Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-31943809-20180716121717/@comment-26808586-20180716170945

The gears are just the gearbox in a complex machine that is the automobile, regardless of whether it is internal combustion or electric battery. Both types can power a car. The thing about number of gears is that internal combustion has the highest torque range in the couple thousand rpms before redline; so, to get the maximum acceleration from the torque, you need a few gears to shift through. Electric cars on the other hand, have practically constant torque at all rpms, except the very upper limit, where the back electromotive force from the generation of motion is enough to halt any meaningful torque production by the magnets (via induction). As for why some electric cars have multiple gears, my opinion is that the manufacturer just decided to have that, maybe to be closer to the familiar territory of internal combustion gear shifts.

If anything is wrong, feel free to correct.