Do you get sickness as a passenger in EV / Hybrid cars

dsio · Nov 10, 2025

I don’t mean just not liking EVs, I’m not a huge fan but not a hater either, driving a Taycan 4S loaner the other day was an amazing experience.

Being a passenger though, I feel like I’m white-knuckling it staring at the horizon and breathing deep just to avoid blowing chunks on the dashboard, and if I have to look at my phone to read texts, god help me.

My dad always experienced this as a passenger, I never did at all, never got motion sickness on a plane, never on a boat.

I’m often a passenger in my old E46 328i with my mrs driving and while she can be a bit jerky on the brake at times, I’m totally fine in that car.

Three weeks ago I had to be a backseat passenger in a Haval hybrid and in traffic it got so bad that I had to jump out in traffic and abandon my mate still in the car. Then the last two Ubers I’ve been in were Tesla model 3s, I’ve driven 3s many times and while I don’t find them great, they’re not bad by any means and seem fairly smooth.

In the passenger seat though it’s just like I never know what the car’s going to do next and the thing gets me to the point of needing to bail after 10-20 mins in traffic.

Have any of you guys had this issue with EVs or know why (actual reasons not weird magnetic field altering my third eye shakra nonsense the internet is full of)?

wagudc · Nov 10, 2025

An EV in sport mode with full regen braking can be a jerky experience with all the rapid acceleration and deceleration. It could make you motion sick. My wife drives like a grandma in eco mode and it is a smooth ride. She has a Hyundai Ioniq 6.

Porteroso · Nov 10, 2025

Probably just has to do with it being unpredictable. One foot can both brake and accelerate. We get a few tenths of a second to mentally prepare as someone lets off the gas, switches pedals, stomps, but not in an EV. Plus, the acceleration can be wild and instant.

dsio · Nov 10, 2025

Porteroso
Probably just has to do with it being unpredictable. One foot can both brake and accelerate. We get a few tenths of a second to mentally prepare as someone lets off the gas, switches pedals, stomps, but not in an EV. Plus, the acceleration can be wild and instant.

Maybe it is that and just the rapidness of the change in brake pressure due to regen. It’s frustrating that you can request an EV specifically in uber but you can’t specify a non-EV for motion sickness.

Is there any easy way to disable or lessen it on most EVs if you ask the driver? I figure it’s in their interests too not having their car soiled but I’m not sure it’s something they can even easily do.

Jakeys · Nov 10, 2025

I'll throw out a hypothesis. I know from experience that I can spend hours driving on a race track or even just spirited (but still legal) in the hills near where I live. But I can't spend more than maybe fifteen minutes as a passenger in someone else's car doing the same before I'm seriously worried about throwing up in my lap.

I'm practically certain the only difference is not being in control and thus able to predict all of the movements. It must subconsciously muck with your balance somehow, some people can't use VR headsets for the same reason. I would wager that in an EV, this effect is multiplied because you're getting even less feedback about what the car is doing as a passenger. They also on average have more acceleration and braking performance than average ICE cars, so maybe the driver is also unknowingly being more aggressive with the inputs?

dsio
Is there any easy way to disable or lessen it on most EVs if you ask the driver? I figure it’s in their interests too not having their car soiled but I’m not sure it’s something they can even easily do.

Usually you can alter the amount of regenerative braking effect (where the car slows itself down) but otherwise the answer is tell them to be more gradual with their inputs, the car is doing what they tell it to.

Porteroso · Nov 10, 2025

dsio
Maybe it is that and just the rapidness of the change in brake pressure due to regen. It’s frustrating that you can request an EV specifically in uber but you can’t specify a non-EV for motion sickness.

Is there any easy way to disable or lessen it on most EVs if you ask the driver? I figure it’s in their interests too not having their car soiled but I’m not sure it’s something they can even easily do.

It can be as smooth, even smoother and as predictable, as an ICE car. I have driven a few Teslas enough to figure it out. But most people are just mindlessly driving, not at all thinking of what passengers must be experiencing.

Vercingetorix · Nov 10, 2025

My wife drives a 4S and it makes me semi nauseous even when I’m driving. I occasionally get nauseous when driving my Cayman aggressively. Driving C8 Corvettes, Porsche Turbos and GT3s on the track and I never got nauseous. Any one of those last 3 is faster than a Taycan 4S. I’m not convinced it’s acceleration 0-60, but instead acceleration 0-60+rough roads making me ill.

The Taycan has very little recuperation off throttle. Blended braking is completely smooth in the Taycan. Better than normal braking in my gas Audi.

pdxleaf · Nov 10, 2025

I've got about 70k miles in a pure EV and +30k in a Rav4 prime, which had pure EV plus hybrid. I never experienced motion sickness as a diver.

However, I heard someone say they hated ubers with EV because of jerky driving and feeling motion sickness. It didn't make sense untilI was a passenger in a Tesla and I got serious motion sickness.

After that experience, I became more aware of my own driving in our personal car. It can be jerky. It accelerates quickly and doesn't want to slow down. Once in motion, it wants to keep going. When we brake, the car can feel heavy and resists slowing without forceful braking.

I can understand why you would feel motion sickness in an EV as a passenger. I think it's a real thing. Drivers of EVs need to adjust their driving with passengers to try to smooth out the ride.

dsio · Nov 10, 2025

Vercingetorix
My wife drives a 4S and it makes me semi nauseous even when I’m driving. I occasionally get nauseous when driving my Cayman aggressively. Driving C8 Corvettes, Porsche Turbos and GT3s on the track and I never got nauseous. Any one of those last 3 is faster than a Taycan 4S. I’m not convinced it’s acceleration 0-60, but instead acceleration 0-60+rough roads making me ill.

The Taycan has very little recuperation off throttle. Blended braking is completely smooth in the Taycan. Better than normal braking in my gas Audi.

I was pretty blown away by that Taycan, I drove the first gen 4S when it came out and it was good but felt a little unfinished, it was the first month of the first model year at the launch so that's probably to be expected.

The more recent Taycan 4S was the Gen 2 and they really have built one of the best cars to commute in, the driving position feels so much like a modern 911 and it glides over bumps at speed with so much control and ride quality despite being firm, the brakes do feel fantastic too.

It feels very much like an entirely different philosophy from other EVs like the Teslas, they feel like the raw acceleration was the point and the handling, braking, driver feel is largely irrelevant, but while the 4S doesn't feel slow or lacking in power, it feels like the chassis was designed for so many times more power than it produces that the car is entirely unfused at any speed it's capable of.

I do think they need to resist the urge to put everything like air vent position in the menu and wouldn't mind a bit more foot room on RHD cars and some better visibility out the rear but its really quite a sweet car.

Jakeys · Nov 11, 2025

pdxleaf
I never experienced motion sickness as a diver.

You must have been using the car's helium escape valve.

Makesbelieve · Nov 11, 2025

Here’s an article I read a while back about this phenomenon, which basically says what @Porteroso said:

“If we are accustomed to traveling in non-EVs, we are used to understanding the car’s motion based on signals such as engine revs, engine vibrations, torque, etc. Yet, traveling in an EV for the first time is a new motion environment for the brain, which needs adaptation. Additionally, the regenerative braking technology used in EVs - where the motor converts the slowing car’s kinetic energy into electricity that then is stored in the battery - results in low-frequency deceleration, meaning that the vehicle slows down gradually and steadily, over a relatively longer period, rather than rapidly or in quick pulses. Such low-frequency deceleration tends to be associated with higher levels of motion sickness.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ctric-vehicles-carsick?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Paedipod · Nov 11, 2025

Just chatting with Mrs P about this….we have had slow (fiat 500 and 914) to fast (GT3) ICE to Taycan turbo CT (all gone now) living in the garage and she says that the rapid acceleration/deceleration of the EV was for her more tolerable for motion sickness….more proprioceptive inputs than the smoother slower ICE. With the exception of the GT3 which had closest to go-stop of the Taycan. She was not a fan of the engine noise though🤦

dsio · Nov 11, 2025

Paedipod
Just chatting with Mrs P about this….we have had slow (fiat 500 and 914) to fast (GT3) ICE to Taycan turbo CT (all gone now) living in the garage and she says that the rapid acceleration/deceleration of the EV was for her more tolerable for motion sickness….more proprioceptive inputs than the smoother slower ICE. With the exception of the GT3 which had closest to go-stop of the Taycan. She was not a fan of the engine noise though🤦

That’s a rather interesting data point for sure, maybe it’s something I need to just get used to with more exposure over time.

What’s your weapon of choice now with those all gone?

Archer · Nov 11, 2025

This is quite interesting - I've never heard of this and have never ridden in an EV that I can recall.

alam · Nov 11, 2025

Porteroso
Probably just has to do with it being unpredictable. One foot can both brake and accelerate. We get a few tenths of a second to mentally prepare as someone lets off the gas, switches pedals, stomps, but not in an EV. Plus, the acceleration can be wild and instant.

This sounds like one probable theory - my son recently bought a RS1 Rivian SUV and took me for a spin around his neighborhood and on the highway, he compared the braking of the Rivian as driving a golf cart - he offered me to test drive this thing but I took a rain check as operating this $$$ SUV on a foreign territory made me a bit uncomfortable however, as a passenger in the front seat I did not feel anything close to motion sickness - and btw, my son's driving is a bit on the aggressive spectrum.😜

Vinz Clortho · Nov 11, 2025

Haven't ridden in an EV, but it makes sense when the body doesn't have feedback about what is happening. Remember being on the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios years ago, it was a neat experience but felt motion sick a few times because the input from the ride didn't match what I was seeing.

Foo2rama · Nov 11, 2025

So it depends on the driver.

It’s 100% due to regen. Because letting off the accelerator immediately starts a slow down and not a coast you have to drive differently. So if your not doing it right, it feels like someone 2 foot driving which can also cause motion sickness.

Also due to the higher weight and softer suspension most EV’s have you get more pitch on accel and deccel .

First gen Rivian R1S had this issue ( I own one) which was mostly dialed out through updating the active suspension via software. But mostly gone I. The 2nd gen and not present in the R1T with the longer wheelbase and stiffer rear springs which both acted to reduce pitch.

dsio · Nov 11, 2025

Foo2rama
So it depends on the driver.

It’s 100% due to regen. Because letting off the accelerator immediately starts a slow down and not a coast you have to drive differently. So if your not doing it right, it feels like someone 2 foot driving which can also cause motion sickness.

Also due to the higher weight and softer suspension most EV’s have you get more pitch on accel and deccel .

First gen Rivian R1S had this issue ( I own one) which was mostly dialed out through updating the active suspension via software. But mostly gone I. The 2nd gen and not present in the R1T with the longer wheelbase and stiffer rear springs which both acted to reduce pitch.

That might be a significant factor, all of them do appear to be fairly new to driving EVs / hybrids.

Speaking to a couple of them the margins driving for uber are worse than ever for the drivers. To make it workable at all for the drivers, uber is acting as the middleman pushing drivers to rent, rent-to-own, or finance a car through uber and are pushing EVs on drivers as the lower operating costs are the only way drivers can make a living wage.

https://bonjour.uber.com/marketplac...click_id=9c025964-3573-440a-bd4c-1b11f95d2fd9

So the Haval was bought and I believe the Teslas were rented. Maybe that’s leading to the drivers being less experienced with their vehicles and worse driving them as a result.

Trev · Nov 11, 2025

I've been in the back of a Tesla (Uber) and motion-wise that seemed a bit strange, but could've just been the driver. It wasn't nice. BYD's seemed fine, nothing to note.

I'm probably not the best test case, since thankfully I don't get motion sick in boats/planes/cars.

Vercingetorix · Nov 11, 2025

Trev
I've been in the back of a Tesla (Uber) and motion-wise that seemed a bit strange, but could've just been the driver. It wasn't nice. BYD's seemed fine, nothing to note.

I'm probably not the best test case, since thankfully I don't get motion sick in boats/planes/cars.

That sounds like a challenge.