drive quite a lot of those i can appreciate an electric in fact i want to buy one and i honestly don't think you have to sit on one side of the fence or the other just quickly pick up the ball before somebody knicks it uh before somebody loses it and that's the bit that really annoys me so why is it that eevee owners are so militant you dogs are obsessed so i guess i first noticed the kind of militancy of evie owners probably the first evie car i reviewed i reviewed a tesla and it very quickly became apparent that i mean we joke about them the tesla arty if you criticize a tesla in any kind of youtube content oh my goodness me prepare to be berated by tesla owners and often for no reason really i mean let's face it tesla do some things brilliantly and do some things not so brilliantly but you have to have a balanced view they're not the be all and end all they're not brilliant at everything but generally speaking the thing i find most interesting is my knowledge of electric vehicles in terms of how they work the best way to operate them in terms of battery charging in terms of efficiency living with it's been that knowledge has been built up over the last two or three years but sometimes i quite like to learn on camera i like to go through i had an audi e-tron um oh it's a while back now it's the first time i'd ever tried to live with a con i had a nightmare that week just trying to get it charged and all those types of things i put a video out and i got berated for not knowing how to do these things and my simple answer is evie owners forget that they didn't always own an electric vehicle they went through that learning process as well and i think part of my job is to document for people who are thinking about electric vehicles as a as a proposition to document exactly what that ownership experience is going to be like the good and the bad i try and balance between you know the car because i think with an ev review you need to think about the car as a vehicle and you also need to think about living with it in terms of charging and those types of things but it just amazes me that they're very very kind of aggressive comments and aggressive attitude that you get it's quite sad really and let's just balance this one you also get it the other way around when you review an electric car you get a similar amount of aggression and and nasty comments from petrol car owners who think basically an electric vehicle is the devil's spawn and they shouldn't be allowed and i just think we all need to just chill out a little bit to be honest because they're both they both have their good bits and they both have their bad bits but here's the best bit the fact you get lots of comments and lots of debate on an ev video for us as creators it's brilliant because the algorithm loves it so i don't really mind it too much i guess sometimes you just have to let the comments go a little bit and and move on but but actually it does a favor and and what you'll find is quite a lot of creators know that and play on it a little bit you know if you're doing an ev video you just be a bit cheeky with the title no make it clickbait i don't do click bait but i do titles that will rile people a little bit and get them to watch the video um you know it might be my recent eater on range test where i kind of just said this is the reason people don't buy evs oh my goodness me got the desired effect i've got loads of views and loads of comments some of the comments weren't particularly nice really this dog is obsessed with the ball but i don't mind that what i also find it quite difficult is to it's impossible to preface every video with what you know and it's also impossible to give the viewer all the information they need to stop them making a silly comment really good example i know because i drive a lot of evs that if you want to charge in public in the most efficient way possible then you operate the battery between 20 and 80 charge because uh the first 20 percent of battery charge in the last 20 percent take the longest because of the way the battery works and the way the energy is put into the batteries so you know you might get 20 to 80 charge in 40 minutes it might take you another half hour 40 minutes to get the last 20 minutes uh 20 so you know if you are charging in public then you don't really from a time efficiency point of view you don't want to be charging past 80 however in a recent range test i knew that the destination i was driving to didn't have anywhere i could charge the car and the next day i was busy and i had to drive a certain number of miles which i knew and i wasn't going to be able to charge the car therefore i had to sit on that charge station until i had 100 of charge just to give me the range to use the car the next day but i didn't kind of explain that in the video so what that means is you then get absolutely berated for being a complete numb do you not know what you're doing and oh you would say that because you're petrol ped no people no it's just i didn't mention it in the video you want this throne again do you right and that's what i mean it's funny but it's just frustrating at the same time stop it drop drop it right ready steady that one was for you mate lesser darcy now i guess she's getting on a little bit and she doesn't run quite as much as she used to and the young one hallie just basically takes over the ball so you have to kind of hold halle and throw the ball specially for darcy um but yeah so just to balance it out otherwise darcy starts to grumble at you because he's not getting any ball action ready ready steady just as a bit of an aside from the ev topic west wintering's beach is such a beautiful place i mean it is absolutely massive it stretches for miles in that direction and then on this particular spit you've got this incredible sand dunes it's beautiful and then if you cross the water over there that's hailing island basically over there and then in the very far distance on a clear day you can kind of see portsmouth and the spinnaker tower it's stunning absolutely stunning we come here quite a lot oh yeah and by the way before anybody says anything i have poo bags in my pocket so yes it's very important to pick up your poo um but yeah now we come down here most weekends it's only 20 minutes or so drive from the house and the girls absolutely love it and we just love being here the sea spectacular so lucky to live where we do so here's the thing maybe it's an antidote to the hate i just love cars for me it doesn't matter whether the car is powered by a a petrol engine a diesel engine an electric motor it doesn't matter whether it's a manual or an automatic i just love cars and the joy of driving and i can see good and bad in pretty much any car and i can get enjoyment from driving any car i love driving a little kind of sports car with 150 to 200 horsepower a great manual gearbox down a lovely b road with a great sounding engine i love it i love driving a more powerful v6 or v8 supercar or a high-end sports car and the noise and then you get to drive proper supercars i love all of that but equally i love driving a really good electric car it's a different driving sensation you drive a porsche tycan and tell me it's not visceral and not exciting because they're just phenomenal things they're so fast they make you feel ill and i can enjoy and admire the engineering that goes into all of these cars and the different types of projects come on dude you got your ball with you oh no oh oh kel dimagge where's the ball oh man some retrieval dog you are look i had to find it phew that was lucky i have it back now where was i before we lost the ball oh yes engineering and you know what goes into a car i appreciate all of that and sometimes i just think it's not them and us it's a petrol versus electric or a diesel versus pet it's not you don't need all of that you just need to appreciate good engineering and there's good engineering in an electric car and there's good engineering in an internal combustion engine car and as for the future well i'll continue to do a mix of of electric and petrol vehicles and diesel vehicles and that's my i never wanted to be a petrol only channel or an electric only channel i want to give you a whole mix of stuff that's what i predict my whole channel on so you know hopefully people can understand that a little bit but i just find it sad that i i just find it sad that people can't open their eyes a little bit and and not do the them and us you know petra cars are not the devil's spawn and for those petrol lovers electric cars aren't the boring you know uh lifeless boxes that people say they are and the really the i guess the final point for me before we move on is many of the people who make those comments won't have had the experience of either driving that particular type of vehicle or certainly living with it um don't tell me we would drop the ball again hello oh no she's got the ball still so you know i am very very lucky i think the only type of engine i've yet to drive is a w16 bugatti that might be happening sooner um i've driven you know a lot of modern day electric vehicles and i'm very lucky through my work with vintage voltage to driven quite a lot of classic electric conversions and they just blow your mind those things hopefully you watch friday's video with me and moggy taking a land rover defender with a tesla drivetrain off-roading that's just a phenomenal phenomenal engineering and arguably in many respects better off-road than a standard defender because of the modifications so you know i just think i think people just need to be be i know a little bit more aware of the the wider world tesla is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to electric vehicles by any stretch of the imagination they're very good they do lots of things brilliantly but doesn't mean to say they're perfect i mean you think some of the comments you get you think they're probably being paid by elon musk himself just to generate some publicity there's a conspiracy theory anyway i think i've said enough now that's my piece what a beautiful day do you want to throw the ball again come on then dude oh she's lost a ball again oh yeah now you pick it up look here we go so anyway all right that brings me to the end of my little rant let's just love cars people appreciate different cars for what they are there's no right and wrong in this world we just love driving right that's what this channel is all about be nice to people be kind to people and don't be brave sat behind your keyboard and say something in the comments that you wouldn't say to my face and i think that's what probably winds me up the most i'm getting much better at not biting by the way i'm sure many of you will be very pleased to hear that go on this way i'll just drop the ball again but anyway i'm going to carry on my lovely dog walk here at west wintering some of my two little pups hope you enjoyed joining me this time a little bit different i know i've wanted to do a dog walk down the beach for absolutely ages but if you've enjoyed it please give me a thumbs up comments below are always welcome and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to petroped for plenty more content to come electric petrol diesel whatever bikes don't forget the cycles boys don't forget the cycles girls anyway i'll see on the next film you take care drive safe what\n"
