One aspect of cars that often gets ignored is pedal hinge location, specifically with the accelerator pedal.
Most cars have top-hinged accelerator pedals, along with the brake and clutch pedal. In fact, if you drive a locally-assembled Japanese car, chances are your accelerator is top mounted. Many Mazdas, like the new CX-5, have floor mounted accelerator pedals. They’re the exception, but not the only one.
On the flipside, many German cars have floor-mounted accelerator pedals. Volkswagen and Audis used to have these, but newer models have switched to top-mounted pedals.
So the new Passat, Golf, A3 and A4 have top-mounted pedals. This could be related to the MQB/MLB chassis, but we’re not certain.
So, which is better? Many say it’s personal preferrence.
The general rule is that having all the pedals top mounted means less complication, less production costs to the manufacturer. And if most drivers don’t pay attention to this (and if the advantages are subjective), then the move is justified.
Others argue that floor mounted accelerators are more ergonomic because the hinge at the bottom of the pedal follows the natural movement of one’s foot, which pivots up and down long the ankle (just like a floor mounted hinge).
Personally, I think it varies from car to car and we’ve tried floor mounted pedals that are poorly designed as well as top mounted pedals that worked beautifully. The car I use for city commuting has a top-mounted accelerator and I like the greater level of control over the input that it gives, especially with the manual transmission. My other car has a floor mounted accelerator, which makes long-distance driving more relaxing as I can leave my foot resting at an angle to keep the input constant.
Some very special cars like the Lexus LFA and Spyker C8 have all pedals floor mounted.
So, what’s your preference?
I prefer either. I drive in highheels so both are fun to mash. My wife and her mom and sister prefer both. They can push both types really well with high heels. All are sexy anyway.
I drive cars with mechanical throttles and floor hinges on the accelerator pedal. As such, I prefer the floor hinge and mechanical throttles as that’s what I’m used to. It might be different if I were used to throttle-by-wire, floor hinge, and it might even be different if I were used ro TBW, floor hinge. Even if I were used to mechanical w/ a top hinge, it might be different, but it’s much easier to implement a mechanical throttle with a floor hinge, so I will likely never see such a configuration.
My favorite placement for the pedal hinge is on the floor, but in front of the pedal, not behind it, with a hinge between the pad and the arm. That allows it to feel almost exactly like a floor mounted pedal, but with an air gap below it, where my heel can rest without worrying about triggering the pedal. Seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur soon after throttle-by-wire started being implemented en masse, sadly (although the first TBW Impala had it), along with torsion springs (and the compression springs don’t have near enough resistance).