Speaking as someone who has owned a number of sports cars with manual transmissions, I can tell you why I finally made the switch to automatic:
Adaptive cruise control in stop and go traffic.
I used to have to deal with a six-speed manual transmission in stop and go traffic for an hour every day, and it was pure torture. I mean, sure, it was fun for a weekend drive in the mountains, but it sucked the rest of the time.
Oh, and as a side note, my new car with an automatic transmission and a 400+ HP engine accelerates from zero to 60 faster and smoother than any one of my previous cars. I will never go back! And I have paddle shifters, if I ever want to manually control the gears.
I just do like the truckers do, leave it in second and crawl. It helps to not be concerned with maintaining a 6 inch gap with the car ahead.
I truly believe that stop and go is caused by automatics. All of the brake tapping tends to bunch people up at the end of long lines forcing them to a complete stop. In a manual just let off on the gas a little and the engine brakes a little, no brake lights to create cascading braking
Brazil is the same. New cars with automatic transmissions are now at least 40% of sales, but on the roads, manual must be still at least 80%, and 10 years ago it'd be virtually 100%. Stop and go exists here since always, Sao Paulo is a nightmare.
Italy has the same stop/go issue. Roundabouts are the main cause, with jammed zip merges coming in second. Both allow only a short burst of cars to pass when at full capacity, which backpropagates into the queue as multiple stop and go.
But it is pretty obvious. In an automatic, you pretty much have to touch the brakes to slow down. In a manual, you have other options. Taking your foot off the gas in a manual tends to slow the car quite a bit more than in an automatic, for example.
While technically true, there is not much practical difference.
Like on a motorbike I tend to tweak slow speeds with the clutch only and leave the throttle in one position most of the time.
With an automatic car since the brakes are not binary and automatic gearboxes have often forward creeping I only tweak the brakes. Helps to force the gearbox into 2nd gear as well for even slower creeping.
In fact, I think automatic gearboxes reduces traffic jams as fewer parts to think of so less likely to accidentally make a mistake and cause congestion.
Wonder how many jams are due to accidental stalling a manual gearbox.
Traffic jams without an automatic gearbox is no fun. (or even less fun)
I've driven quite a bit with both manual and automatic and, while there is definitely a difference, I've found that moving my foot from the gas works quite well in both.
Stop and Go is caused by trying to maintain a constant distance to the front car but isn't caused by automatics, people with stick behave the same.
The simple solution is to behave like an inductor in electronics; if the front car starts, take a bit of time to get going and don't try to maintain the gap. That way you average out the speed of the stop-and-go traffic more than if you were maintaining distance.
It might help to think of stop-and-go as a wave of stop-traffic through go-traffic where the reaction time of drivers shortens or lengthens the stop-traffic duty cycle. If a driver maintains enough distance to eat an entire stop-cycle without stopping themselves, they have effectively nullified the stop-wave. If they can't do the entire cycle they can still help in reducing the duty cycle of the stop wave.
I don't know where you live that you can stay in 2nd and crawl. Where I live, the moment you leave a few inches between your front bumper and the car in front of you, someone is guaranteed to cut you off and force you to brake to prevent hitting them. When I say "inches", I mean inches - 6-8 inches of space is enough for someone to think "I'll just squeeze in here".
When I commuted to work, I'd keep the same tight pattern everyone else used, and it felt like any time I let up, some jerk would take advantage.
Then, for a while, I was suddenly paid to go between buildings on opposite sides of one of the worst traffic cities in the US. I always left with plenty of time and no urgency, so I would just stubbornly maintain plenty of stopping distance while everyone else was inches apart. Smoothing my braking pattern became a game.
If you constantly leave that much room people weaving in becomes rare enough that you barely care when it happens.
I feel like there's some bias affecting perception. Maybe it's a confound, or availability heuristic.
Confound - if you're trying to hug a bumper, and suddenly there's a gap, maybe that's because your lane is suddenly moving faster and someone's taking advantage of that. If you always have space, you'll have it even when your lane is less attractive. (ie, The space doesn't make your lane attractive, the pace does.)
Availability heuristic - if you care about people cutting you off and are adopting a strategy to prevent it, you will notice it more and put more weight on those occurrences than on all the seconds where no one is cutting you off.
Before I had that job, I would have read this comment and thought it was nuts though, so not sure if anyone will actually believe me.
FWIW when in traffic I always try to maintain enough distance ahead of me that I do not have to ever stop completely, and that I can also hopefully not use the brake.
I swear I've watched traffic clear up around me. Of course it's anecdotal, but it tends to keep things moving, even if slowly, rather than bringing everything to a halt.
Do you never merge or change lanes in heavy traffic? Because if you’ve ever done any of those things, you rely on people leaving space and letting you in. Why deny others the same opportunities?
Driving in traffic is a cooperative activity. The only times you don’t need to accommodate and be accommodated by other drivers are when there are hardly any around.
No one was born in the correct lane at the beginning of time. They inserted themselves there at some point. In traffic, the only way they could have done so is to move in front of another driver.
Zipper merging [0] exercises a different kindergarten skill, taking turns. Still, "lines" are a small minority of lane-changing situations, all of which involve taking the open space in an adjacent lane.
Yeah and zipper merges don't increase traffic flow, they combine backup congestion so that the impact of the selfish driver is minimized. It is implemented so those who will not take their turn as intended don't have as much negative impact on other drivers.
"Lines", to use your emphasis, are by far the major time component so for me this is a meaningless distinction. Normal traffic merges should of course be accepted gracefully.
I have a casual theory that driving in the US relies upon every individual enforcing their own idea of what the rules should be, inherent to our culture. I really enjoy driving in Europe, but maybe it's delusional. There's an aggressive indifference that I perceive.
I have driven in both the US and a few European countries, and I would disagree with your proposed cause but agree somewhat with the effect. Having driven on long-distance road trips in the US, drivers are noticeably more competent than in (sub)urban highways, probably because the latter are filled with drivers who don't drive as much at those speeds. This is often inherently true in many western European countries in which driving usually has reasonable public transit alternatives so the selection of drivers on roads may tend to be more skilled and experienced.
That being said, in some European cities drivers are not very keen to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, even when pedestrians are already in the median "island." I haven't noticed any US city of a similar size that had drivers quite so negligent about crosswalks.
In every US city I've ever spent time in, including San Francisco and Portland, you're taking your life into your own hands every time you use a crosswalk. Or even a sidewalk, as people will just turn into driveways without checking if the sidewalk is clear first.
Keep in mind that slightly depressing your brake pedal without pushing it down turns your brake lights on but you do not actually brake. This is used to warn cars behind you of possible danger ahead.
> just let off on the gas a little and the engine brakes a little, no brake lights to create cascading braking
Same thing with an automatic transmission. With DSG it's obvious why, but even with a torque converter you tend to have a clutch that locks up once there's no need for slip to improve efficiency.
> I truly believe that stop and go is caused by automatics.
If that’s the case then it should eventually be solved by a critical mass of vehicles with adaptive cruise control (assuming they optimize for fuel efficiency and/or smooth acceleration/braking)
What? Stop and go exits because cars brake faster than they accelerate and humans have non-zero reaction time. The average velocity tends to zero until the number of cars on the road is few enough that those factors are less meaningful than the speed limit.
Isn’t it still true that an AT will have a no-pedal-applied speed of > 0 mph, whereas an MT will have a no-pedal-applied speed of 0? (Assuming flat surface and MT in neutral or assuming MT stalls engine in-gear)
Second in a car is optimistic. I often have to put it in first and just let the engine tick over. Some people don't think their car can do this. I'm not sure if that's true or if they are just bad drivers, though. My car will happily roll in third if it's flat.
I find I'm usually able to keep rolling in gear, which doesn't use any more fuel than just idling, and not apply the brakes in most "stop and go" traffic.
My car does it but it's a small diesel 4x4 with gearbox optimized for lower speeds. It happily rolls in the first on low slopes. I have yet to try this with a normal petrol engine car. I have to leave some free space in front of my car and sometimes aggresive drivers from neighbouring lanes will annoyingly slip into that space without signaling, causing a stop on my side.
Yeah, especially not-ancient-TDIs with low and high idle (~800 and ~1100 rpm, out of and in gear, respectively) put out a surprising amount of torque without hitting the gas.
This is what I usually try and do when stuck in a queue, especially on the motorway. First or second depending on the speed of the traffic, clutch up, foot off accelerator. Pointless racing to the stopped car in front of you only to have to stop and start again.
Driving a manual car isn't about efficiency. It is about driver engagement. Yes, you can row your own gears with paddle shifters, but no automatic will ever give you the same kind of engagement or connectedness with the car as a manual with three pedals will.
But yes, if there is a smoking gun for the death of the manual in America, it would be our crumbling, congested roads and absurdly long daily commutes.
It was about efficiency and cost for ages though. That's why manuals were popular and why they aren't popular in the US anymore. Modern automatics (dual clutch, CVTs, even computer controlled single clutch and plain old torque converter slushboxes) are so much more efficient now that manuals don't make as much sense as they used to.
Agree, simply in that by changing my driving style I could get 30+ miles per gallon of gas using a manual but not an automatic of the same type of car. It's interesting that people don't even know that anymore. Additionally, manual can be very useful in a snowy/icy climate -- starting into 2nd can get you going on a slippery road where some automatics will have trouble. Much more control of torque.
But when I still drove a manual it always felt like I was planning ahead, engine braking early at red lights (which often meant I could coast though it without completely stopping) etc, which you can't do with the lesser control on an automatic. Driving "lazily" in a manual means reducing shifting which often translates to more fuel-efficient driving. Driving lazily in an automatic is very different.
I'd love to see a study on hypermiling with auto vs manual in real-world condition. AFAIK all the efficiency numbers we have are just based on purely mechanical tests on a driving cycle on a dynamometer, and we all know what that kind of testing leads to.
> But when I still drove a manual it always felt like I was planning ahead, engine braking early at red lights (which often meant I could coast though it without completely stopping) etc, which you can't do with the lesser control on an automatic.
A modern DCT transmission doesn't use a torque converter, which is where most of the efficiency was lost. A DCT is effectively a manual transmission that's automatically operated.
Even torque converter automatics don't use torque converters for anything other than low speeds anymore. Most modern automatic transmissions have the ability to mechanically couple the input shaft directly to the transmission effectively bypassing the torque converter in most if not every gear.
It's one the of the reasons the ZF8 transmission is used in everything from the new BMW 8 series down to the Dodge Charger.
Even torque converter automatics don't use torque converters for anything other than low speeds anymore.
Unless something has changed radically in the last few years, that's just not true. The torque converter will drop out of lock-up as soon as you demand sufficient acceleration (this will vary tremendously by engine - i.e. an inline four will do it regularly, a big V8 may meet most of your acceleration needs without dropping out of lockup) or tap the brakes. Torque converter with lockup have been around since 1950ish.
Locking out the torque converter isn't a new idea, it's just that newer transmissions are very aggressive with engaging the lockout thanks to all the software that lives in a modern car.
Having spent a decent amount of time with ZF8 speed the torque converter is almost always locked out. Throttle response and engine braking don't lie.
I don't understand what throttle response has to do with demonstrating that it's in lockup. With an average car engine, you're going to get fairly disappointing acceleration with the torque converter locked up. I suspect that what you're seeing is the effect of having a torquey, high performance engine, based on the example cars you listed. They just don't need to drop out of lockup to deliver the day-to-day acceleration you want. Also, performance car transmissions have been tuned to behave differently than run of the mill transmissions for at least as long as I've been driving. For example, engine braking in my college friend's then-new 90s Mustang GT, whereas my family sedan would prefer to free-wheel.
Edit: by the way, I looked up the ZF8 and it's available in a bunch of configurations. One of them is a wet clutch instead of a torque converter, which I imagine has to operate like an electronically controlled manual transmission. There's even an option to have an electric motor instead of a torque converter for hybridization!
Have you driven one of the new automatics or an electric car? The best engagement happens when you don't have to think about what gear you're in, or plan for the downshift lag.
That's true engagement! My plugin hybrid minivan with an e-cvt knocks the socks off of my old 5-speed Subaru wagon. A Minivan!
(Edit) The reason why is that it takes me about a second to shift gears. A modern automatic can rev up before I'd even move the shifter, let alone before I'd get the clutch back in. An electric car doesn't need the gears at all.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy stick. But the arguments you make are nonsense.
Well if you're an experienced stick-shifter and familiar with the car you don't have to think about what gear you're in. Combination of revolutions, engine noise, speed and gearshift position make this and planning for the downshift lag as natural as breathing air.
Only time I think about gears is in low range, when I'm in an off-roader.
For many people, myself included, engagement with the transmission and engine speed is part of the "engagement" we want when driving. If you're more interested in the handling dynamics, etc. I could see how an automatic could remove other distractions.
I drive the Pacifica EV hybrid and the ride is almost flawless, except it uses the ICE when you floor the pedal which is odd since the electric has more boost in it. Can’t wait until the super capacitors become common.
I wish they did a smaller engine and a larger battery. I suspect the battery just can't deliver enough amperage for full acceleration.
Frankly, I wish it was completely electric... Also, I hate to say this... The minivan is just overpowered. I hardly press the accelerator and it's like driving a rocket. At least when I drove a Leaf I had to push down a bit when I wanted to go fast
The same reason I love(d) driving motorcycle. It's a full body engagement. Both hands, both feet, and super alertness and focus on everything around you.
"You've got more control over the car because you're shifting your own gears instead of waiting for the car to shift for you," from the article sums it up. I recently bought my first car with cruise control, still manual transmission, and while I find it useful at times, it also makes the driving experience more relaxed, and not necessarily in a good way.
However, I'm all for the aspect of automatic transmission changing gears at the right moment to get as much power out of the engine as possible. But it doesn't weigh up the disconnected feeling they provide on my behalf.
> Driving a manual car isn't about efficiency. It is about driver engagement.
Speak for yourself. I have a manual (actually, I've never driven an automatic, come to think of it), and I couldn't care less about "connectedness with the car". My car is a device that takes me, and sometimes my family, from A to B as safely and conveniently as possible. It's a car, I'm not in a relationship with it.
Some people really like engagement and fine control in their things. There has to be something in your life, like coffee or operating systems, where you can understand this.
Sure. Just saying that deriving great satisfaction from owning and/or driving cars isn't some universal trait in humans. For many of us, it's just a means to an end.
Sorry, can you connect what you’re saying for someone who hasn’t driven manual? Are you saying you only drive manual because it’s safer and more convenient? Or that there’s no difference and you happen to drive a manual out of habit?
The second. In my country (perhaps I should have said in my previous post that I don't live in the USA) manual transmissions are the norm, although automatics are certainly becoming more popular.
I don't have anything against automatics per se, I can well see myself getting a car having one in the future.
Having just come back from Hockenheim with my racing license, I can tell you that driving a manual car very fast is much harder and more demanding than doing the same with an automatic. That's precisely why I drive a manual: it's more challenging and makes me learn more about race driving techniques, not to mention controlling the car. It demands of me to be an ever better driver. I have to be at least twice as good as other participants with automatics. I like that.
You can get into a slide easily by disengaging the clutch temporarily. Few dual clutch cars can do this e.g. Porsche GT3. You also can do heel-toe downshift without unbalancing the car's weight distribution, if you do it right. Newer cars blip the throttle for you so you don't miss it, but that's kind of missing the point.
I drive both a manual and an older (mid 2000s, 5 gears) automatic CVT. The CVT always seems to get me annoyed as if shifts very conservatively. When going up a slope it feels like the engine is having a hard time. Or it's upshifting in the middle of an overtake at 70 kmh when the gearbox is not in 5th. Always makes me switch to manual in those situations. I've also driven a DSG which works great until you have to drive down a mountain road with tight curbs.
A choke gets used once upon start, a shift happens dozens of times per drive, it's not the same thing. And no paddle replaces the sheer joy of rowing your own.
A choke gets used once upon start, a shift happens dozens of times per drive, it's not the same thing.
It's still "increasing engagement" which is what GP claimed to want. How about a persistent pull to the right in the steering? That's continuous and increases engagement. How about occasional "death wobble" as found in many Jeeps? That will really sharpen your focus and keep you engaged.
And no paddle replaces the sheer joy of rowing your own.
Not to be a jerk, but there's a big difference between a Dodge Dart and a Dodge Viper or a Chevy Cruze and Chevy Corvette. Cars that are designed to provide the driver with mechanical feedback and tight handling are not something that manufacturers are concerned with in most of their vehicles.
Even among sports cars with "automatic" transmissions (most likely dual clutch), the transmission is programmed very differently from the regular models. Take an automatic BMW M4 for a spin and compare it to a regular 4 series. The M4's transmission will be far jerkier and rougher shifting despite having mechanically identical components. It's programmed for faster shifts for better performance while sacrificing comfort.
You're correct but I'm going to be the ass that points it out: the M4 has a 7-speed getrag DCT yeah but all other versions come with the ZF 8 speed traditional auto (which is really good, mind you). BMWs with DCTs other than M cars are really really rare (only one that comes to mind is the Z4 35i/35is).
I agree with the engagement aspect, but I'm sure dual clutch equipped cars are just as fun to drive. I rode a motorcycle with an auto-shifter, I didn't miss using the clutch (on up-shifts) one bit.
I traded a dual-clutch sports car for a manual after two years because the disengagement is real. If you want to play a driving video game, just play a video game. :)
Now I have two cars, one for rough traffic trips. I realize this isn't practical, though, so I don't hate anyone for their automatics.
I think if you drive a manual the OP sees it as being _more_ involved in driving and more aware.
There are some situations where driving a manual incorrectly is more dangerous (clutch coasting) but others where the extra control is better (Ute off-road).
I can’t speak for others but I personally find driving a manual does help prevent accidents. Driving an automatic feels a bit mundane. Just hold the gas pedal in the same spot the whole time. It’s easy to slip into a boredom state (zone out) and not focus on the road. Even more so when tired.
A manual car sort of kicks you in the butt every now and then: “hey, you’re in the wrong gear. Stay sharp, and upshift!”
This is the kind of thing I was talking about elsewhere. You need to take responsibility for maintaining mental engagement regardless of the transmission. Using a manual transmission as a crutch for mental focus is a terrible idea.
And I'm saying that is, in and of itself, a huge problem. To be blunt, if you require a shifter in order to stay engaged while operating a two ton hunk of metal, you have no business being behind the wheel in the first place.
My wife insisted on an automatic car because she doesn't drive much and wanted to keep it simple. I was a bit hesitant, because when I first got my driver's license I really liked driving my parent's manual car. Now I've really come to enjoy driving an automatic. The two main benefits are when I drive in heavy traffic and either have to switch lanes or when I'm in a slow moving queue; in both situations there's one less thing to think about. I'm sure it makes it easier for me to focus on the surrounding traffic because there's less stuff on my mind.
Other benefits, when I think about it, are that an automatic frees up one foot and one hand. I can drive with my cup of tea or coffee without having to shift, which is great. I don't know if it directly helps with awareness, but it helps me stay awake.
My wife and I both have manuals and we sit in stop and go traffic every day. Having to shift in traffic doesn't even register with my brain that it's really anything at all. I simply don't notice.
Yeah, I don't at all understand this mentality that stick shift is a burden in stop and go traffic. I've since switched to a motorcycle, but when I used to drive stick I can't say I ever really noticed or paid attention to the fact that I was having to shift, even in stop and go traffic. After you've gotten comfortable with shifting it just fades completely into the background.
> Yeah, I don't at all understand this mentality that stick shift is a burden in stop and go traffic.
It's a burden if you're stuck in bad traffic, if you've got a heavy clutch, or if you're crawling up a hill. Worse if you've got more than one of those compounding factors.
My Mazda 6 manual has a very smooth and light clutch and “hill assist” where the car will brake for you on hills as you ease into gear. It’s an awesome combo and I get virtually no fatigue from driving in stop and go traffic trough hilly areas. My old manual though was another story- you’d have a sore leg after a long drive in bad traffic, and getting stopped on a steep hill with the automatic drivers crawling right up to your rear was nerve wracking.
I do think the clutch is a factor. I've driven more "pure" sports cars and often their clutches require a lot of force. But I've never owned a car with a clutch like this. So yeah, maybe my comment was a bit naive.
For me, motorcycles in traffic has been painful due to having to hold a heavy clutch in with your hand.
Just an aside, you shouldn't be holding the clutch in much. Only when coming to a stop in first gear (hold until the vehicle behind you stops so you know you won't get rear ended) and when starting to move (i.e. a few seconds before a light changes, or once traffic clears and you're planning to start moving again). You should be in neutral while stopped otherwise.
Same. Started driving a manual when I was 15. Been daily driving a motorcycle for commuting the past 8 years (not one of those weird automatic ones that Honda makes now either). I never have once wished for an automatic motorcycle. I commute in Boston traffic, and have also done so in NYC, with significant travel through Chicago, SF, San Diego, LA, DC, etc
I really don't get what the issue is. Maybe my ADHD benefits focus-wise from having another thing to do? I rarely even use the cruise control unless I'm on a 3+ hour trip.
After training for some time, the handling of stickshift is not processed consciously by the brain, it's more like walking, which is actually quite impossible to do consciously.
The same applies to pretty much everything in driving, of course. Initially, when learning to drive, the information flow overwhelms people, because the brain tries to understand and process everything. Eventually, routines take over and the low-level things like how to turn the steering wheel, or how to handle brakes or shifting, is done unconsciously.
At this point performance cars are no longer truly exploitable on a road legally. Yeah you can do a quick acceleration at the occasional stoplight, but on pretty much no public road are you going to get to a speed that's close to the car's limit. And if you do, it'll be insanely dangerous because even though safety systems are amazing these days, your reaction time isn't any faster than it used to be and the people around you may not be as well protected.
It's useful on the track you say? Maybe, and I have no doubt I'd rather a paddle shifter for outright speed and ease. It's probably safer to learn to drive at high speed having removed one of the variables at least at first. That said, I'll never be Michael Schumacher.
Bottom line when you buy a performance car: what are you trying to do? It can't be "win" or see the limits of the car, so what is it? Clearly it's to have fun. And I think it's hard to argue that driving a stick is more fun, except perhaps in traffic. In the end I'd rather endure minor annoyance in traffic and in the city in exchange for the fun that comes elsewhere. I've put my money where my mouth is, own 2 cars, both stick.
Acceleration is a lot more fun than velocity for most people. You can experience high acceleration (in all directions) at low speeds in a good nimble sports car, and stay completely within the spirit of the law.
Second that. There's an effectively five-way intersection near me, where I need to turn left from a side road onto a state highway that's busy during the day. So I basically drift from a standing start. I shift from first to second in the middle, which shapes the drift. And at no point do I exceed the speed limit.
People want that acceleration in something that is not a 'good nimble sports car', so a Porsche SUV is nearer the mark, or, a generation ago, a hot hatch.
There is a rough measure of power going on with these status symbols. Everyone would be driving Ariel Atoms and Caterham Lotus 7 cars or Mazda Miatas if 'good nimble sports car' really satisfied what was allegedly wanted.
So the 'what do you want, what are you trying to achieve' aspect of owning that fancy car that can do silly speeds has to have more to it than that thrill of acceleration. It is about where you see yourself in the world - status.
Curious how it's so deeply important to the core of people's identities to loudly and proudly assert that others are enjoying things for the wrong reasons.
I may as well claim that because bicyclists are always wearing spandex and carrying helmets around, there must be more to it than the alleged enjoyment of cycling - they don't actually like riding bikes, but only want hipster-fitness lifestyle points.
>At this point performance cars are no longer truly exploitable on a road legally. Yeah you can do a quick acceleration at the occasional stoplight, but on pretty much no public road are you going to get to a speed that's close to the car's limit.
This is why the low-end sports car market is slowly dying. Cars have improved so much that modern family sedans are faster than dedicated sports cars from a few decades ago.
People always say this, but frankly I find stop-and-go traffic isn't that bad if you put the car into neutral instead of holding down the clutch the whole time. I haven't looked back since I bought my first manual car. I never use cruise control at all though, even when I had an automatic car.
I'm not sure you understand persistent stop and go traffic -- shifting between neutral and first gets awfully tiring after 45+ minutes when you have to do it every day. Putting the car in neutral doesn't really solve that problem.
Adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go support is not really the same as cruise-control in free flowing traffic. I rarely use cruise-control in normal traffic, but the stop-and-go cruise control is a luxury I never realized I wanted until I had it.
I used to drive from Connecticut to Queens every single morning. I am familiar with the concept of traffic. Nobody in their right mind enjoys driving in heavy traffic no matter what car they're in.
> Question: why do you drive? You could easily walk that distance in 2 hours, and driving just makes the problem worse for everyone.
Agreed 100%. About the only time I drive within the Bay Area is if I'm going outside the SF / Oakland / Berkeley urban core. This Labor Day I was going to Marin and planned poorly (driving the day of instead of leaving earlier).
Once you get out of that urban core (or if you're traveling late at night) public transit nearly evaporates. Without traffic that would have been around a two hour bus ride. However there are no dedicated lanes for buses along 19th / Park Presidio so that would've been easily a 3-4 hour bus trip with a few untimed transfers thrown in for good measure.
> It's like sixty miles. It takes 90 minutes without traffic.
At an average of 40 miles per hour that's not particularly bad. The people complaining about driving in stop-and-go traffic are almost certainly in much worse traffic than that.
The example I gave of getting from one end of San Francisco to another happens pretty much every holiday weekend. Average speed? About 3 mph. The worst part is the uphill approach to the GG Bridge.
Or you can look at the other SF bridge. In traffic (which has gotten so bad you'll see it like this on pretty much any weekend afternoon) it'll easily take an hour to get from the 280/101 interchange to the Bay Bridge approach (about 7 miles).
Traffic like that is why I rarely commute by car, but also why many people simply don't want to drive a car with a manual transmission.
> At an average of 40 miles per hour that's not particularly bad.
I gave you the time it would take if you drove at mid-day, not at rush hour (hence the "without traffic" qualifier). A lot of people commute to New York, as you might imagine (and you have to go through toll booths and there was non-stop construction), but my hours were variable at that particular job so I didn't always get the same experience. It wasn't part of my normal commute, but I assure you the George Washington Bridge isn't any better than the Golden Gate, and I have also driven over that in heavy traffic.
Anyway, I've done that and I've commuted on Massachusetts highways (allegedly among the worst in the country). I didn't enjoy it but my point is that driving an automatic car didn't make it any better.
I had a Mazda, but gave it up a few months ago when I moved to the Seattle area... Now I commute by bike (which has manual shifting, but no cruise control :-)) Though my Eastside commute is nothing at all like my old Bay Area commute, not nearly as much traffic.
Here are some other car models with full range adaptive cruise control:
The key word in the parent post is "adaptive". With adaptive CC, you don't do anything in stop and go traffic other than minor steering. The car just keeps about a car length distance with the car in front. It is very nice convenience feature.
How many hours per day do you spend in stop and go traffic? I spent 20+ years driving stick in hour-long commutes (each way), and I can tell you that there is no free lunch to be found in N.
I love having a manual car in traffic simply because it gives me something to do to pass the time. I can play around with the gears, the shifting etc keeps me engaged and focused on the road. I imagine with an automatic it is much easier to mess with the radio or gps and, god forbid, a cell phone.
I used to feel that way, I was a die-hard manual guy for a long time. Then I decided to get a car that only came with an automatic, and it was a good automatic, and all my gripes about autos went away.
The car in question was a used Audi A8. In "S" mode it would shift pretty much the way I'd shift my manual Audi S4. In D mode it was more sedate, but if I needed to downshift in order to be ready when a gap opened in traffic, I could pull on the left paddle twice and it would downshift. I thought that worst case if I hated it I could just use the paddles or the same thing on the shifter. It had a mode where it would not shift unless you told it to as well. I tried that a few times, but in the end just used D most of the time and S for the twisties.
Now I'm not sure what I have. Is a Tesla a Automatic or a Manual? It is direct drive, so you don't touch it once you "shift into gear", but it isn't making gear changes for you either. Hmmm. :-) It's also fast and smooth and absolutely no lag, either through induction/turbo or through gear changes. I worried as a car guy that I would find it too isolating, but the things I like about good cars, this has in spades (smooth, responsive, powerful engine).
That's what you are supposed to do, isn't? I think most (all?) car clutches are dry, so that means that not going to neutral at a stop would eat your clutch in a few months.
Captain Pedantic here, and it looks like you might have facts confused, citizen. Sitting with the clutch pedal pushed in will shorten the life of the throw out bearing, but the clutch plates (which are generally what get “eaten”) will be fine because they’re not touching anything.
From what I have observed, many people do not, which would explain how they talk about their legs killing them. I don't like driving in heavy traffic, but I don't like it any more in an automatic car.
It might depend on your size? I am tall and long-legged, so the effort of using the clutch is lifting my leg above the pedal and feathering it. Holding the clutch to the floor is no different than resting my foot on the dead pedal next to it. The only reason I would not want to hold the clutch for a long time is if I am worried I would be distracted and forget I was in gear.
I would never put my manual in neutral unless I am about about to set the parking brake. It represents a mode shift in my attention and vigilance. I always did this startup sequence (and its reverse for shutdown): foot on clutch, foot on brake, start engine, release parking brake, transmission into gear, foot off brake and over gas pedal, feather clutch to pull away.
Like many on this long thread, I eventually compromised and got an automatic because of the narrowing options in the new car market here in the US as well as to make my wife comfortable sharing the car.
I am learning to enjoy the extra gears and the aggressive automatic shifting program that gives a quiet, comfortable cruise. With a manual, I would never shift my way so close to the idle speed when cruising, because my ear would be telling me it is time to downshift. But, knowing that the computer is handling it means I enjoy the comfort and can be impressed by the fuel efficiency in this mode.
I do miss the engine braking though. I think automatics are tuned to an irritating preference for coasting. I'd much rather have to keep the gas pedal depressed in order for it to sustain speed, and to have it automatically downshift and slow the car when I start to raise my foot. I'd like the automatic to do this all the way from highway speed down to the slowest crawling speed in the lowest gear, without any other inputs.
Newer electric cars (with regenerative braking) have a "one pedal" mode like you're describing (it engages some amount of regenerative braking by default, unless you have the accelerator depressed a little, so you can just take your foot off to slow down).
I've never had a huge issue with driving in stop-go traffic with a manual.
It really depends on the type of car you're driving though, I guess. Driving a sports car with a grippy clutch is going to be painful. Driving a $750, 20 year old Mazda with a 2 L engine and a soft clutch isn't too bad at all, you just sort of ride the clutch (which I am aware isn't great for it).
I think that there is nothing that beats driving a stick shift in winding hills. Autos and paddle shifts just don't feel the same. There's just something about the mechanical action of shifting manually that I love.
It isn’t that manual is bad at stop and go traffic. It is that adaptive cruise control is really great at it, and adaptive cruise control is only available on automatics.
My manual VW Golf would like to have a word with you.
I don't drive in stop-start traffic, so I don't know how well it would work, but my manual VW Golf MK VII has adaptive cruise control. If you need to shift up or down, you just do so and cruise control re-engages.
I'm pretty much always in 6th gear when I've got ACC enabled.
They said "adaptive cruise control". That's where the car will speed up or slow down based on the traffic around you automatically. Sort of like self driving but not nearly as demanding.
Obviously manuals have had normal cruise control for decades.
Yes, but there are also adaptive cruise controls with manual gearbox, and it's a useful combination in highway traffic. Or even in suburban roads: I don't have it, but I use regular cruise control quite a lot on roads that have traffic lights every 1-2 km, and the speed of traffic varies between 40-70 km/h.
No, adaptive cruise control where the car changes speed based on the car in front is also present on manuals. It only works above certain speeds though.
Oh, and as a side note, my new car with an automatic transmission and a 400+ HP engine accelerates from zero to 60 faster and smoother than any one of my previous cars.
Yes, automatic transmissions have a big advantage in acceleration which is why they're so common in drag racing. The torque converter means there's an "extra low gear" to provide more torque from a standstill, and there's no need to operate a clutch that can take repeated slipping without quickly wearing out --- cars can "slip" the torque converter at full throttle for a moment and launch with the engine already running near the optimal RPM for peak power.
In fact, one of the most popular transmissions in drag racing is a two-speed automatic from the early 50s:
To each their own, but stop and go traffic does not exist in the absence of stoplights if you leave adequate space in front of you. If you tailgate, ride your brakes, or have to stop completely you are contributing to traffic jams behind you. I drive a 6 speed in one of the worst traffic areas in the US every day.
To all the folks replying that someone will fill the gap in front of you: that’s the point. It isn’t about reaction time. It’s about letting traffic flow easier, not fighting with each other.
It removes the need for your fellow drivers to feel a tension when it is time to switch lanes, to not have to make a risky maneuver. You get to relax when driving because now you aren’t competing to get to your destination, and you can feel more confident others are not going to accidentally hit you in a desperate attempt to go where they are going.
That impatient driver behind you? They will get around you and play the rat race. Let them. Most drivers don’t do that unless you are much obviously slower than traffic flow. Let people win the game they are playing. You are making it generally safer, and your consistency on the road helps them make decisions easier.
I’ve been doing this for about 10 years. No accidents, no cause of accidents, no angry honkers, none of that nonsense. Try it for a week! Give others space to move. Watch traffic jams ease up a little around you. It’s very neat. My space clears spaces so I can move easier after people get in front of me. I’ve seen others follow my example (or be their own example).
You beautiful zen traffic wave surfer you. This, a thousand times this. Somewhere on the web there is a great video of a guy doing this pretty effectively. I guess it's maybe five years old now but worth a watch.
If everyone could just relax out there, some of those traffic standing waves would diffuse away to nothing. Ahhh...
When I get in bad traffic and struggle against the urge to tailgate I play a game where I try and give enough space to where I just roll up to the car in front of me as it is starting to move again. This gives me a time-local goal to aim at instead of fixating on supposed "bad actors" I might want to judge instead.
At least in my city in my commute this morning (~30 minutes), I was forced to hard brake 3 times to avoid having an accident with someone wedging themself in at the end of an exit lane.
I find the problem isn't people merging into your lane in front of you, but doing so badly (ie not leaving a safe amount of space behind their rear bumper and your front bumper).
Are you allowing enough space in front of you for cars to merge in without wedging themselves in front of you?
That's the worst problem I see around here -- cars in the freeway running bumper to bumper, and then a block of 3 or 5 cars also running bumper to bumper trying to force their way in, but none of the cars really leave enough room for a smooth merge, so the cars on the freeway end up hitting the brakes when the merging cars force their way in.
There are some advantages to driving a semi in traffic:
- Lots of gears to choose from and massive torque in order to find that perfect 'idle forward' speed.
- Far more comfortable ride then a car, it's not even close.
- Radio communication with trucks ahead, so you know what's happening ahead and which lane to be in long before the cars figure this out.
- Visibility over the top of vehicles in front (except another truck, obviously).
I think the only thing better than a semi for heavy traffic might be a luxury car with adaptive cruise and a little roof-mounted drone-cam that you could launch to check out the view ahead (though this sounds like something Homer Simpson would dream up). Your own little personal traffic copter/R2D2, with a recharging dock on the roof. Someone please tell Elon Musk to make this a priority for new Teslas. It could even check out side streets in cities and find quicker routes.
I was thinking stop-and-go traffic, which is murder.
Heavy load = longer stop distance = lengthier minimum safe following distance
Minimum safe following distance > 1 car length = motorists darting in front of semis
Rinse and repeat. Assuming a heavy load and ignorant motorists, there's no way to avoid constant unsafe situations. As soon as you create a new safe gap, someone slides in.
So, no. It's terrible. (And I'm not even mentioning the additional gear shifts)
This comes up often, but you gotta think about what would happen if everyone suddenly tripled the gap they leave in front of them. The same road surface would suddenly have 1/3 the throughput. I shudder to think what kind of traffic jam / commute time that would lead to at the edges of the road network.
I do appreaciate when people drive densely packed and I try to do the same (up to a safety limit). For merging there are turn signals.
> The same road surface would suddenly have 1/3 the throughput
At the same velocity. It's quite possible that with the increased gap and increased flow (less stop & go), you could get higher velocity out of it to compensate. Maybe not 3x the velocity, but 2x gap and 2x velocity seems within the realm of possibility (a 60mph road that slows down to 30mph because people are driving stupidly).
Edit: on the low end, this seems quite possible. Increased gaps raising the mean velocity from 5mph to 15 or 20mph.
This is super interesting! As kind of expected, there's a middle zone that balances out density and velocity. In the context of what we were talking about, the fourth "Basic Statement" jumps out at me: "If one of the vehicles brakes in unstable flow regime the flow will collapse."
The problem is people trying to maintain ANY fixed gap. If they learned to treat the gap as a spring and then use their mind as a damper while still maintaining safety, they can cancel out many of the pathological oscillations and standing waves that disrupt traffic flow. This task is also much easier when people learn to monitor the road further ahead than just the bumper and taillights they are following.
Following too closely removes any margin for error and so requires you to either mimic every change in speed or create dangerous conditions.
> To each their own, but stop and go traffic does not exist in the absence of stoplights if you leave adequate space in front of you. If you tailgate, ride your brakes, or have to stop completely you are contributing to traffic jams behind you. I drive a 6 speed in one of the worst traffic areas in the US every day.
Come over to Los Angeles and take me to work for a week and we'll see how well you can make that work.
As someone who drove a stick shift far too often in LA traffic jams, I understand your point and agree with it. You have to try really hard to juuust get to the car in front as it's starting to accelerate or you will burn the heck out of your clutch.
However, if you leave the appropriate gap, someone WILL jump into it in LA. And the people behind you will start frothing at the mouth.
It's really hard to be nice to a clutch in Los Angeles.
This is pure conjecture. You cannot control how traffic behaves, and if you constantly let people go in front of you, people behind you will get irrationally angry (danger exposure).
Yeah you can smooth things out and inject a bit more zen into your experience by accelerating and decelerating more gently and leaving a larger than normal gap, but stop&go simply exists and is a pain even with an automatic.
Nah. When freeway traffic slows, you halve the speed of the vehicle in front of you. Leave 4-5 car lengths between you. Regulate your gas pedal usage so you never have to touch the brakes. You mostly just coast. Sure, there’s one vehicle that will come up quickly behind because that’s how everyone usually deals with it. By the time they slow, wondering why there’s so much space in front of you, they have time to recognize the other lanes are deadlocked and stop-and-go, while the lane they’re in never ceases moving. You’ll notice they start mimicking your movements/behavior. Occasionally, a car in the next lane inevitably thinks they’re going to get somewhere by getting in front of you—let them. They’ll just ride up on the ass of the vehicle in front of you while you again adjust speed slightly to leave the same amount of space. I’ve been driving this way for years and I never see a noticeable effort by the people behind me to get in front of me or ride my ass. People hate stop-and-go-till-you-move-five-feet-then-stop-again. People are happy, however, to be constantly moving, even if it’s only at 10-15mph, passing everyone sitting in the lane beside them.
Adaptive cruise control is easy to achieve no matter the car, and without any technology doing it. You just do it yourself.
This is impossible to achieve since every vehicle has different acceleration and every driver has different response times.
There will always be stop and go traffic once the carrying capacity of the road is reached. Once the capacity of the road is reached, it's actually most beneficial for everyone to be as close to each other as possible, and fill gaps as quickly as possible, since there's a finite amount of road at any given time, so only way to maximize is is to fill up as much if it as possible.
Also why you should use all lanes available and create zipper merge at the very end.
This is arrant nonsense, and is just short of telling everyone who drives in freeway stop and go traffic that they're just idiots who don't know how to drive.
Unless you can control the behavior of adjacent lanes there is no achievable amount of buffer space that eliminates stop and go. The best you can do is increase the glide time between stops. At times you will see, e.g., semis lining up side by side to help keep a zipper merge flowing, etc., but those cases are rare and not understood by other drivers.
> The best you can do is increase the glide time between stops
Do you understand what causes traffic? That harder you brake, the bigger and longer the wave of people braking behind you will be. By braking less hard, you are causing less traffic.
And yes, 99% of people driving in traffic are idiots who don't know how to drive or they wouldn't be tailgating and slamming the brakes every 6 feet wasting thousands of hours of people's collective time by causing needlessly large waves of braking behind them due to the fact that those people are also following too close, amplifying the problem.
I have somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 hours operating a stick vehicle in high congestion traffic. I went to engineering school and studied traffic both academically, and experientially. Yes, I understand traffic better than you do.
Do you understand traffic? I pretty much doubt it.
No, 99% of people driving in traffic aren't idiots. About 5% are, and that's all it takes. My most pleasant finding from all those years of driving was to note that the vast, vast majority of Houston daily commuters were absolutely pro drivers when it comes to congestion.
So how does tailgating people and braking hard and often not make traffic worse? Or is it the same? You didn't explain why you think slowing down more gradually is not better or how tailgating does not cause traffic.
I have more than 35 years driving all kinds of vehicles and what i've learned is that "all the other drivers are wrong" or at least is what everyone says. Probably we all need to learn to better ourselves and be a bit more patient and courteous.
You know what else increases traffic? Merging too soon.
A good friend of mine and I have a standing argument about proper behavior when, driving, one encounters a "lane closed ahead" sign. He insists that the right thing to do is to abandon the to-be-closed lane as soon as feasible [tangent: he also gets mad at drivers who want to merge later, describing them as "cutters"], while I maintain that the best way to minimize the effect of a lane closure is to use whatever lanes are legal/open for as long as possible -- because leaving an open lane of travel unused only exacerbates the problem.
Who's right?
Disclaimer: I grew up driving in the Boston area (yes, among other "Massholes"), and my philosophy is "try never to use your brakes on the highway, and try even harder never to require anyone else to brake unnecessarily".
What's right, if drivers are doing it, is to zipper at the point of the merge.
But that's a big "if" -- too many drivers are like your friend, and work themselves up into a blood-boiling rage at the thought of someone "cutting" by engaging in proper zipper merging. Tell your friend the problem is he's thinking of the merge as a competition with a "winner" (person who ends up in front) and "loser" (person who ends up behind), instead of looking for the option that maximizes efficiency for everyone.
I maintain that the best way to minimize the effect of a lane closure is to use whatever lanes are legal/open for as long as possible -- because leaving an open lane of travel unused only exacerbates the problem.
I agree with you. Fully packing an 'ending' lane until it actually ends is most efficient from a road usage point of view.
(I have lived for 10+ years in the Boston area but did not grow up there.
If everyone merges early, the cars that could have been in that mile of unused lane, will instead be in the full lane, moving the entire queue backwards a mile, clogging up more exits and onramps, and making the jam worse.
Use all available road, that's what it's there for.
FTR, statistically, there's not a whole lot of agency involved. Wish I had a good citation here but IIRC there's almost no difference between real-world commuter traffic and fluid dynamics w/ static "dumb" particles.
I can drive a stick. I borrowed my sister's car for 3 months and drove it on occasion at other times.
I define stop and go traffic as when I'm in 0-15mph traffic during rush hour on the Interstate.
If I leave a large enough gap so that I don't constantly have to press the clutch from stalling then someone else will move in front of me and then I have to hit the brakes as well.
> someone else will move in front of me and then I have to hit the brakes as well
I don't know what to tell you. Works on my machine.
Maybe it's because I don't do it in the left lane but I never see 4+ people force their way in front of me at the exact same time with no time to decrease my speed. The occasional one will buffer out so it works for me.
Enough so you can gradually slow down until they start to move without stopping yourself. Watch how big rig drivers drive in traffic where it is almost required that you don't keep repeatedly stopping.
Big rigs definitely stop in these situations. No matter how much space they try to leave, other drivers speed around them to fill it and they have to stop anyway.
Never found paddle shifters to be in the same league as a manual transmission even in modern high performance cars. There's always that bit of lag and delay with automatic that there isn't on a manual.
Maybe you've only driven traditional automatics with paddle shifters slapped on? I've driven quite a few high performance sports cars with twin-clutch automated manuals, what most people would call an automatic (Cayman, GT-R, Evo X, etc) and the shifting using the paddle shifters is WILDLY faster than I could ever shift (I drive a 400+whp manual every day). There's a reason sports cars with heavier twin clutch transmissions still beat their manual counterparts in 0-60 and quarter mile... No human can shift as quickly as the computer controlling the clutch.
Drive a Porsche newer than 2012, like a 981 or 991.1 or newer. The PDK transmission is very good, almost telepathic. Slight push on the throttle and it downshifts into the meat of the torque band. I currently drive an E92 M3 DCT which suffers from the "lag", which is why I'm on manual mode most of the time.
I can't be as fast as a modern automatic. Maybe it's just me, but the time taken to depress the clutch, shift, then release the clutch is always longer than in automatics today.
When in college and working full time, I used to start my day by driving through some of the worst of LA traffic 405/101 and then in the evening come full circle by going 101 to 23 to 118 to 405 and back to 101, essentially circling the west part of San Fernando Valley, Conejo Valley, Simi Valley and back to central San Fernando Valley. Now that was a commute! Total time on the road 4+ hours in a 6-speed manual sports car with that exact heavy clutch.
Don’t think I’d be able to keep my sanity if it was an auto - at least I could focus on something other than the miserable drive and crazy work/study hours.
Priorities change, but if I was making a choice today just for me - manual all the way!
Now if I could only find a car without electric power steering... or any power steering at all... (Those old NSXs were a blast to drive!)
My previous car, a 2008 Subaru WRX, in manual had cruise control; while it wasn't adaptive, it was the most important thing I will consider in any other manual transmission going forward. Stop-and-go traffic to my previous job made driving a chore and weekends weren't enough. I miss having that kind of control over the car, but the automatic Mazda3 I replaced it with has made that traffic an afterthought.
Would adaptive cruise control in stop-and-go traffic work at all with a manual? When the speed of traffic is vacillating between 0 and 30mph, there's never any one gear that you can stay in for long.
It works in highway traffic, it's not unusual in new cars where I live (Finland). Most cars are manual shift, almost all have cruise control, some of the cruise controls are adaptive.
Of course, in city traffic the adaptiveness is not very useful with manual transmission.
No, it wouldn't. Technically you could have it adapt within a narrow range of speeds, but it would be annoying, fuel-wasting, and worse than just dealing with the speed yourself.
CC on stick shifts works fine at steady highway speeds over a consistent grade.
I tried to learn to drive stick on a Subaru WRX, I believe it was a 2002 or 2003 model year. It did not go well. Almost ended a friendship and I had leg cramps for days. Fortunately I managed to get the hang of it later on a more forgiving Mazda Protege.
i learned to drive stick on my WRX and it was the only manual I've ever driven for 5+ years. It wasn't until I had to pick up my brother in laws car from the shop where I noticed how heavy my clutch was and how boggy the first and 2nd gear are at low speeds.
but i never had the cramping problem and love driving it in stop and go traffic. keeps me entertained / sane with something to do. recently noticed my left calf is bigger than my right
I test drove a manual 2010 Impreza before I bought mine in automatic. The automatic has a 4EAT which sucks, but the clutch on the 5 speed would have sucked so bad in traffic.
As one of my friends with the same car said "it's a heavy clutch. It's not that bad to use if you are a tall guy, but if you are a short woman who weighs less than 120 pounds, you are going to have to stand on it or pull the steering wheel to use it"
He has the Saabaru, and his GF can't drive his car at all because of how heavy the clutch is.
Now that I only use my car for errands in the city I wish I had the manual, but I am so glad I didn't have it when I had a 1 hour commute each way in stop and go traffic.
My previous car had paddle shifters (DSG system) and I did not find it to be a great shifting experience at times, especially under 20mph between first and second. I saw it most pronounced when approaching a stop.
There were other times during fast up or down shifting that the car would get confused and pause before figuring out what to do.
Also, these newer automatic transmissions still do not give you anywhere near the level of control you get over the car, which I found to be really annoying whenever it snowed.
I'm sure these systems have improved, but last year I sold that car and bought a manual instead. It was hard to find, but I'm glad I switched back.
I'm on the other side of the fence. My previous car had an automatic, a lovely one too: the 7-speed getrag dual-clutch that bmw puts almost exclusively on the M models. When I bought it I thought that because the car was so good and it had so much power I would be ok with having it.
Nope, I was bored out of my mind and the paddle shifters were no replacement. Sold it after 6 months, bought a manual again and am never going back to automatics. Yes, they're slower and less fuel efficient but they're so much more fun; like Hammond said "changing gear is a vital form of self-expression".
Probably helps that I don't drive in traffic, only for fun.
I have two manuals and an auto, the auto is used for the commute to work while I have a racecar and a four wheel drive (to take the racecar to the track). The auto is lovely when you have a coffee on the go, and the manuals do a far better skid.
They all have their merits, it's purely down to individual choice and don't see any need to try and justify it.
Because if I'm sacrificing money/space to keep and maintain 3 cars, that means I'm not using it for something more important. A matter of perspective, I guess.
> as someone who has owned a number of sports cars
> stop and go traffic
Well theres your problem, you wouldn't take a tractor on a track day why would you take a sports car into stop and go traffic? buy a small manual, sit in second problem solved, will pay for itself with the petrol you will save.
I have never owned a deportive car but in my country automatic transmission is not common. For a long time automatic cars were much more expensive.
I have owned manual my entire life and IMHO after the first month driving switching becomes something your brain does automatically, pretty much like biking.
But nowadays, to stop quickly in an emergency, shouldn't you simply stomp as hard as you can on the brake while still remembering to stear? Or do you find that people don't even know that?
Do you use the paddle shifters. Ever?
I have one of those triptronic things thinking I can always get manual control when I want and I don't think I used it even once
I use it it mountains, much the same way I downshift an old automatic. Mine still down shifts when I'm in manual mode with the pardles, which is kinda annoying.
In Europe, the manual/automatic situation is quite the opposite of that in the USA. Here all standard, cheap cars are manual, and only the expensive luxury cars have automatic transmissions. (At least in the Netherlands) driving lessons/tests must done in manual cars, unless you have some medical reason not to (then you'll also get a note on your license, prohibiting you from driving manual cars).
Automatic transmissions are therefore regarded as either boring, or for people who do not have the skills to drive a manual.
I drive a car with an automatic transmission and people always ask me why I'd drive a 'boring' car. Then I explain it is actually 'sporty' because it has paddle shifters (which I never use), and suddenly it becomes acceptable again.
I believe the main issue in Europe was due to torque converters being inefficient. With expensive gas and small engines, the performance hit is non-negligible. Nowadays you can get good robotized gearboxes that have almost none of the disadvantages, except for a slightly higher price. And given that most people drive manuals in an idiotic way, they can easily be more fuel efficient.
Yep, this was always the main argument against them when I was growing up.
Some of the older automatics were also hilariously bad, with clunky gear changes and noticeably long delay on kick down. Perhaps American drivers were more tolerant of this because they drive such long distances, so a relaxing drive was more important than an engaging one.
American automatic transmissions were historically much better than European ones. GM automatic transmission were used everywhere for a long time. I had a 2000 BMW 328Ci with a GM transmission.
Nowadays the ZF automatic transmission from Germany is one of the best around. Thankfully my Grand Cherokee has an 8 speed ZF instead of an unreliable Chrysler 5-speed.
I never owned a car and I don't ever plan on buying one new, but 6% doesn't seem that high given the added comfort.
Also I quickly checked, it seems that if you're willing to buy from dealerships' inventory, the sticker price is a moot point. Let's say you want a Golf 1.5 TSI (which is probably the most popular compact car over here in Switzerland), I find 14 of them with a manual transmission, and 96 with a DSG, and it seems trivial to find the exact same model for a similar price, or even cheaper.
"Nowadays you can get good robotized gearboxes that have almost none of the disadvantages, except for a slightly higher price."
1. These automatic transmissions are still the weak spot on most vechicles.
2. They still use clutch bands that wear. The trannies are anything but simple. Most mechanics farm out rebuilding a tranny. I would recon that a malfunctioning automatic transmission us the number one cause of junked vechicles, besides wrecked vechicles.
3. It's straight forward weekend job to replace a clutch.
4. We all know modern engines can put close to 300,000 miles on them. Manufacturers know it. There's a reason they only give 70-100k on the tranny.
5. A modern automatic transmission is not a simple fix. Even AMCO guys are learning on your dime (notice they won't just give a price for a complete rebuild over the phone? AMCO in San Rafael, CA. Yea, I remember you slick.)
6. When checking a used vechicle, check that tranny fluid. It should be pink as a baby's butt. (Even then--there's no guarantee. The seller could have just changed the fluid. It shouldn't be black, brown, or smell burnt.
7. Sorry about my tirate on automatic transmissions. I've been to Automotive school, and worked as a mechanic for two years. The Automatic Transmission always intimided me.
If anyone could come up with clutch bands that don't wear, well let's say, you could dine with the 1 percenters? Tyat that be hell though?
I think you might be getting downvoted for using an abbreviation for 'transmission' that also happens to be a homonym for a slur against transgender people. You've written a good, informative comment drawing on your specialist expertise, so it seems a shame to have it lose visibility. You might consider editing to change the word that could be upsetting some people.
To be upset you would have to take it out of the context its presented in, at which point its out of context. Seems like people are trying to be upset, shame on them.
In electronics/electrician-speak, "tranny" is also commonly used to refer to transformers, but I'd never confuse that meaning with the automotive one nor the gender one given the context.
I don't think older automatics are hard to work on (50s-70s era), but I agree that the modern electronic ones are horribly complex.
I agree that all cheap cars in the Netherlands are manual. Especially the under 10.000 euro small kind of car like a Hyundai i10, small Kia or similar.
But over the last few years the automatic has increased dramatically in popularity with the more serious brands like BMW and Audi. Not just in their top models, BMW has been selling an 8 speed automatic as standard even on the 1-series.
A big part of that is because modern automatic gearboxes are not slow and boring anymore. The dual-clutch type really made sales increase. And so does the increase in hybrid and electric cars which are very popular due to tax reasons and all of them are automatic.
The driving test is a choice. You don't need a medical reason, you can choose to do the test in an automatic (or hybrid / electric) car if you want to. But almost nobody does that, because you are indeed not allowed to drive a manual car after doing the test in an automatic.
In the UK you don't need a medical reason, you can simply choose to take an automatic test. But then of course you can only drive automatic cars, just like in the Netherlands.
Ironically I believe an American who has never driven a manual would be able to come here and rent one, because (please correct me if I'm wrong) their licences don't distinguish between the two.
I think manuals are slowly on the way out here as well, although they'll persist for a long time on cheaper cars, and a few sportier cars.
A friend's new (automatic) Audi has both faster 0-60 and higher MPG (and lower CO2 output) than the manual equivalent, so manual gearboxes are becoming more difficult to justify, even for petrolheads.
It's the same in Sweden as well. You can simply choose to do your driving exam with an automatic, but then you are not allowed to drive with a manual transmission.
Also, a year or two ago was the first year where half the new cars sold were automatic. The first time I ever tried driving an automatic was actually when first driving my own car; we bought our car just before I got my license, so I couldn't test drive it then but I could drive it home when it was delivered. I quickly decided that I would not ever be getting a car with manual transmission.
This is especially funny to me since I'm working on Need for Speed which is all about car culture, where people have a lot of passion for driving stick.
Manual transmissions could offer 2 advantages today:
1) They are most likely cheaper and lighter than automatics. They make more sense in cheap small cars. So if cost is an issue you may opt for this.
2) They could be more fun, depending on the car they're on. There are people who genuinely enjoy being engaged while taking a drive for fun. The more disconnected you get and the more stuff is done for you, the more it feels like you're a passenger instead of the driver. It's not just about getting better mileage, or better acceleration. The manual can be part of the fun.
For almost all other purposes an automatic transmission is the comfortable, efficient choice.
This being said, automatic transmissions can still be infuriating in some corner cases where they just can't pick the right gear. As long as there's a way to shift manually that shouldn't be a problem.
There are people who genuinely enjoy being engaged while taking a drive for fun. The more disconnected you get and the more stuff is done for you, the more it feels like you're a passenger instead of the driver.
As someone who drives both automatic and manual cars, and rides (manual) motorcycles, I take umbrage with this sentiment. It regularly gets trotted out in these types of discussions and is used as a way to dismiss anyone with a different view.
If you don't feel engaged while driving an automatic, the problem is with you, not the transmission. You may find manual shifting gratifying or fun, but if you need that to feel engaged then you need to stop and think about what your mind is doing while driving.
> is used as a way to dismiss anyone with a different view
I'm sorry but being offended that some people might like something different than what you like is not complimenting you at all. You complain about others dismissing your point of view while you're dismissing their point of view. And you completely ignore the fact that I didn't state it as a universal truth. It's even highlighted: "could be more fun". Your argument revolves around "I don't understand it or like it so it must be wrong". Under no circumstance do I have to like the same things as you to be right. When talking about my tastes I am always right. No exception. If you don't feel like this applies to you then it just means you're not in the target group for my statement.
The rest of your comment is just insulting which doesn't help you make a point or even make you sound like a reasonable person.
I don't enjoy riding a motorcycle but you don't see me offended by the fact that you do. Maybe you feel engaged snoozing in the train. Don't hate the people whose minds like more. And don't contradict or insult them about what they want or like. Makes you look petty and insecure. If you need validation for your tastes this is definitely not the way to go about it.
> Also could I go to a developing country, get a licence there, then it is valid in the UK and America?
Depends on the country you get the license from. https://www.gov.uk/exchange-foreign-driving-licence has a simple click through questionaire that implies your 3rd world license would be valid for 12 months. Looks like you can also get an IDP [0] which will be recognised in most places in the world, but again only valid for 12 months.
The US doesn't care if you took the test using a manual or automatic, so that restriction wouldn't be recognized. You'd get a ticket (or whatever the appropriate action is for the offense) for whatever reason the cop pulled you over.
I am probably using the wrong terminology. I guess there are reciprocal agreements between countries to recognise each others driving licences. I'm not sure whether that counts as international law.
"What if I have an Automatic Driving Licence (UK) and I go to America and rent a Stick Shift then the Police pull me over?"
First off, you would have to find a rental manual transmission. I don't know if I have ever seen a manual in all the times I have rented here in the U.S.
The police will not care about that status on your license. They probably will not notice it.
In India & Middle East too, if you take driving test in Manual, you can drive both Manual & Automatic. If the licence says Automatic, it is Automatic only.
Same with prices, repairs; Auto are expensive than Manual.
Sort of fits in to the more general point that we Europeans mostly drove smaller, cheaper cars with fewer luxuries.
The basic model, no frills European car still comes (here in Ireland) with manual transmission, manual windows (at least in the back), no Aircon (heater/fan only), no cruise control...
Since there are a lot of these, it's what people are used to, and they keep driving manuals.
Idk if Americans have ever really bought many nissan micra-esque cars.
i doubt the automatic transmission itself cost 4700€, most likely combined with most luxurious equipment
and dacia it's not good example, they produced budget cars and their prices for standard features of other brands are extreme, for 14000€ you would be insane to buy sandero
Here in the Netherlands I see most people going automatic when the are often in traffic jams and their knees start to complain from constantly having to push the clutch.
I love driving stick, but I have no illusions that I make better decisions about what gear to be in when than good automatics/CVTs, and I know I'm not saving gas the way I drive. Now, many automatics still bother me or even feel dangerous with their sluggishness, but there are great ones out there that I am happy to drive.
But the American market is definitely to the point now where it makes total sense to just eliminate the option for a stick shift. Not enough people can drive it, and so few adults have them that their kids aren't learning either. It's to the point that it's actually difficult to find a good quality new car with a stick shift.
And then that in turn means you can't trust your car to anyone else. Valet parking is downright dangerous. My wife's car had its clutch literally melted by an incompetent valet driver, and the car was barely driveable when we got it back. We managed to limp to the dealer, and we got our insurance to pay, but it was a hassle. I'm not sure it's worth the risk if you are in a situation where you need to ever hand over your car to someone else. I will not be using valet parking anymore, that's for sure.
Learning to drive stick is still a useful skill if you want to operate heavy trucks or ride motorcycles, neither of which tend to have an automatic transmission. It’s not an option that I would want to go away.
Also, I might have used valet parking once in my life. Handing my car over to someone who can’t drive stick is something I’m willing to live without—especially when you remember that many car thieves can’t drive stick, either ;)
Most big trucks and farm equipment are automatic now (source: family of truckers and farmers). The takeover was quite recent but I don't know any truck companies buying manuals these days other than owner-drivers who are enthusiasts about their trucks too (eg the type to modify and do them up).
I'm a massive car nut, I've owned and (amateur-)raced dozens of cars over the last 20 years and always went manual, but a couple years ago I switched to auto due to a bad leg and honestly, if my leg miraculously got better, I'd stay with an auto. Modern automatics are amazing. They shift faster than I ever could, and performance autos can still engine-brake into corners etc. I'm very much a convert for pure performance reasons as well as easy/comfort reasons.
I don't want manuals to go away though, and I don't think they will. There's lots of car manufacturers that still cater to small niche groups because these days with populations the size they are, a small niche group is still enough people to profit off. I think we'll still see performance cars and motorcycles with manuals for many years to come, but all mainstream/bulk cars will be auto only.
Indeed, even at the level of mundane passenger cars, I think automatics have gotten a lot better. My first car was a 1975 Dodge with 3-speed automatic. You kind of had to "play" it, in order to make it shift at the right time, e.g., for passing.
My family now has a Toyota minivan. The transmission shifts smoothly and intelligently, and downshifting with the gear selector when descending in the mountains seems to be no problem.
Even better, we rented a big passenger van this summer in Europe, and its transmission seemed to "know" when we were on a descent, and downshifted accordingly. It was pretty cool.
>Learning to drive stick is still a useful skill if you want to operate heavy trucks or ride motorcycles, neither of which tend to have an automatic transmission.
Learning how to shift gears is a small ammount of learning
needed to drive those kinds of vehicles so once you decide to learn them you can just learn how to switch gears.
I learned how to drive 600 motorcycle before I ever drove a car, took me 1 hour to figure out gear shifting (well start/stop/second gear at least), learned uphill starts the next day. After 3-4 hours of driving I stopped stalling the bike. Took me 20-40 hours to get good balance and double that to become comfortable enough in traffic.
It's also useful if you want to drive in almost any other part of the world. the entire traffic light system in most of europe (my only anecdotal example) is designed to show you the pre-green yellow to get ready for the green
I agree. I would content another point that might be contentious... I don't know the best way to say this, but I really do not like the idea of not being the authority, and not having mechanical control, over my vehicle. You may or may not be concerned by Michael Hasting's-incidents, but that isn't even necessary. In modern cars, any malicious or incompetent third-party can kill you. But either way, I really don't want authorities to have more opportunity to abuse their powers against political dissidents, whistleblowers, or even just ex-girlfriends or business partners anyways. That sort of thing happens in America even if mainstream media didn't tell you that.[2][3] In my opinion it's incredibly naive to believe this won't happen.
>> Valet parking is downright dangerous. My wife's car had its clutch literally melted by an incompetent valet driver, and the car was barely driveable when we got it back.
As someone who will only ever own manual transmissions, that's terrifying. Over the years I've had a handful of occasions where "mandatory valet" has been presented to me. I always refuse. Most of the time, I've been allowed to park my own car and bring my keys with me. If they refuse to allow me to do so, I find my own parking elsewhere. Only once have I had to actually abandon an event due to my stubbornness to hand my car over to a stranger working minimum wage.
To be fair, most of those "strangers working minimum wage" have been doing the job a while, and are more experienced with driving all kinds of vehicles than you or I would ever be. I worked A/V in a hotel for years, and being a car nut, I hung with the valets during breaks to chat cars, and a lot of those guys are in the job because they love cars and want to drive as many different ones as they can.
Yes there's always the chance of a valet who hasn't got a clue, but there's a chance of that in any job you've ever had contact with. We're just very attached to our cars (rightly so, mine is my prized possession!) so we're suitably and rightly nervous when handing them over. I'll do valet parking, but my car has a valet mode that limits the horsepower and is an auto so I don't have to worry about fried clutches anymore.
I have still not found a decent automatic transmission for mountain driving, off-road or on. The manual override makes it do-able but it's a jerky ride because you can't use the clutch to ease downshifting. All these years and most transmissions still want to race when you let off the brake. My Wrangler is better about it, but it's just not something the automatic transmission is really designed for.
My issue with automatic transmissions is that while they may be able to predict optimal settings in specific conditions, they cannot understand the overall conditions of traffic and operate accordingly.
An example is bumper to bumper traffic moving at high speed. Traffic may momentarily slow down abruptly, then pick up again. All automatic transmissions I have driven react the same when I release the gas, and then press it again as traffic speeds back up. They either stay in high gear, so the torque is not immediately available when traffic speeds up, or worse, they take a few seconds to downshift and then lunge forward.
With a standard transmission, I can put the car in neutral when I see brake lights ahead, slow down with the brakes if necessary, and when traffic starts moving faster, I drop into the appropriate gear for the speed I'm at and the torque I need.
You really shouldn't put the car in neutral if you're approaching upcoming traffic as you aren't in full control of the vehicle if you suddenly need power to get out of a developing situation.
You're also not getting the advantages of engine braking especially as most modern cars won't be pumping fuel to the engine if there is no load, instead your car is just idling in neutral.
There's little argument for manual transmission anymore except in larger vehicles. There used to be an efficiency gap, in that a good manual driver was more efficient than an automatic.
But two things have happened since then, we have computer controlled transmissions and CVTs.
Manual drivers were more efficient because they learned when the vehicle would need to shift, and shifted preemptively. A computer controlled automatic can also be aware of when to shift, and shift early, but much more precisely (since it isn't based on engine noise/judder, it is based on direct electrical feedback).
CVTs are more efficient yet again because you now have "infinite gears" and they're computer controlled.
I'd happily drive a CVT until the day I die, and I learned on a manual. The only thing I wish is that they had better "off the line" response (e.g. stopped at a light).
I think the most compelling argument surely, is that it's just more fun. You actually feel like you're driving, it makes it more of an active experience.
Recently sold a manual car I owned for about 12 years, upgraded to a newer car which is automatic (only because there was no option for manual). Man, I miss driving a manual!
Its absolutely more fun, and that's a pretty compelling argument.
And another one is I tell the car what I want to do. Sure it can try to figure it out, but it will never know exactly what I want to do. I can do something quicker than an automatic will know. For example, I'll know I need to be in a lower gear because I'm about to floor it. An automatic can't know that.
Both my cars are stick shifts, and I prefer them for both these reasons (because it's more fun and because you always control what gear you're in). That said, the better modern automatics (at least in sports cars) have true manual modes that will also let you be in complete control of the gear. (Including not automatically up-shifting at redline when in sport/track mode, which is a near necessity on some tracks, where an unwanted upshift will lose you significant time compared to riding the limiter for a few tenths.) So when the comparison is between a good, sporty automatic and a manual, the fun factor is really the only point for the manual. (Still a good point though!)
Maybe I'll try it in real life someday, but I've tried manual in some sim games (Richard Burns Rally and Assetto Corsa, racing wheel/pedals + oculus setup) and it wasn't more fun, it was just a distracting chore. And that's not even having to use a clutch pedal, which would make it even worse.
As another poster noted, racing simulators will never be able to do anything close to replicating the experience of driving a manual. In an actual car, there's a constant physical feedback throughout the entire vehicle, from the vibration of the pedal to the sound of the engine to the acceleration from releasing the clutch, none of which can be effectively simulated. It's easy to tell you're much more directly connected to the road and in control of your vehicle in a manual than you would be in an automatic, where you have an impressive, but imperfect, software intermediary attempting to translate your actions into vehicular control.
I don't see any reason any of those couldn't be simulated. The sound of the engine and acceleration properties are already well-simulated and I'm pretty sure more expensive setups can do the vibration. All this plus a VR headset and the only thing missing is the g-forces.
I enjoy driving a manual because of how it feels to change gears. I don't think a racing Sim will ever be able to capture that feeling because you are only moving a joystick, not forcing a complex machine to change gears.
Doing it in a video game is nothing like in real life, where the car is shuddering and responding to your movements. No game captures it well at all, even the Gran Turismos and Assetto Corsas of the world.
It seems you fully consider cars to be an appliance.
Today, manual cars aren't about efficiency. Manuals are about driver engagement and the feeling of connectedness with the car and with the road. You can think. of it as more of a luxury than a necessity, and that is still a very valid argument for manual transmissions in road cars, especially those designed to be driver's cars.
And those should get an automatic. The person you're replying to was saying that people who actually enjoy the act of driving usually go for manuals because they're just so much more fun.
I've tried lots of autos and CVTs and still haven't found one that isn't terribly confused about what gearing I want. The worst is when you floor it and it thinks for two seconds before actually downshifting, it can be outright dangerous. And if you're in a powerful car an unexpected upshift that shifts the weight around in bizarre ways, cuts power, and kicks the traction control into overdrive while cornering is a pretty terrifying experience as well.
Some of the paddle shifters seem decent but I often like to change up where I grip the wheel on track days and on sharp turns in mountain driving, so I often can't choose my gearing at all with them.
I can see the appeal of the autos in high traffic tedious commuting situations where you're in some underpowered econobox, which is zero percent of my driving, so I'm sticking with a manual as long as I can keep finding them.
I used to think the same way. But, Mercedes have auto boxes absolutely nailed - and I say this as a car enthusiast from the UK, where most cars are still manual, and almost every car I've owned has been manual. My last car was an E350, and the transmission was amazingly good - every time I would have shifted, the car did it for me. I've a BMW now, and the gearbox is good... but it doesn't quite have the 6th sense that Mercedes have figured out.
I have an E350 and the transmission is very good. I do think you need to make the effort to learn how your transmission responds, no different to a manual really.
And for extra whizz while overtaking use the paddles to preempt the move by changing down a gear or two - exactly as I would in a manual.
I say this having owned numerous manual cars, including BMWs, gen 1 and gen 2 Minis and a ‘74 TR6.
Mind you it didn’t like driving over the Sierra Nevada last week. 9000 ft. saps a lot of power on a normally aspirated engine and it unbalanced the engine and transmission.
I have not driven any Mercedes in a looong time, I'll have to try that. I also live at 8000 feet and regularly drive up to 10000 feet so that might be part of why every transmission seems horribly confused. Some car makers don't seem to test for thin air at all.
Can you elaborate on this? I understand that engine combustion is affected, but how does that impact the transmission? Is the torque curve skewed? Are ambient air changes not compsensated by the O2 sensor? Or does the transmission oil change in viscosity or something?
I don't know the details about how different engines detect air flow and oxygen (and I doubt anyone outside of a few dozen engineers who work at the companies do) but some of the auto transmissions seem to randomly upshift and downshift for no discernable reason, even when not applying throttle at all.
Some brands are just known to throw sensor and airflow codes by mechanics up here, like Kia & GM, while others compensate fine, like VW & Subaru. I don't know how the engine software talks to the transmission software so it's hard to say how related they are.
I've been very happy with the Audi DSG. Absolutely no complaints. Though when I need to pass on a narrow road sometimes I use the paddle to downshift before I hit the gas just to save the car from the split second it takes to realize I'm serious about accelerating (when not in sport mode). But that's not a big difference in actual acceleration time.
I've had the same experience on my Audi 8-speed. When I want spirited driving, sport mode will tend to just be in the gear I want. Responsiveness in my car centers around turbo lag, not gear shifting.
I like the automatic cars that allow you to choose your gear using the stick. I have a 2010 Impreza, which has the god-awful 4EAT, but you can avoid a lot of the issues if you just downshift manually when you'd like to.
You know why automatics are sealed these days? They don't expect them to need service. Here in the U. S., I actually had to call around to find someone that would do a clutch. When I was a Firestone mechanic lo those twenty some years ago, we'd drop a tranny and throw clutch plates in all the time (book time paid more time than it took me to do it). Neither of the local Firestones would touch it when I called.
Point is, automatics are pretty sturdy these days, and there are fewer shops in the U. S. that will work on manuals anymore.
Most modern DCTs are wet clutch which should last more or less forever. Ford/Volvo's dry clutch DCTs probably still require regular clutch plate replacements. Torque converters pretty much last forever on infrequent fluid changes or the whole unit fails.
Ford's dry clutch DCT (used only in the Focus and Fiesta, all of the other Ford/Volvo models are wet clutch) is total junk and you're lucky if the clutch lasts more than 30k miles. They lost a class action lawsuit over it.
A lot depends on the transmission. In BMW land you can take apart the automatics and often get parts for them. The manuals rated higher for higher power (e.g. the Getrag 420G) you may be able to take it apart (even then you'll want specialized jigs), and you may be able to put it back together (with a monstrous press), but you still won't be able to find new parts for it.
Meanwhile you can take the automatics apart in your garage with few-to-no specialized tools.
They may be, but probably not enough so to offset what having a manual transmission does to the resale value of your car in the USA.
I'd be willing to go with a manual on a used car that I am paying cash for, but, if you buy a new manual and need to finance it, you'll likely be upside down on your loan for an uncomfortably long time.
I've heard part of the reason automatics caught on more in America is because Americans had more relative buying power, so manuals being a little bit cheaper wasn't a big deal. Same for better dryers, bigger houses, bigger cars.
Probably it's just the people writing here.
The hip generation that doesn't even need/have a car.
The uber callers where some low wage person does the driving for you.
Those who consider it some "man hobby from the last century".
It's funny how reasonable arguments drown with it too. This is the moment where you hear that American visitor in Europe abusing a rental car or not even getting one because he/she has no license for stick shift.
The up side is: with every year the theft protection aspects becomes more relevant ;)
There's no separate American license for standard shift. You can take your license exam in an automatic, then the next day go out and legally drive a manual car on the road.
But there is here in Germany.
I only learned about it because almost all of our US colleagues have it. Making them a pain in the ass on so many occasions.
Oh, if they've actually been licensed in Germany then it's a different story, I suppose. Very few countries will issue an unrestricted license if you test in an auto but the US will. When I first bought a six-speed Mazda I had only practiced driving manual for a weekend.
Well, the argument for it is the same as the argument for buying a turbo-charged car or a pickup that never hauls anything or whatever else people buy that isn't truly "necessary:" some people enjoy driving it.
I am not sure how in US but here in Czechia manual cars are considerably cheaper than automatic cars. I think many people drive manual for economic reasons.
That's partly a thing of volumes: the models that sell a lot go cheaper than models that need to be ordered specially for specific wishes. So, in the US, everyone assumes automatic and manual gearbox isn't any cheaper. In many European countries, manual shift is the norm and you paid a lot of extra for the rare luxury model with a weird transmission that eats a lot of fuel.
Nowadays, with DSG and other dual-clutch transmissions, the automatics have become more common also in Europe. I think my next car should be a Škoda Octavia with a diesel engine and DSG automatic.
Manual is still usually about $1000 less in cars where it's an option. Probably for this reason, economy cars are more likely to offer it than fancier ones.
I would think this pricing is more based on a commercial positioning decision than actual economics - the manual is cheapest, and it maybe has less options for other fancy accessories, so that there is a very cheap "prices begin at" option which few people actually want. The margins may be even smaller there because of the extra cost of specific models, but it makes sense to have these available because then the volume models can have a slightly higher sales price.
Previous articles I read on the topic said the majority of standard transmissions sold were in economy cars. If you're stretching to buy a new car $1000 counts.
They are rare in larger vehicles as well. Only Ram still makes a manual for their deisel heavy duty, and they detune the engine by 200 ft/lbs of torque. Automatics HD trucks do not disengage/spool down the turbo when shifting, which is important when you are pulling large loads up a hill.
I like that manual transmission cars can actually be started without any battery power (by getting them up to speed by pushing or downhill). I need that option far more often than I would like in my life.
That bums me out, but I get it. My first non hand-me-down car was a beat-up Audi A4 (manual) off craigslist that I loved for years and years as a ski bum. I am definitely one of the many "manual transmissions are more fun" people. But once I got that office job, even 15 minutes a day in city traffic with a manual angered me, so I transitioned to an automatic. Now that I am out of the city I would love a manual again, but when most people live in big cities with traffic issues, and drive to and from work every day, it makes sense that manuals are not that popular in the states.
I found that having a stick in traffic was actually easier for me. I could keep it in one gear which meant not moving my foot from brake to gas (I could just use engine breaking and use just the gas).
This is dangerous, as you aren't signaling people behind you if you are braking...
Edit: I would likely soften the "dangerous" wording above. I'm not trying to claim this is guaranteed to get you killed. Just pointing out that bypassing a well established signaling mechanism of your vehicle should be a deliberate act. Not one of convenience.
Not really; it's pretty much impossible to stop suddenly via engine braking alone in a stick shift without forcing the transmission into a much lower gear (fourth to second or first, for example) and engaging the clutch, which will damage the drivetrain if done more than a few times. Engine braking, if done correctly, is a gradual slowdown with the ability to immediately accelerate again, all without wearing on your brakes, and once it's learned it becomes a natural part of driving a manual. If someone is following you close enough to hit you while you gradually slow down, tail lights or not, that's their fault for tailgating.
That said, engine braking isn't appropriate in all situations; I personally wouldn't do it in heavy stop-and-go traffic, but for highway and around-town driving it's perfectly safe. I definitely wouldn't do it with a tailgater behind me, just out of common sense.
Your last sentence pretty much puts us in agreement. I will add an edit that says I am not trying to say never consider engine braking. Just realize that cars can get behind you quite quickly without you realizing it, and not signaling that you are stopping is dangerous.
I have the same problem on my bike. I don't always signal when I'm about to stop at a corner, and have had folks near hit me for it. (Granted, if you are stopping on a bike, it is literally harder to signal that you are stopping. Point stands that if I could, it would be safer.)
> Just realize that cars can get behind you quite quickly without you realizing it, and not signaling that you are stopping is dangerous.
One can always use hand signals too; that was something I was taught when I first learned to drive. Open hand out the window pointed up for a right turn, pointed straight for a left turn, and pointed down at the ground for slowing/stopping.
Of course that was 25 years ago; I wonder if hand signals are even still taught in driving schools.
I'm a biker, so hand signaling is most of what I do. Though, much easier said than done. And, most people in cars are highly focused on key features. The brake light in front of them being one of them.
Engine braking is a pretty gradual deceleration - if the car behind you doesn't notice that you're slowing down in the ~30 seconds it takes to close a safe distance with a car that's gradually slowing down, you got bigger problems. For that matter, automatics do it too. Take your foot off the gas in an automatic and wind/rolling resistance will eventually slow you down too.
I find that the fuel economy savings from engine breaking are largely a matter of incentives. You can drive the same way in an automatic, and you will get nearly the same fuel economy savings. You're just not incentivized to do so, since the break/gas dance is much easier in an automatic and you don't have the cognitive feedback of needing to shift gears each time you accelerate or decelerate.
Most people I know that refer to engine braking have always meant something faster than an automatic would do. Unless you are talking about letting of the gas and downshifting in an automatic.
Is it guaranteed to get you in a wreck? Not at all. But, I would be surprised if people weren't more keyed to the "red light" in front of them than you are letting on.
This implies I was giving less blame to those folks. I'm not taking away any responsibility from anyone for dangerous behavior. However, especially with how highly visible lights are on modern vehicles, it is silly to not realize any situation that at all inhibits visibility will benefit from extra signaling.
As I said down thread, I think I can logically and in full conscious support both of those statements. :)
So, yes, folks that are being negligent deserve the blame in wrecks they cause. However, signaling benefits everyone. Including folks driving in fog/rain/night/whatever.
That can happen with a automatic transmission as well. You should not rely on the "brake lights" to realize that the car in front of you is slowing down or stopped.
In particular, I agree with both points that "you should signal folks behind you that you are slowing down" and "you should pay attention to how fast the car in front of you is going." Neither point diminishes the other.
>This is dangerous, as you aren't signaling people behind you if you are braking...
Engine braking results in a slow drop in speed. If the car behind you cannot handle a slow speed decline, he is the problem, and is driving too close to you.
Most good instructors teach students to try to slow down as much as possible just by getting your foot off the accelerator (not with engine braking, and not with real brakes).
As in don't wait till you are near the stop light to apply the brakes - just get your foot off the gas much earlier, and apply the brakes when you have to. In real terms, when driving at 45mph, I usually don't need to apply the brakes until I'm at 35 or 30mph. Puts less load on the brakes, and is supposed to be safer - you are easing into a lower speed as opposed to doing it suddenly.
The people behind you will not see a brake light, but will still slow down behind you. If they hit you, they are driving poorly.
As I said up thread, there is usually a big difference in what folks refer to as engine braking and coasting a bit. In particular, my stick shift will slow dramatically faster when I engine brake in first/second compared to what will happen in any automatic I've ever driven. (In particular, it is entirely possible for me to completely engine brake to a stop sign. That is considerably more than just coasting to a stop.)
Also as I said, though, I should have been a bit softer there. I'm not saying it will get you in trouble guaranteed. But, just as I agree it is more dangerous to ride a bike without a helmet, I recommend against not signaling folks behind you that you are stopping.
And, also as I mentioned up thread. If someone hits you because they didn't see you stopping, yes, it is their fault. I don't exactly care who is at fault in many ways, if I'm hit. I'd just as soon not get hit. :)
Coasting in first is a rarity. Requires a really big downshift (with intense rev matching - older cars with less of a 1st synchro left will even require double clutching) or you to be in high rpms to start
Engine breaking just means slowing down by letting the foot off the gas. You aren't really slowing down that quickly. Someone has to really not be paying attention to miss it. It would be the equivalent of someone merging.
I agree, but you actually can slow down relatively quickly at stop-and-go speeds if you have some RPM on a big V8 and you take your foot off the gas. Certainly I try to remember that, because I tend to avoid using the brake pedal except when strictly necessary. I've seen some people behind me act kinda surprised that I can slow down without activating the lights. Yes they should be watching my car, not my lights, but this is the real world.
Yep, one of my favorite ways to mess with tailgaters was to drop a gear or two and drop the clutch. *of course not recommending anyone ever do this since it's dangerous as hell.
Idea: have the brakes come on when the car decelerates independent of whether or not the brakes are engaged. Simple a sensor that detects deceleration in excess of 'X' Gs will enable the brake lights.
In my experience, places where engine braking is prohibited tend to be with the intent to reduce engine braking by tractor trailers or other large apparatuses, which can be very loud. In much of the U.S, posted signage prohibits "Jake braking" which specifically targets tractor trailers and other large trucks. [0]
I will chime into that, though, that they are prohibiting large trucks from doing it. They don't care about cars doing it. (The wikipedia page explains the difference and why some places prohibit trucks from doing it.)
Edit: That said, I fully agree that most times I hear folks talk of engine braking, they mean shifting down to slow somewhat faster than just coasting.
Engine braking is prohibited due noise from large diesels using compression brakes aka "jake brakes" - specialised engine braking hardware. They make engine braking much more effective, so that trucks can slow down more without heating the regular brakes as much, but they can be loud.
The parent is essentially right; engine braking is using the engine to slow the vehicle down.
I've wondered how this is issue is addressed in EVs that offer one-pedal driving. Do they show the brake lights when deceleration exceeds a certain rate?
Similarly, when I'm braking very lightly in my plugin-in hybrid in order to charge the battery all the way down a long hill, I wish there were a way to not have the brake lights activated the whole time. It's only barely slowing me down, and I've driven other cars that decelerated more going down the same hill just due to wind drag and rolling resistance.
Since engine braking is an extremely common way for motorcycles to reduce speed, there are any number of aftermarket products that are essentially an accelerometer inline with the brake light, which will turn on or flash the brake light when sudden deceleration is detected.
I can see no reason why this wouldn’t work equally well for cars.
I was curious on this, so quickly checked a search. Some quora answers indicated it is a matter of regulation. General feel I got was it was expected to change with newer vehicles, but inertia in the current way things are certified will be a barrier.
I'm curious why you care about the brake lights being on if you are actually braking. Even only slightly.
Though, to directly answer your question, I don't know how cars that only have a single pedal work with this. Embarrassingly, I didn't realize those existed, so would be as interested as you in the answer.
It's not that the cars have one pedal, it's that you can get by with one pedal as lifting off the accelerator will induce the regenerative braking and slow the car down. On the Tesla at least this is an optional feature since it can be jarring to people who haven't used it.
I did, but as long as traffic doesn't come to a complete stop it wasn't often necessary. Also, that's the other foot, so it doesn't have to move either. :)
I learned to drive in a manual. Now that my son is getting close to driving age, I wanted to teach him in a manual first, like I learned - and then I found out it's damned near impossible to _find_ one any more.
I find people who learned how to drive manual to be better drivers - they tend to think ahead which is understandable. One does not really want to shift just to jump ahead of one car to see that there's nowhere to go. It is too bad that fewer and fewer people have this skill.
I hypothesize that outlawing the automatic transmission would have an amazing effect on traffic. If everybody is driving a manual then there will be more foresight; and at the least you're probably reducing the driving pool by 10%
It definitely makes you look a little farther ahead to plan your moves so you don't have to constantly keep working the clutch to move forward another couple feet like folks with automatics do.
Same. I bought a Tacoma a couple of years ago, and while there was technically a manual option available, nobody actually had one, or could tell me when I could get one.
We have a 2012 Manual V6 Tacoma; it was what sold me on it as its getting rare to find them. The dealer told me since Generation 2 only 5% of Tacomas (1 in 20) are manual.
I confess I gained a ton of respect for Klik & Klack was when they gave the advice to not teach kids on a stick shift.
This is akin to teaching a kid to ride a 21 speed bike. They can probably get up to that rather quickly, all told, but just learning the basics of balance and pedaling will already be difficult enough.
Similarly, just learning the basics of the car will already be tough. Why add to it? Why not take away power steering? Because it would make it harder.
I'm not sure it's really that big a deal. My dad taught me to drive by going out to a lonely national park with a lot of parking lots and letting me figure it out. On an automatic, yes. 20 minutes later he said, okay, good, now drive us home. And I did. Driving isn't that magic. So I will probably teach my kids how to drive our pickup first, and then for laughs we will take my 455 horsepower Camaro out to learn how a manual works. And then they will not be driving it much after, hahahaha...
I think I started learning manual transmissions when I was about 8 years old, riding with my father. He'd pick less busy stretches of road and tell me I had to shift for him, while he operated the clutch. At first, he told me what gear to move to next, then started to just say "shift" and expect me to have figured out we need to upshift or downshift, and eventually he would just warn me I was on duty and then expect me to anticipate and synchronize with his pedal actions without further voice signals.
When I was tall enough, he'd have me move his car around on our long driveway so I learned to feather the clutch for start/stop maneuvers in first gear. By the time I was getting my learner's permit and hitting the road for the first time, I already had the theory and practice for the drive-train and could focus on the more important traffic rules and vigilance.
I still remember his "graduation" test for me, which was taking me on a ride to a nearby very steep hill and parallel parking. Then, he gave me the keys and said very sincerely that I needed to pull out, drive around the neighborhood, return, and park back in the same spot without burning the clutch and without stalling the engine...
Driving is one of those things that most of us probably have no clue how everyone else actually thinks about and does it.
To that end, I just don't know. I expect I will have an issue teaching my children. Biking has already thrown me some curve balls. Nothing insurmountable. But the more you have on the bike, the harder it is for the learner to get it going.
I mean, I hate biking without my shoes that attach to the pedal nowdays. I would not at all attempt to teach my kids on such a bike for a while.
Oh man, I remember how long it took me to learn to ride a bike. Quite a lot longer than driving a car, I'm afraid. Learning that you have to turn one way, fall, and turn the other way is definitely counterintuitive and requires your brain to do some rewiring.
I also hate attaching my feet to the pedals. I do not want to confess that I've hit the ground in a very undignified manner more than once because I couldn't get my feet unclipped in time :(
Falling down is no big deal and expected. Why you should always weara helmet. My favorite is wheni released my left foot, but leaned right. Did that twice.
Nowadays, i feel more stable clipped in.
And i know countersteering is a thing. Don't really process it, though.
As I said ... we will go learn to drive the monster, and then they will not really get many opportunities after that. Show some responsibility and I may let them drive it some more with me in the car, but it will be some time before I trust them to have unlimited access to a high performance car.
Though to be fair, the latest iteration of the stability and traction control is pretty amazing. Short of turning it off, or driving with inappropriate tires for conditions, I can't really get the car out of shape without turning off the nannies. I can hang it out a bit but I could never manage to pull off those beautiful crowd-killing losses of control that Mustangs seem to apt to pull at Cars & Coffee events around the country.
So aside from just driving too fast and making physics an insurmountable issue, they could probably drive it pretty safely if I somehow made it so the nannies could not be disabled.
The latest iterations of stability control have gotten quite good. I can drive my '18 1LE like a jerk, in the rain, on twisty roads and other than the flashing of the warning light it's not really intrusive, it just keeps me from going sideways. Quite remarkable how well they've dialed it in. Once in a while it does kill the fun too abruptly, but mostly it just makes you think the car has vastly more traction than it does.
Agreed. I learned on an automatic at 15 and then "upgraded" on my own to a manual in my 20s because I wanted one. Adding in a manual transmission makes driving non-trivially harder. Just learning the basics of not hitting things, merging, keeping an eye out for traffic, signaling, etc., is hard enough for beginners.
When I was learning to drive my parents taught me in an old early 80's beat up station wagon. It was manual and had no power steering and the worst clutch I've ever used to this day. It took me a long time to learn to drive.
A few years later they sold the car and both my sisters learnt to drive in more modern automatics.
My learning experience was miserable but after learning in that old crappy wagon I can drive just about anything now. Once you have parked a car without power steering any other parking you have to do in a modern car feels like a complete non issue.
That's because the steering wheel gears are different in a car made for manual steering than one made for power steering. The manual steering wheel has quite a bit more leverage.
I drive a manual steered car. It's no problem at all. It's more physical than fingertip control, sure, but I like that. You can feel the road better.
I definitely would not recommend. Manual I think is ok to learn but I'd insist on power steering and modern safety features.
I own a manual currently. One big disadvantage (or possibly an advantage...) is when Friends ask to borrow car you need to ask "Can you drive a manual?" 9/10 times I've found answer is no.
I taught my daughter using a car that had no power steering. But it was a Nissan Micra, so it was still physically possible for her to turn the steering wheel while the car was parked...
And I learned a lot of things without modern tools. Doesn't mean I was better for it. Or that I didn't make more mistakes than I might have, had I been given better tools.
Just look up survivor bias sometime. It is a thing. This is an common refrain of it.
> Why not take away power steering? Because it would make it harder.
What? Have you even driven anything that's not a big truck without power steering (and I don't mean a car with power steering disabled). It's not _that_ big a difference, if at all.
Have you seen a 16 year old try? Many failures are an adding up of a bunch of "not a big difference" differences. Why take that risk?
You would clearly stop short of taking away vision. Why not make people drive with a vehicle that doesn't have a rear window? All told, shouldn't be that big of a deal. That said, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/02/backup-... was a headline story for a reason.
I had a mini for a year or two; one of the little ones that would just about fit inside the back of that BMW thing they call a "mini" now. I could see how it could surprise someone who's learning to drive, or isn't used to a car without power steering - the wheel is substantially harder to turn when the car isn't rolling.
Yea, traffic sucks, and I think traffic is eventually going to push people to adopt cars with dynamic radar cruise control systems (that support stop-and-go traffic / low-speed follow). I have such a car (the Toyota Prius Prime), and driving any other regular car in heavy traffic has become insufferable.
I have one of those too but I find that it's only useful in light traffic. Anything more and it likes to slam on the brakes anytime someone merges into the lane. They still need to work on that software a bit.
BMW's latest rev of this tech (they call it 'active cruise control') has an adjustable sensitivity for brake response. Default setting is very good; it only slams on the brakes if it absolutely has to, otherwise it's a gradual response. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.
I like manuals because they feel better to me. This is totally anecdotal but to me it seems like the stick keeps me more engaged with what's happening with the car so I find I tend to be less distracted. It also occupies a hand so it definitely prevents a lot of phone usage. If this could actually be proved I'd definitely welcome a return to manual transmissions as sometimes I feel like the only person not on their phone in traffic...
We should just revoke drivers licenses for people who can't operate cars responsibly. It's way too easy to get a license and keep one in the US today. We don't even re-test.
Easy to say from the position of thinking you can't lose your license or have the financial means to deal with such a loss.
For a majority of those living in the US the places they live and work have been so fundamentally designed around cars that no alternative form of transit is usable. Busses might run once a day, no sidewalks, no bike lanes amidst 5 layer highways. Even getting out of ones housing development via anything but a car can be challenging if its a fenced in community with winding lane and a half roads parked full of cars.
I'd naturally much prefer more strict licensing and more frequent license revocation - if for no other reason than it would demonstrably save many lives - but only after we solve the car sprawl hellscape that is a majority of settled US territory.
> Easy to say from the position of thinking you can't lose your license or have the financial means to deal with such a loss.
There's a villainous cycle at work here. Car supremacy produces cities in which you need a car, so that attempts to push back on car supremacy can be credibly opposed on the grounds that they hurt the poor and less advantaged, when of course the very opposite thing is true.
the opposite is true in the long run. In the finalized scenario, where public transport is cheap, functional, useful and maintainable, or modern cities have been totally rewritten to support pedestrian first, it makes more sense than cars. But between removing cars today, and the day public transport actually reaches such a state, is long and far, and you fuck the car-less over for the entire duration.
You can't suddenly make getting a license harder without also changing a hundred other things too, if you have any intent to preserve any other lifestyle than one that does not require a car, or is not at risk of losing their license. Such a claim is indeed a self-centered one, if you aren't also arguing for the other things as well, simultaneously.
To suggest it without the even referring to the rest alongside it is to create the image of horror, to anyone who isn't already aligned with your premise. And if you weren't intending that statement for people who didn't already agree with you, then the most you could have accomplished was virtue signaling, and I don't know why you would want to do such a horrible thing
I would argue for all those other things simultaneously. We’ve dug a hole so deep it’s going to take some work to get out of it. And most people alive today grew up in this hole, so they’re like a fish who asks, “what is water?”
They only know the hole. The hole seems like a natural, immutable feature of the world.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Inaction is a form of action, so it's not good enough to oppose a net good on the grounds that the transition will be painful.
If you take cars away from every group equally, then the poor are the least capable of finding an alternative (because they usually cost). In fact, if you take anything from the entire population in equal measure, its bound to affect the poor the most (because they’re the least capable of finding alternatives to the status quo).
So in any such argument, they’d naturally become the front of the topic.
If anyone is going to get fucked by a broad policy, it’s the poor.
You're going to build blanket standards and rules without acknowledging its effects on the population, and the proportion of the effects on different groups within that population?
Without accounting for the migration process to the new standard?
Without trying to minimize damage across the groups?
Addendum:
There is a world that exists, and there is an ideal image of the world. We aren't going to suddenly transfer to the ideal version, but we're perfectly capable of pretending we can in law. Congress is perfectly capable of arbitrarily requiring that all cars today meet 50mpg, and declaring it law. But we do not want to do that, because it would stupid, and shut down industries and cities across the nation.
Regardless of whether this is what our ideal looks like, it's not a suggestion that takes us anywhere near it. When someone goes around advocating for it to people who do not already agree with it, the first question is whats wrong with it? And the first answer inevitably features the poor, because they're the most affected. And the next question is, by how much? And again, the best example is the poor, because they bear the brunt of the negatives.
Everyone else will also eat shit, but they get the most of it, and so they show it off the most, making for the clearest example of what damages a blanket policy might incur.
Where “city” means “not rural.” The vast majority of those are in seas of sparsely packed single family homes separated from the nearest businesses by miles of busy roads, not walkable/urban/transit connected cores.
Consider the Bay Area, population 7 million, with closer to 1 million of those in SF and Oakland. Then consider that the Sunset and Richmond, also basically suburbs, make up a huge chunk of SF’s land.
Outside of the East and West coasts and other high density cities, it is difficult to revoke licenses simply because there's no infrastructure in place as an alternative to driving.
Large parts of the US today there's no public transport, and even no sidewalks(!) in some places. You could ride a bike, but that requires physicality and drivers aren't exactly bike-friendly.
If there was a realistic alternative to driving, you might see it become easier to revoke a driver's license, but until then, it just isn't viable.
I’m not convinced. 80% of Americans live in cities. Certainly some of them do truly need cars but there must be some significant population that can get by without them.
For a sample size of one I don’t actually need one myself.
I don't typically need one myself, but I'm a software dev who lives close enough to downtown bike into work or take a 20 minute bus ride.
But this is a huge exception to what the rest of my life was like. If I lived in the burbs it would be very difficult to manage without a car.
I have to imagine a significant portion of the 80% you cited lives in the suburbs and are 30-60 minutes away from their jobs and 15-30 minutes away from grocery stores.
Then why have driver training at all? As it stands a person could drive for 60 years without ever being instructed in changing rules of the road. This is independent of someone driving their car irresponsibly which should be punished more severely.
I doubt it prevents it, but I think it might lessen it. I remember at one point in my teens seeing someone driving a manual Miata in traffic while putting on makeup, texting and drinking a soda, all in a car famous for not having cup holders. It was pretty impressive...
I'll concede widespread automatic usage here would lead to even more mobile phone usage.
It's common here to see people texting while driving and I don't understand what goes through people's minds to make them think this isn't a crazy thing to do?
> This is totally anecdotal but to me it seems like the stick keeps me more engaged with what's happening with the car so I find I tend to be less distracted.
Doesn't that go against the adage that after a week shifting becomes muscle memory or is there something else?
In Germany one reason might be that basically everyone learns to drive with the stick so it's the normal. To get a drivers license it's mandatory to go to a driving school and drive quite a lot of hours under supervision of an instructor usually using a car belonging to the school. While it's theoretically possible to use an automatic car nobody does that because you then are not allowed to drive a manual one afterwards.
The biggest disadvantage autos still have versus manuals is their larger size and higher parasitic power loss. Americans tend to drive both larger and more powerful cars where the drawbacks of the auto over the manual are pretty much insignificant. Smaller European cars with lower power figures have more difficulty physically fitting the automatic transmission and the power loss from the torque converter is more noticeable.
An automatic transmission and manual transmission actually have very different physical designs.
Manual transmissions typically consist mainly of a locking mechanism that is physically moved with the shifter for gear selection and a clutch plate to couple the transmission to the engine. Typically you have one physical gear for every logical gear, and you're using the shifter to physically connect to the gear you want to use. The clutch plate is a friction material, and you press it against the flywheel (which connects to the engine) for them to stick together; press them together and the engine spins the transmission, pull them apart and you're in neutral.
In your typical automatic transmission, instead of having a physical gear for every logical gear, you have multiple sets of planetary gearsets (typically 3 sets for a 6 speed). Each planetary gearset has its own clutch to allow different parts of the planetary gearset to spin, allowing for multiple different ratios. The computer controls which clutches are applied to make the right ratio for the "gear" you're in. A torque converter is used to connect an automatic transmission to the engine instead of a clutch. Torque converters are two fans facing each other submerged in liquid, when one fan spins, it moves the liquid which spins the other fan.
Planetary gearsets of the auto transmission are typically bigger than simple gears, and the torque convertor with two fans and liquid is significantly bigger than a clutch plate which is just a flat disk.
Now you're thinking, why can't a computer just control the clutch plate movement. Well, BMW tried it with their SMG gearbox. Turns out computers aren't very good at determining how much force to apply to the clutch (which also wears over time) so that the car doesn't jerk or lag, much less figure out whether you wanted aggressive clutch engagement or you wanted the clutch to slip. Compared to letting physics do it's thing in a torque converter, a computer controlling a moving part was also much more complicated and less reliable and less predictable. The computer is already not very good at predicting what gear you want to be in, it was also not good at predicting how direct you wanted your power applied. So it ended up being worst of both worlds, none of the simplicity of a true manual, and none of the smoothness of a typical auto.
Cars are much more expensive in Europe due to taxes and various other reasons. Since manuals are cheaper there's a better chance that there are more manuals in your price range.
Rich European countries are majority automatic transmission on new sales now too. They're lagging behind the US somewhat in absolute numbers but the same transition is happening, just delayed.
Even Finland, with higher car tax than e.g. Germany or Sweden, and on the average older cars than Western Europe, under 30% of new cars are sold with a manual transmission.
I've been driving a manual transmission all my life, and I'm not exactly young. Why do I drive a manual? It makes driving an enjoyable experience rather than a chore. I've even changed my commute to maximize that experience. Rather than inch along the freeway mile after mile I take a state route running alongside a river. Lots of curves and pretty views. Yeah it takes a few minutes longer but my mental health is far better for it. It makes for a great transition between home/work and work/home.
My brother has an R8, Viper, and Vantage (All Manual) and I would rather drive a Tesla over all 3 of them. Manual is fun and you get the feeling of control and I love driving them, but in reality, there is a reason they are on their way out. The main problem is that the replacement, automatic, make driving feel worse. The computers that manage automatic transmissions are so bad that they make automatics feel terrible to drive. EV's have their own problems, but changing gears is not one of them. Right now, my preference is:
Definitely this. I used to think I preferred manuals for the sense of control. When I got a Tesla, I realized what I was really looking for was responsiveness.
I also have an Audi TTS which is automatic but has a "manual" mode. Apparently it can shift faster than a human being, which makes it much quicker to leave it on auto if you're going for a fast 0-60 time. Just stomp on the gas and it'll shift at the optimum moment. But since that's rarely what I actually want to do, I find the auto-shifter too conservative for my taste most of the time and drive it in (no clutch) "manual." But the Tesla is just better: faster off the line, perfectly responsive, never in the wrong gear. I don't miss manual at all when I drive my Model S.
> When I got a Tesla, I realized what I was really looking for was responsiveness.
Yup.
The responsiveness of an EV makes even a Nissan Leaf feel surprisingly zippy.
When I drive my wife's CRV (which has a CVT), it feels bad when I floor it to pass someone and I have to wait for the RPMs to increase before it actually really begins to move. Even in my manual BRZ, it takes me a second to clutch in, give it gas to rev match while moving the shifter, and release the clutch. And I've had times dropping to second where I rev-matched poorly while releasing the clutch too fast, causing a bit of wheel spin, which made the traction control hit the brakes a bit.
Feels bad, man.
Looking forward to getting an EV in about 5 years. Planning on getting a Tesla Roadster if I can afford it. The wife would rather see me settle for a Model S P100D though.
It's only $250k for a "Founders Series" Roadster. The base model Roadster is only (hah..."only") $200k. So far, there haven't been any features announced for the "Founders Series" other than being one of the first 1,000 Roadsters to come off the line.
Not exactly a feature I give a damn about. Hell, by the time I'm ready to buy a Roadster, there will probably be some used ones available that I will pick up.
I have a manual transmission CTS-V and having a manual is a significant performance disadvantage these days. A 10 speed auto transmission will shift much faster than a 6sp manual driven by anyone even a professional, and it has more gears to sit in the sweet spot of motor torque/horsepower. If I buy another fast car it will 100% be an automatic. One thing I like about manual transmissions though is the reliability and maintainability. Problems with automatic transmissions can basically total a higher mileage car.
That is interesting. The one electric motorcycle that I heard of that was super fast was the KillaCycle[1]. I think it only had one gear though and a 0-60 mph of 0.97 seconds. The motorcycle nearly killed it's owner[2].
A DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission) like the Porsche PDK is not remotely comparable to a torque converter based transmission. Yet, both are categorized as "automatic".
And one of those cost approximately my annual salary and the other doesn't.
Telling people automatics are great when you are referencing a type that the majority of people will never have a chance of owning is a classic Hacker News manual-vs-automatic discussion trope.
100% agree. The only fun transmissions are manual or none at all. Automatics -- even the newest ones -- are good for driving minivans in traffic and nothing else, IMHO.
Hybrid cars too - Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, et al - almost all use a dual-motor/generator system with a planetary gearset to allow direct drive. At slow speeds, the engine is basically just to power the first motor/generator, which powers the second one. The transmission shifts power to direct engine by spinning the first motor/generator less, causing physical force to instead be transmitted through the planetary gearset. It's ingenious, and was invented in 1969.
Honda uses a different system where the engine is just a generator until highway speeds, when a wet cluch engages engine to wheels.
Although I've mellowed a lot, what I love about manual transmissions is the ability to instantly ramp torque. It's especially useful for extreme turns. Do EVs have so much torque that it's not necessary?
EV's torque curve is different than a manual. Torque on an EV is instant so it available faster than a manual, but then tapers down (Because the cars are programmed that way). If you had performance manual transmission car, the torque curve keeps going up.
That's what when people drag race a Tesla, the Tesla wins in a quarter mile, but then all of these other high speed automobiles end up catching and passing the Tesla a few seconds afterwards. This video explains it[1].
I get that torque for EVs is ~independent of rpm. But still, there's just one set of gearing, right? So the effective torque at the wheels is also ~independent of rpm.
And yes, torque at the wheels is likely much greater for Teslas than for my Civic VTEC in third gear. But I wonder about second gear. I mean, the car has wide low-profile tires, and I can spin them on dry pavement in second, from a standing start. And it takes some skill to avoid doing that when starting in first.
What does skipping gears get you that quick sequential shifts don't?
My feeling is the opposite. Paddle shifters are the closest I'll get to driving an F1 car, and I've put a decent amount of time in with a racing wheel and pedals and racing sims and that's where I get all of my muscle memory for my Golf GTI.
I can still skip from 2-6 on a freeway onramp or 6-4 for passing faster than 8/10 speeds can go 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10.
There's no point revving out all my gears in real world driving, I just want to reach the speed limit as fast as possible then go into overdrive. DCTs are very fast at switching into what they think is your next gear. They're quite slow at switching if you want to switch more gears.
For me it's not really about choosing the gears, per se. Yeah I can do that in an automatic, but it's hardly the same. With a manual you get coordination between foot, hand, brain, and you are one with the car. For an enthusiast it matters.
This is why my car has a 'manual gearbox preservation society'[1] decal on it :-). It is sort of a self fulfilling prophecy which I pointed out to a Subaru VP at some length, if you only offer the manual on your 'low trim' cars you double penalize it, both from the perspective of people who want a bit more luxury and the things like radio systems or navigation systems that only come in the 'higher trim' packages.
One of the things he told me was that the cost of getting a car through California smog certification had to be covered by the sales of the car, and limited production run cars have higher production costs because the assembly line has to be re-tooled during the run.
All I know is that it makes me sad, and I'm glad that Mazda, for the moment, still offers a manual on all their trim packages for many of their cars.
In the UK most cars are still manual. Less so for the more expensive you go but I'd guess more than 90%.
I have driven automatics a handful of times. The longest I spent was 2 weeks in a motor home touring the Rockies.
While I can see the appeal for around town driving driving up and down grades was a bit of a pain. Basically I had to learn the behaviour of the transmission and use a combination of the exact amount of throttle, hold down gears and flicking between tow haul and normal to get the gear I wanted. It was more hassle than having to change gear manually.
You’ve brought up a good reason why Americans should learn manual: in case they rent cars in other countries. I rented a car in Costa Rica whose clutch had been destroyed by the previous renter, which fact did not make itself plain until we were on a mountain road. Wish he had learned stick!
But... how? When no one owns a manual, you can't learn to drive stick. My dad had a manual car that he'd kept for 20 years, and I haven't seen one since that went, about 10 years ago. (I could've learned on that had I gotten things together, but didn't. Given its condition near the end, that's probably a good thing.) There's nothing around to learn on.
It's a vicious circle sort of problem at this point. Less manual cars -> can't learn stick -> can't drive stick -> no one buys manuals -> less manual cars.
In the end, I can learn the concept, but I won't really know how to drive stick unless I have a manual... and I'll never buy a manual, so the only possibility is that I'll start off ruining the clutch on some rental. (Or, more likely, I'll go out of my way to rent automatic... but that may not always be possible)
Even the people who insist on manual reinforce this cycle because the only cars that have one are older, so they buy used and then the few manufacturers who offer manuals in new vehicles look at the numbers and say, "hmm, nobody seems to want a manual."
It sounds like your motor home just had a really crappy automatic transmission. I've spent a lot of time driving around the Rocky Mountains (since I live here) and have never really had this issue when towing trailers.
One thing that sticks out to me is that you say you were trying to get the gear you wanted - having driven various automatics, that's never really been what I'd care about. I just aim for a speed. Older automatics you end up noticing gearing sometimes, but just incidentally, and on CVTs, which is what I have now, you really don't care about 'gears' (which don't exist for CVTs anyway).
That said, I have driven automatics with some weird gearing where specific hills mean you'd oscillate around the desired speed. There, you do end up caring, unfortunately. That said, that's the kind of situation where the manual mode on newer stuff comes in, and on older stuff, you'd have a few gearing sets (Drive/Low/3, on a grand caravan I used to drive. Never did figure out what 3 was good for...)
Yeah, I'm sure that's the correct way to drive with an auto in general. The problem was a v8 E350 is horrifically noisy when it's revving hard. Moving from a steep down grade onto a flat it would often refuse to change up. Similarly, when moving from a flat onto a steep down grade getting it to change down fast enough to avoid using a lot of braking was tricky.
Seems to be really changing in the UK. I don't drive, but nearly all my friends/family members who used to have manual now have automatic. Also, most Ubers these days seem to have automatic transmission.
Most Ubers in London are hybrids because that gets them off the congestion charge. Hybrids are automatic because there's essentially 2 power sources. Outside London it seems to vary more, but then a lot more of them are manual.
No it doesn't, any taxi or private hire vehicle (PHV), allows you to not pay the congestion charge. I know a lot of people that have registered their vehicle as a PHV to get out of it (costs around £200 a year).
I learned to drive stick at 34 just for fun. Now own a Mazda 3 and MX-5. Worth it.
It's not about out performing an automatic transmission it's about engagement. For some people that's not going to have any value. For others there is no going back to numb econoboxes with automatic transmissions.
It's a shame more people don't get over the hump and get to see what driving can be vs. what it is for most.
City traffic commutes and long highway cruises seem to be what most people think of when they think about driving, but it can be so much more than that.
Few things are as fun as a balanced car on twisty mountain roads, and in that recipe the manual transmission is a key ingredient.
I have completely the opposite view. To me, all the "engagement" type arguments just feel like someone telling me that they still insist on using only rotary telephones, because it makes them feel more "engaged" with the telephone, "closer to the machine", etc.
So I don't find anything magical or special about having to manually manage the gears when a computer could do it more efficiently and relieve me of the need to worry about it. When I'm driving I want to be focused on the road and traffic around me, not micromanaging the way the engine is transmitting power.
Or maybe to go with a car analogy: what if we took away your accelerator pedal and replaced it with a crank attached to a fuel pump, so you had to constantly turn the crank to get fuel, and turn it faster or slower to manage the throttle and the amount of fuel going to the engine? You'd be much more deeply "connected" to your car that way, but would you rhapsodize about what a wonderful experience it was? Or would you see it for what it is: a task that can be done with more efficiency and less distraction by a different approach?
There's nothing magical about it... With a manual, there are two free parameters: Engine speed and its coupling to the wheels. With an automatic transmission, only the engine speed can be controlled by the driver.
Computers have gotten better at managing the coupling sensibly, but they still are not perfect at predicting drivers' future intentions.
Computers have gotten better at managing the coupling sensibly, but they still are not perfect at predicting drivers' future intentions.
This argument basically says that if the computer only does it better in 99.99999999999999999% of cases, the correct solution is to have the computer handle 0% of cases. Which makes no sense.
(also, almost all "automatics are terrible at anticipating what needs to happen" arguments are based on decades-old experiences, as if automatic transmissions are fixed in time and incapable of improving)
> To me, all the "engagement" type arguments just feel like someone telling me
I don't drive stick, but I think it would help me considerably.
Even with 8+ hours of sleep, 3 cups of coffee, music blasting in my ears, and the windows open I often find that driving for longer than 30 minutes on the open road (i.e. no traffic) starts to put me to sleep.
I have very mixed feelings about this -- I walk and bicycle quite a lot, so I'm not deeply engaged with driving being fun, nor do I think it's really a great thing if drivers are having fun driving. Fun means more people spending more time on the roads endangering my life. But on the other hand, I learned on a stick. It really is more fun and I miss it.
I don't think fun has to equal unsafe. Manuals provide an opportunity to have fun doing things like matching downshifts and thinking about what you are doing. Both can be done within the confines of safe, legal operation.
And this is where the MX-5 and other suitably configured cars excel. They give you a sense of motion and acceleration at legal and safe speeds that a typical car won't. Even some that are supposed to be sporty, but define sporty as "more power."
Most cars are designed to make you feel nothing and hear nothing. Nothing from the road and nothing from the engine.
Indeed. As a cyclist, I'm absolutely safer when there is less traffic. Less traffic means motorists have fewer other moving objects to distract them from not killing me.
It’s unclear to me that more driving equates to more danger. Driving is currently very unsafe but that is a product of the drivers. If drivers were safer driving itself would also be safer.
Every extra person driving a car adds to the total risk to everyone.
I'm of the understanding that "safer" driving is a function with an asymptote well above zero, i.e. there's only so much that a person's skill as a safe driver will improve the net safety of the system.
I'd like to add that I'm not just talking about the safety of the extra person driving; there's also the safety of the other road users, whether in cars, on motorcycles,
on bicycles, or on foot. An extra driver on the road raises the net risk for everyone.
Additionally, in my experience the intersection of "drives for fun" and "drives safely" is so close to zero that it's not worth considering.
I have what's regarded as the best manual transmission in production on my Porsche, but in traffic, the automatic transmission on my econobox Mazda3 still does a better job moving the car from a stop smoothly with minimal impact on fuel economy with almost zero effort. On the Porsche, I'm either slipping the clutch causing more wear or having very jerky/abrupt starts, revving a bit more than necessary or risking stalling/bogging by short shifting.
Sure, the manual is a lot more fun and engaging to drive, but most people are simply content with commuting with an appliance.
I'd like an automatic transmission in cities and on highways and a manual one up and down hills and off-road, when I want to be sure about what the car will do. So what about a sequential transmission? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_manual_transmission
It's the one we use in videogames when we select "manual". In real cars they usually have an automatic mode. Car2Go Smarts used to have that transmission, activated by a stick.
Having that mode is pretty common these days, isn't it? I have it in my Rogue, my dad's Grand Caravan has it, Car2Gos (smart fortwo and the mercedes sedans), a friend's... something? (some hatchback, idk) had it.
I haven't actually seen a car without a sequential/manual mode for a long time, come to think of it. Used to drive a 2003 Grand Caravan that didn't have it, but it had a few different automatic modes that helped fill that void for hills.
I'll concede all of the other advantages of automatics and add getting the car moving from a stop on a hill in Seattle, but there seems to be no way to get rid of the latency when I need to downshift right now, is there?
I hate that about automatics. Floor the gas, count 1,2...ok here we go.
I’ve driven standard transmission for upwards of 15 years and see no need to change. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d be convinced that this trend was part of a country-wide conspiracy to take all the fun and excitement out of driving. It seems like every automotive engineering decision since the 80s has been dominated by occupant safety and comfort, and fuel efficiency, to the detriment of everything else.
It’s why nearly every new car looks like the same identical boring bar of soap, and has the same vanilla handling as a Camry. Everything about driving a modern car is sedate and passive, like you’re just an observer. And there’s so little variety, the most aggressive option on some models is “18 inch wheels.” Some manufacturers are even playing fake “vroom vroom” sounds over the speaker system because their engines are so docile. It’s hard to even find a color that’s not black, white, gray, beige, or navy blue.
Rant over. As a car enthusiast, modern trends make me sad.
I hear ya. FWIW, a modern Camry would outpace a Ferrari or Porsche from the 80s, and arguably some of them are starting to give the early 90s (NSX, Supra, 300ZX, RX-7 etc) a run for the performance money. Looks not so much.
The fact that the majority of your vanilla commute-boxes (Camrys, Fusions, Accords, etc) are now shipping with 220+hp stock / 280+ sport and platforms that have gone through decades of rigidity research and tire tech, means the majority of drivers are getting way more performance potential than they can possibly wring out. A base 2018 Camry SE is now pulling 0.88g on the skidpad.
Heck your average soccer mom is now getting 300+hp in her "well-equipped" SUV for the red-light commuter drag race thanks to things like the 3.5 Ecoboost. Since when does a Ford Edge run a low-14 quarter-mile??
The last 10 years of automotive tech have been another golden age similar to the 60s IMO. Reliability, safety, and performance are all vastly superior.
There are plenty of interesting, fun-to-drive new models on the market in nearly every category...on the condition that you're looking at the right price point.
>It seems like every automotive engineering decision since the 80s has been dominated by occupant safety and comfort, and fuel efficiency, to the detriment of everything else.
Yes, of course. Regulators (and hence automakers) have realized that a failure to continue to optimize on these features implies an unnecessarily high mortality rate associated with vehicle usage, either directly (in accidents) or indirectly (through pollution and climate change). And for what it's worth: The type of whining you're doing here isn't helpful to the auto enthusiast community -- it comes off as ignorant and entitled to non-enthusiasts.
I’m a committed manual driver, but I fully grant that dual-clutch transmissions and EV powertrains handily outclass manual transmissions from the perspective of effectiveness (although my casual understanding is that an electric motor without a gearbox is still going to be limited in its ability to provide torque at high rotor speeds). I would consider driving a car relying on either of those technologies, even though I favor the subjective experience of a manual transmission, but I still can’t imagine driving any vehicle with a torque converter or a CVT (CVTs sound great in theory, but as far as I know they’re still pretty limited in terms of torque tolerance). I’ve driven some nice autos and still find their response to torque demand from the pedal to be unacceptably slow, plus I find the way that throttle mapping works in manual transmission cars to be much more intuitively close to what I would expect from direct throttle control. Flooring it to induce a downshift feels like a crude distortion of the input space in a way that inhibits the development of an intuitive connection with the vehicle’s operation.
Anyway, if you’re a performance vehicle enthusiast on a budget, you’re going to have trouble finding a suitable car that isn’t equipped with a manual.
> although my casual understanding is that an electric motor without a gearbox is still going to be limited in its ability to provide torque at high rotor speeds
BTW I find your entire comment pretty interesting.
So the current top speed on Tesla Models S3X is 155MPH. The Roadster 2 is expected to have a top speed of 250MPH.
Is the 155MPH an example of what you're referencing Re: high rotor speed? Thanks.
Less top speed, which is governed by many factors (consider that maintaining any constant speed in a vehicle requires some minimum power output to counter losses to heat/friction throughout the drivetrain and between the vehicle and oncoming air, not to mention the maximum safe operating speed of the drivetrain components themselves), but rather the potential for acceleration. If you look at the torque curve for some power plant, where the independent variable is oscillation speed and the dependent variable is output torque, you'll find that (for some fixed gear ratio between the power plant speed and the wheel speed) the maximum acceleration occurs at the point along that curve where torque is maximized. Electric motors have a much flatter torque curve with respect to rotor RPM than do combustion engines with respect to crankshaft RPM, but they still see a nontrivial drop in torque as rotor speed approaches its operating maximum. Transmissions exist to maximize the driver's access to torque: if you're traveling at 60mph on the highway with your engine spinning at 2K RPM, but your engine makes maximal torque at 4K RPM, you can shift downward to maintain your same vehicle speed while increasing the speed at which your engine turns over, thus giving you enhanced ability to bring your car up to speed before you merge with the lane to the left of you where everyone is driving much faster. A car that loses available torque at high power plant speeds and that lacks the ability to use such gearing to take advantage of optimal power plant torque will be unable to produce as much acceleration at high speeds as a car that has several gear ratios available.
Caveat: I'm just an automotive hobbyist, so if an automotive engineer rolls in and calls bullshit on anything I've said above, they're almost certainly correct.
I've been driving stick shift since I first learned to drive (10 years), and I absolutely love it. Yes, driving in traffic can be painful, but the overall benefits outweigh this problem.
I try to describe the situation like this: imagine you have two axis of control with an automatic, the accelerator and the brake. You can use these two independently of each other, and your car's actions will respond to them.
Now with a standard transmission, you're adding a clutch, adding a third dimension, which can also be used independently of the two. The ability and actions your car can take essentially take on a new dimension.
In the case of an automatic, this third dimension is executed by the system, releasing the user from control. However as great autopilot is yet a reality, the world presents more driving obstacles than what a standard automatic vehicle can perfectly account for. Thus giving a "not perfect but good enough" result.
CVTs work too I guess, but I'm also trying to have fun here.
In my personal experience, driving stick makes me more engaged with driving, and therefore more concentrated on driving, while automatics make me feel like everything is easy and I can pay less attention.
I think self/assisted driving would be the key feature to get me off the stick.
Note, paddle shifts alone are not a good signifier, depending what's underneath them. There's a HUGE difference I find between:
a) Automatic with paddle shifts: still has a torque converter between engine and wheels, soft response on pedal, and double-guesses everything you do
b) Sequential and/or dual-clutch with paddle shifts: still has a clutch, direct connectivity from engine to wheels, same response to gas pedal and more control
First one is zero fun to drive (for me).
Second can replace my manual easily.
Modern locking torque converters provide direct connectivity from engine to wheels just like a manual transmission. They just also provide the torque multiplication and buttery smooth starts that a torque converter allows for.
I drove a BMW with the 7 speed Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT) for a few years. The programming is really good, but every once in a while it would get things wrong and I'd look like a kid just learning how to drive a stick shift. BMW has switched to the ZF 8 speed for the new M5, and I wouldn't be overly surprised to see that happen for the next-gen M3. The purists will wail, but at the end of the day, it won't change anything, and the cars will still be fun to drive.
I thought locking torque converters were designed for fuel efficiency and are engaged during cruising mode, not heavy acceleration. I have not personally driven an automatic where the rpm and speed (I. E. Wheel and engine) have direct relationship during acceleration. Per above, is there an automatic in gti'd price range that you feel trully has that level of responsiveness and fun (as opposed to twice the price)? If so... I'm very very interested (my wife doesn't drive stick so my WRX days are numbered)
Doesn’t most automatic transmissions have that? My old VW Touran have paddles on the wheel for changing gears. I only use it when driving down steep hills though.
Yes, but automatics with "paddle shifts" have very soft transition and very soft/delayed gas pedal reaction; whereas dual-clutch/sequential with "paddle shifts" have very fast transition and very straight gas pedal reaction.
The true automatics, or CVT, there's limited need (or fun:) in paddle shifts outside of hills, poor traction, etc.
For sequential/dual-clutch, paddle shift operation is direct... and fun :)
The only thing going away faster than the manual at this point are dual clutch transmissions. Never really perfected in most instances, and the latest slushboxes actually outperform them. Faster shifts, more reliable, cheaper. I prefer my manual very much, but I have to hand it to the engineers, they've turned what used to be a performance-killing design into the best you can buy.
Hmm
Is there a car in price range of golf gti that has that level of gas pedal responsiveness? I would love to take it for a test drive and see if my skepticism is warranted :)
I can't really help, then, I'm not really familiar with what the state of the art in four-cylinder hot hatches are at this point (and in any case, Subaru will not be leading edge in that regard; I have loved all my Subarus, especially my two STIs, but automatics are definitely not something Subaru is any good at). The newer A8 and A10s that GM uses in their performance cars (and Ford in some cases), as well as the latest stuff from MB, are fantastic automatics. Until this latest generation came along, I assumed DCT was the future. Now I'd be surprised to see it hang on much more than a few more years before being phased out.
Older automatics (my previous Opel/Vauxhall Astra G) had 3 modes, two being for slopes. But not always manually choosing the gear you like, which modern automatic transmissions do appear to have.
Nearly every automatic transmission pre-2000's was a basic double planetary gear system. Which means you got 3 gears. So normally you'd have a gear selector of 'park'-'reverse'-'neutral'-'drive'-'2'-'1' where 2 and 1 were the actual gears that you could force the transmission into for increased engine breaking (for going down mountains so you don't melt your brakes). Or sometimes for low traction, you could leave it in '2' which would make it harder to spin the tires.
After 1980, an 'overdrive' gear was added to most transmissions. "Overdrive" in this sense means that for one turn of the input shaft, the output shaft would turn slightly more than one.
After the early 2000's, we started to see the introduction of 3 and 4 planetary gear sets bringing the total gears anywhere from 6 to 9.
Heh I just bought a new car in the US and it's a manual (and it's not even a sports car). Why? Because I don't care as much about adaptive cruise control (I bike to work so the car is mostly for long drives) and it was $1200 cheaper (of course that's also going to matter when selling the car but if I tend to drive cars into the ground, 20+ years of use or more so that's not an issue). I don't feel strongly about either automatic or manual, both have their pros and cons, but if there's a significant price difference I'll go for the cheaper option.
I raced cars with non-synchronized transmissions for some years, which means you have to heel and toe (and blip the throttle) to engage a lower gear, and I always drove my MT street cars the same way. About 8 years ago though I switched to automatic with a VW GTI.
There truly is no comparison, dual clutches and in sport mode the car executes a throttle blip on down shifts so I can left foot brake all the time and always have both hands on the wheel. I only care about being precise (and quick when needed) so no, I don't miss manual at all.
What about down shifting into first gear when coming to a stop? Is it jarring with a dual clutch? On my motorcycle I almost never shift into 1st before stopping because of the engine braking (even with a throttle blip). I just grab the clutch and coast until I stop.
So if we're on the same page driving a MT: the reason we're blipping the throttle is so that we don't upset the balance (front to rear) of the vehicle, and we do our blip just before shifting to 1st from 2nd and ideally we've judged it correctly so there is no change of pitch from engine braking.
So with a dual clutch AT vehicle, under savagely hard threshold braking there is no gear related pitch change. And under normal driving there is none either. To be clear though I only tested the GTI at a small "pitch and catch" autocross style track once, but I did drive all of VW's vehicles that day, it was a manufacturers test day.
Despite the title, it never explores why this phenomenon is specific to America, except to note that "the 5-speed manual is [still] the most popular transmission in the world".
It's also pretty difficult to find a manual transmission car in Japan and other wealthy Asian countries like South Korea. And in Europe automatic transmissions are increasing in popularity, as are SUVs and crossovers. America just started transitioning to automatics a lot earlier.
Well, once we went past the point where most cars had an automatic, we quickly got to the point where basically nobody knows how to drive a manual. So it feeds on itself. Guy that I work with just traded out his Mazda 3 for a new one, got an automatic this time because his girlfriend can't drive a stick. Wouldn't learn. So... that's how you get nearly 100% adoption.
I've gotten a Nissan Leaf v.2 which comes with e-pedal. Essentially single pedal driving. Best described as someone who drove stick shift as staying in second gear but without none of the noise. Push the pedal down and it accelerates normally, but start lifting off and it goes from "neutral" to "engine braking" (regenerative) all the way to a complete stop.
https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/e_Pedal...
While I do miss doing 3 -> 2 heel toe downshift for corners, trying to figure out when to lift off to scrub enough speed without touching the brakes for a corner is just as entertaining.
I think shifting gears in general, whether automatics or manual, will fade out as electric drive-trains take over.
I grew up in India and loved driving stick shift. Once I moved to US, I transitioned to Automatic.
Biggest reason I miss Stick shift is that, it just felt that I had a stronger connection with the car and the acceleration was more predictable. With automatic you might not be in the right gear and the car might upshift too soon or too late.
A potential side effect of the stronger connection is that more involvement leads to more spirited driving and potentially traffic tickets.
Then I got a Tesla. Beauty of Tesla is that it has just has one gear, so you are always in the right gear. So this avoids the biggest issue with Automatic. OTOH, because I am not manually changing gear, this avoids the spirited driving issue. It is now an appliance and just works.
America lost its love of more than just the stick shift. I regularly find myself around people who just simply can’t drive safely. They don’t use their mirrors, they don’t know how to stop rapidly in emergency situations; I’m not surprised no one drives a manual anymore.
On top of this, we pretty much hand out drivers licenses like fucking flyers in this country. Just stand in line and earn yours.
If you’ve ever been on a road in Europe you’ll see a dramatically different scenario. Free flowing traffic, everyone seems to see everyone else around them; people are paying attention and know their cars.
The market for automated vehicles is ripe because we’re fucking morons behind the wheel, and somehow we’re ok with that.
I always had an easier time getting up snowy/ice hills (in Boston) than my friends did in their autos. I remember once driving up a hill in front of a friend so he could use my tire indentations to get up behind me.
Getting up was fine. Stopping at the precipice at a 4 way stop, then trying to start again was the tricky bit. With an auto you can hold the brake while you slowly press the accelerator, then release the brakes.
Need a third foot to do that (or a hand brake) with a manual.
Edit: Hill lock definitely sounds nice. Didn't exist when I was young, poor, and had crappy old American made manual shift cars...
My WRX has hill start assist and I love it. If you're stopped on an incline and let off the brakes it will keep them applied automatically for a moment while you give it some gas.
Not sure how old you are, but on my grandpa's 1950 Ford there was a hand operated parking brake (under the dash). I had to use it once after stopping to get gas and the driveway to get back onto the main road went down into a steep ditch and then out onto the road.
Of course some nitwit pulled up right behind me as I was trying to pull out into the road. I tried easing up on the foot brake and allowing the clutch to grab some as a quick test but the car still started to creep back. I said screwed it and yanked the parking brake as hard as I could while getting off the foot brake and meshing the gas while at the same time letting up on the clutch and undoing the parking brake. Not the hardest thing, but mainly made an issue by modern drivers getting right on your bumper...
It was cars with a foot operated emergency brake that locked into place with a separate lever to release it. Not useful in these situations. Even on cars with a hand brake, it was still a bit dicey, because they only operated the rear brakes, and could be mis-adjusted/weak/etc.
Pretty common on late 60's, 70's, and some 80's cars.
Premium is relative. By that standard, a VW Golf is premium. (Arguably you can nowadays get it with options that were very much premium not that long ago)
Many US cars had foot operated emergency brakes when I was younger. Also, in the US, pickup trucks are the most popular personal vehicles, right now...and they typically have foot operated emergency brakes.
Yep, when over the years your same 45min commute turns into an hour and a half commute, automatic is so much better. That and then getting work closer to home.
OK, European here, maybe it's just the title wording, but the article left me somewhat confused. For as long as I can remember ('80s child) I was convinced that the US car market (and consumer preferences) were almost exclusively automatic. Even popular culture reinforced this (I don't remember ever seeing a manual transmission car in American movies and TV shows). Now this article suggests that even recently there was an actual competition between the two, that America even had love, no less, for stick shift. I don't know what to believe anymore, is there a reality even...
The American car market as a whole are almost entirely automatic due to overall consumer preferences. However, there is also a minority of enthusiast drivers who greatly prefer manuals and are very vocal as such. Cars that are marketed more towards the enthusiast end of the market are those that you'll find stick shifts in more often, e.g. Miatas, Porsches, Corvettes, etc. These days though, even the enthusiast cars are selling many more automatics than manuals.
In your country maybe. It is very much a cultural thing. In the Netherlands to get your driving license, you learn to stick shift by default. If you don't want or cannot learn to stick shift, you can get your license but you get a notice in your driving license that you are only allowed to drive automatic transmission. Learning to drive automatic is still very much an exception here.
Most consumer cars in the Netherlands are still sold as manual transmission, probably because the price was usually lower compared to automatic transmission. But we won't have a choice forever, since we are heading to an hybrid/full-electric future and almost all electric cars have a CVT anyway.
I've tried three times to rent a manual car at Schiphol, and ended up with an automatic each time. I also noticed that my Uber drivers almost always drive automatics in Amsterdam.
I know, plural of anecdote is not data.
Oh well. My 1998 Tacoma with a five speed will die soon enough, and I'll end up buying an automatic, probably.
I rented a car in Bilbao recently - reserved a manual, got an automatic (presumably because I'm an American, and they assumed I'd ruin the clutch on a manual transmission). So, that's one way to see an automatic :).
When you say it's not possible to get a license for an automatic car, do you mean it's not possible to get tested for a driving license with an automatic?
One thing I'd love to see in modern manual transmission sports cars is a lockout to prevent mechanical over-revs. It would be extremely cheap and simple to engineer—knowing the current RPM and gear ratios, it would just be a matter of a servo motor actuating a bar, physically blocking the shifter from engaging gears that would cause a mechanical overrev. If done right, the driver wouldn't even notice it was there, until they were going around a sweeping right-hander on the track, up-shifting from third to fourth, and find the car prevents them from accidentally pulling it into second instead...
Of course, most drivers don't track their cars, and it's pretty hard to mis-shift when you're not on the track if you know what you're doing. (Or even on the track, if you're careful.) But sometimes it only takes one, and given how simple it would be to implement something like this, it seems like a no-brainer for companies like Porsche, especially given we're already seeing things like auto-blip for manuals (which I'm far less keen on, fwiw, but fine with as long as it can be turned off!)
If that servo fails to unlock, though, now you can't shift into certain gears. I thought that a centrifugal clutch disengage mechanism would solve this. Centrifugal clutches are already common in scooters - the clutch engages gradually as you rev above idle rpms. My theoretical feature is basically the opposite: a centrifuge that disengages at a given RPM. You _can_ shift into 1st at 100mph but your clutch will quickly disengage as your revs approach redline. You may burn out your clutch but those are cheaper to replace than engines.
Of course I have zero mechanical engineering background so who knows the feasibility of this approach.
Re-engineering the clutch sounds like a lot more work than adding a little servo. (Or two: one for 1/3/5 and one for 2/4.) And yeah, like anything in the car I guess it could fail, but something so simple could be made very robust—and if it did fail, it wouldn't be catastrophic. Would also be simple enough to add a mechanical override screw accessible under the shifter boot or something like that.
> Take the Subaru BRZ. The popular sports car was once sold only with a manual transmission, but sales are now 90 percent automatic, Fiske estimated.
I find this a bit difficult to believe.
The automatic option has a reputation for being pretty good, but the manual is excellent. It was certainly never even a matter of choice for me, and for the growing number of (BRZ/(GT)86/FR-S) enthusiasts I know.
Only reason I can think of is that the real enthusiasts bought them early on. Now, most people buy them because they want a 'sports car'; only 10% are actual enthusiasts.
I would even understand a higher automatic take rate for the Miata, as it has a broader appeal (based on my guess that more people are willing to drive such a small car if it's also a convertible).
But the 86 siblings are really pretty focused. I love my car, but wonder how those who aren't _really_ into spiriting driving justify it over other excellent options (e.g., GTI) in its price range.
I'm American and I learned to drive in a stick shift. My first 13 years of driving was with a stick. But it got to a point where it was just too difficult to find a stick version of the cars I wanted to get, so now I drive automatics.
I get the reason why some people insist driving sticks. You feel more "in tune" and "in control" with your car. But for the vast majority, this is completely unnecessary. Most people just want to get from point A to point B in one piece. For these people, feeling more in control of your car is as unnecessary as feeling more in control of a hand-cranked window over a power window.
Eventually we'll all be in self-driving cars and this whole debate will seem silly and trivial. "Automatics" will eventually include automatic turning and automatic braking and all things automatic.
My father bought me my first car, under the conditions that it had to be a stick, since he wanted me to learn in general, and since you have to pay attention more to the road, your likelihood of getting into an accident decreases significantly.
Now I drive a manual Golf GTI and I'm firmly of the "cold dead hands" camp with having it. I always wonder why other people don't like driving, and then I drive their cars. Having the stick turns my 45-minute commute from a chore to something I legitimately somewhat look forward to. My lease runs out next year and it seems like 2018 is the last year for many stick-shift models.
Definitely going to miss it when we all go full electric. Even then I hope to have a "fun" car to drive around.
> since you have to pay attention more to the road
I'm teaching an attention-impaired teenager to drive, and we're doing stick for exactly this reason: extra cog load reduces daydreaming? Perhaps that's a controversial idea. But for him, so far so good.
Note that 2018 Volkswagen cars come with 6 years / 72k miles warranty... something to consider if you're unsure if you should get a new one now or later (as I doubt they'll keep this high warranty term for long, it was introduced to win back customers after #dieselgate).
At first possibly, but the mechanics of shifting become second-nature pretty quickly, about a few weeks to a month of daily driving.
After that, the idea is that you have to pay more attention to your surroundings to understand what gear you need to be in. Each gear has almost its own personality, something you only really get exposed to if you're forced to set it manually.
Its a lot like the car equivalent of the command line
I made the switch to automatic a year ago, mainly so my wife could use my car--and I still suffer from Phantom Clutch Syndrome. I am tempted to switch back by the time my kids are old enough to drive so I can teach them, that is if humans are still driving cars then.
I have a feeling that driving a manual will eventually be akin to learning to ride a horse - people who love the sport will still do it and pay for it, but the general public will regard it as something far from their lives, whereas it once was a common skill.
Driving a manual, especially on a track teaches you a lot about the physics behind the machine you are operating. For example, few people consider how weight transfer when cornering can either help you or send you into a spin - electronics handle most of this for you and when decelerating, computers won’t let you shift.
I do have to wonder if texting and driving would be a lesser concern if both hands were occupied... Probably not, but one can dream!
I bought my first automatic in 2011. Prior to that I drove all manual transmission cars from before I was able to legally drive in 1986 until 2011. In 2011, my truck configuration was only offered with automatic transmission. I really hate how automatic transmissions shift, usually not where I want them to and sometimes inexplicably (possibly for emissions reasons) when you are not in the power. While 6 speed automatics are better I still find the gear spacings and shift points to be really irritating (even on luxury cars).
Also, I vastly prefer the control a manual gives you in low traction situations over automatic transmissions with electronic traction control.
Not sure what "audi" (a German company) has to do with America but what ever.
For my own tastes, once my 2000 Ford mustang's automatic tranny started acting funny sometimes (after 15 years and 200k miles), I bought a used manual tranny, flywheel, and clutch pedal set from a wrecked mustang of the same year and did a swap. Much happier now. I also feel more "invincible". If my starter goes out, I won't be stranded, I can just do a push start! Heck even if your battery is dead you can normally still push start. Nothing can stop me! Heck it even has a spare tire unlike all these "modern" cars. Truly nothing can stop me!
Supposedly, it's newsworthy because Audi was going to discontinue manuals much sooner, but one of their execs pushed for continued offering because of "demand in the US".
Porsche got a lot of backlash in the US when they discontinued manuals, to the point where they engineered a brand new manual gearbox with parts sharing with their PDK just because of US demand for the latest generation.
Audi thought there was also demand for Audis with manuals, apparently there wasn't.
Audi may have been confronted with the lesson that BMW already learned to its chagrin: there's no demand for crappy manuals in the US.
That said, the only reason cars have a transmission at all is because of a serious flaw in the way internal combustion engines work. That means that the best transmission would be no transmission at all... and the transmission that best approximates that state of affairs is, more or less inarguably, PDK.
> Audi sells cars. Cars are sold in America. Audi sells cars in America
When my first child was born, I went over to the local Audi dealership with plans to buy an A4 Avant Quattro with a manual transmission. No dice. Audi was only willing to sell Americans a manual transmission if it came in a sedan.
For a long time, there we so many artificial limitations, like you couldn't buy the upgraded radio or get leather seats if you wanted the manual transmission. A few years ago, BMW even limited the paint colors if you bought a 3-series with a manual. These days you can order any option you want on the 3-series with the manual - as long as you get the largest engine.
I love my stick shift, and echo others that it increases my engagement level, but I'm at the point of buying my next car and I know it'll be automatic.
Too many companies don't try to push any advanced technology into their manuals; if you want any kind of active safety features you need to go automatic. Honda was probably the outlier; I test drove the Civic Hatch and it had everything except for low-speed follow available in manual. But others like Subaru, Mazda, etc won't put any of those features (adaptive cruise, etc) in manual packages, at least in the Canadian market.
Ouch... I ended up with Mazda for one of my cars because in the US market it had the full range of safety features, and was available with manual transmission. Automatic braking and collision detection at low and high speeds, pedestrian collision detection, rear cross traffic alerts, radar cruise control
I did notice that trend which is unfortunate. The tendency for sporty cars to forgo safety equipment. I hate it.
It looks like the Mazda 3 sedan is now available in CA with the same equipment.
If you've had the misfortune of walking or biking on American roads recently, another reason becomes obvious. Drivers don't have a hand for a stick when one hand is on the wheel and another is texting.
Drove nothing but manuals for the past 16 years. Got my first car with a dual-clutch automatic this year. It's faster to shift, easier to drive, has a crazy number of ratios, and still manually controllable. That said, if they still exist, I will go back to a manual for my next car. I think there is a level of engagement lost even with something controllable like a dual-clutch. I can see the appeal of a dual-clutch or even the newer torque converters and I can't fault people for choosing it over a manual, but for me it's not the right fit.
My biggest gripe with most automatic transmissions is a feature commonly referred to as creep. Let off the brake pedal and the car moves forward. Depending on the car it’s more pronounced. Rarely do you have an automatic that will actually remain at a constant speed or slightly slow down when you lift off the gas.
This is a huge issue and I’ll contend it’s a major contributor to traffic in urban environments. In a manual vehicle or a DSG/DCT vehicle (read: something that has a clutch or clutches and avoids a torque converter like common automatics) you can let off the gas pedal and your vehicle isn’t going to continue to accelerate. Combine that with the ability and knowledge that downshifting is going to force the engine to behave like a brake and you have much more precise control over your speed.
I rarely use my brakes. I own a 6-speed Mustang and my wife has a 6-speed STI. I drive very fluid, estimating (or doing my best to) the perfect avg speed during traffic so I can roll along and smooth out disruptions in my lane. Meanwhile the vast majority of other drivers are constantly battling their vehicles natural tendency to move by tapping on the brake pedal like a moth banging on an outdoor light.
Brake lights cause other people to brake. Even if there is no logical reason to do so, people will respond and then a chain reaction of unnecessary braking is happening all the way down the highway. It’s not the only cause of traffic but it’s a significant variable in an algebraic shitstorm of other issues.
I’m also pretty convinced that having extensive experience with a manual vehicle makes you a better driver. For instance a lot of folks have no clue what the 1/2/3 or +/- buttons do on their auto transmissions. They aren’t aware of engine braking down a steep grade. They’re able to cruise along (thanks to creep) in traffic with their foot never coming off the brake pedal and their attention primarily on a phone. It kills me to see this.
Anecdotally the best drivers I know drive or have driven manual cars. The worst drivers I know don’t share this experience.
It’s tragic they are going away. The irony here is that worldwide America is one of the few places where it’s still appreciated. A lot of high end European auto makers have ditched manual entirely abroad yet still offer it as an option here (on certain models).
I realize automatics are becoming more efficient and have definitely surpassed manuals as far as shifting speed but I still love my stick shift. I wish more people could appreciate it. Unfortunately they’re so rare now and carry such an elitist stigma that a lot of people will never even have the opportunity to row the gears and truly drive a fun car.
As mentioned at the end of the article, I hope all complicated car transmissions go away, and are replaced with dead simple reduction gears in electric cars. Transmissions are expensive to repair and replace, and are often the part that junks an otherwise servicable car when things go awry.
While I empathize with car enthusiasts' loss of manual control, as a used car buyer, and person who enjoys cleaner air, I'm ok with moving past manual (and even automatic) transmissions.
I was chanting "electric cars", "electric cars" in my head the whole article and found the end of it very rewarding. :-)
Had a Mazda 3 Astina manual before, lovely car. I'd love a Civic Type R manual but most realistically my next car will be an electric one. Not in the market for one now, cars make you fat compared to other modes of transport, and currently using other modes is viable for me so sticking (sorry!) to that for now.
This is kinda sad, and hope it doesn't happen in Canada. I understand that some people prefer automatics because they are easier to drive, but I personally find manuals more fun. I also feel in more control, especially in winter weather. Being able to use the engine to slow down (downshifting) is very useful in icy conditions, when ABS gets retarded. Also my personal opinion, but being able to drive a manual feels more manly ))
I recently made the mistake of buying a CVT WRX because of traffic and yada yada. Very fun car but the CVT just kills it. I wind up driving the thing with paddle shifters most of the time. And I've almost convinced myself to trade it
up for a manual STI in near future. This whole experience makes me sad sometimes because I know that most fun cars these days only come with paddle shifters these days. This is such a joy kill.
There’s no point for stick shift other than entertainment these days. When computers can synthesize porn they can definitely shift gears better than a human.
I've been an engine mechanic for 12 years now and the automatic transmission is a mainstay. Most parents and commuter drivers aren't exactly feathering the clutch like Rossi on the way to band practice in their Hyundai. They just want a cheap easy car that works without a lot of expense, and the automatic transmission takes less maintenance over the life of the vehicle than a manual.
I find the last statement surprising. Yes, manual transmissions do require the occasional clutch replacement but also have less moving parts. So I would have assumed less maintenance.
Ah, but you're forgetting clutch plates, rollback arrestors, springs, and seals. The longevity is as expected dependent on driver and style as well
Labor has overtaken parts in terms of expense for service like this as well. I can easily bill the cost of a compact car for work done on a high end manual car (Porsche and high end mustangs for example)
Toyota has made a reliable 100k mission for nearly 20 years, but only because they had to build one from scratch. Prior to this American style Chrysler and Borg warner missions were prone to a lot of manufacturing fault related breakdowns. Honda also pioneered the use of metallurgical variances in gears to ensure longevity. Example: high nickel gears in their turbo transmissions.
When I learned to drive (early 90s) there was already really no need to learn to drive a stick. None the less, my dad insisted that I learn to drive stick. I liked it so much I bought one a few years later.
I'm also really glad he made me learn, because 15 years later I finally got to Europe and had to rent a car there. It was impossible to find an automatic, but luckily I knew how to drive manual.
I think the average non car enthusiast driver would rather drive something as easy to operate as possible. The market for performance 6 speeds has never been better though, Richmond, Tremec and Getrag make superb gearboxes that really liven up the engine that is driving them, increasing performance and driving pleasure for people who are interested in that sort of thing.
I still have a manual transmission car, and am in the process of teaching my sons how to drive it.
Granted they are not popular, but I prefer them. Sadly the market does not. And electric cars, which seem to be the next iteration of the automobile, don't have transmissions at all, so the ability to drive a manual is really looking like it will soon be a fairly useless skill.
I love driving a stick shift. I also love Morse code. They're both probably anachronisms but I don't care.
My 19 year old niece bought an old F-350 and taught herself to drive a shift. She told me that it was retro cool because so few in her generation know how to drive one. I may have to teach her Morse code ;<).
For me, it is commuter traffic and the powertrains getting much better.
Recently, I drove a little Hyundai round trip between Portland and Seattle. MPG for the trip was 54mpg! I drove upper middle of the pack, in terms of speed. Not poking around.
The decisions it made were insane good. I will sometimes data log my cars and try for peak fuel efficiency. So, I am really good at squeezing mpg out of a car. I get my communte optimized each time I use a new car. Been doing that for years. It is just a bit of fun.
That car nailed the usual oppirtunities for gains. Well done.
Honestly, I am not sure I could beat that car in a manual transmission version. At the least, doing so would require way more attention than I am willing to give.
Given the compute and greater efficiencies possible today, manual for fuel economy makes less and less sense. Electrics are coming too.
I love manual cars, but do not love them as daily drivers anymore.
One thing I’ve noticed over the last 10 years is how action films with car chases in have started cutting to shots of the driver shifting gears. It’s as if the manual gear change is becoming an exotic thing, used only by getaway drivers.
As someone who lives in a country where automatics are still in the minority, it’s very odd.
It always rubs me the wrong way when in a movie there is a dialogue scene in a car going at a steady pace, and yet in the background you get a recording of a motor revving up and shifting back down in a loop. Like a Shepard tone, but with a car.
Manuals have been selected out of the marketplace by dealer sales managers. I would love to own at least one manual transmission vehicle. Most that Ive considered in recent history were available with a manual, and the ones that are available as a manual are impossible to find or special order only.
There was a story somewhere (I can't find it now) about how a big part of the lack of car color options in the US is that consumers are used to buying cars directly off dealer lots.
According to the article, this makes the consumer into the customer of the dealer, and not the manufacturer. As such, the dealer is the manufacturer's true customer, and their demand is what drives production and availability.
The dealer, naturally, optimizes their inventory for the best sellers, which are generally grayscale colors, so that's what they order from the manufacturer. When the customer shows up, the limited choices often force compromises, which turn into statistics used to further optimize inventory.
The way out of this loop is for the customer to insist on the exact desired configuration.
The problem is that many (most?) people don't care enough to wait for three months instead of driving home in their new car the same day. This is further exacerbated by the dealer's willingness to offer a better deal on a car that's on the lot than one that has to be ordered.
I wouldn't be surprised if transmission availability plays into this to some extent, though probably not quite as much. After all, manuals are still generally cheaper in terms of MSRP, but dealer pricing may negate and even reverse that advantage.
Wait three months and pay list price in all probability if you order custom rather than take a car on the lot. Not always with high demand vehicles but I’ve always bought a car off the lot st a discount.
I'm not sure there's a significant market for cars in the US where traffic isn't a factor or hasn't grown significantly in the last generation.
Given that automatics are much nicer to drive in traffic, I sense that is a huge reason why there's just not much of a market for manuals. Unless the manual was going to be massively cheaper (and it's not), I can't think of a large group of people who would desire manual transmissions.
I preferred stick because it allowed me to accelerate faster and better control my driving. Now that most cars offer some sort of turbo and manual-like like transmission option, I much prefer our new future of automatic.
I used to prefer manual. It was interesting and gave a feeling of skill. But the thrill is gone because the thrill of driving is gone, thanks to congestion.
Economy seems to be a wash. And quite frankly, I've observed that stick shift cars tend to be driven in "fun" mode, which is probably less economical.
I like... automation. I'm waiting eagerly for a self driving car. Meanwhile, my next car will probably be electric.
While my family still has one stick-shift car, my kids will learn to drive it. My daughter already has, and my son will, after he figures out how to drive the automatic car safely.
This article missed the franchise dealer economic factors. Due to the floorplan financing system, US dealers for volume brands don't want to take custom orders anymore. They live or die by inventory turnover rate and so they want to sell you a car that's on the lot today. Thus they mostly stock only the most popular combinations of options. Most buyers who would prefer a manual are also willing to buy an automatic, but buyers who want an automatic won't buy a manual. So the dealers don't stock manuals.
I have a little 6-speed BMW right now that’s so fun to drive around, but I think my next car will probably be a Model 3.
Shifting is fun when the roads aren’t a disaster, but between traffic and the fact that ICEs are pretty much untenable in the long-term, it’s hard to justify buying another manual. Plus, the options for new stick shift cars seem to be dwindling every year anyway.
I’d like to be able to continue driving a standard, but it just makes less and less sense (for me, at least).
If you look at all the modern muscle cars (or in the case of the Corvette and Camaro ZL1) hypercars and supercars camouflagef as muscle cars, they all come with the manual transmission as the standard option, and most of the enthusiasts choose that. I watch Youtube car videos constantly and have seen a very encouraging uptake of manual transmission cars in America by generation Y. It's like a new era is dawning. Very encouraging.
The major downside, I think, of the US totally abandoning the stick shift is that in my experience the majority of rentals outside of the US are stick. I'm very aware of this in Europe, and I guess it would also be true in even less developed countries. I recognize that this is a somewhat niche problem but when the time comes and you can't drive any of the rentals on the lot, that's going to be a real pain!
It is crazy that 95% of all cars sold in India (one of the largest in the world) are stick shift with very less growth in automatic vehicles.
One is the perception that automatic vehicles have significantly worse fuel efficiency than stick shift. And the second is that the newer CVT based automatic vehicles have not been introduced in India.. and the older AMT automatic vehicles is what have been half-heartedly used by manufacturers.
For me, I prefer manual over automatic based solely on price. I also appreciate that manuals are less complex and more easily serviced. I think disposable automobiles is an affront to decency and I despise obsolescence of perfectly fine autos.
I'm eagerly awaiting the first 'open design' auto that uses easily acquired and interchangeable parts. I would also like to see the same in lawn mowers.
I loved my manual transmission cars, and wasn't even that bothered by the "1st-2nd-1st-2nd..." highway congestion that I'd encounter every now and then. But when my driving got to be a little more adventurous (lane and a half wide gravel forest service roads on steep hills) I reluctantly gave in and got an auto. Some day I hope to own another fun manual car...
This is somewhat tangential, but I think there may have been an increase in the two-footed driving of automatics. On a highway with smoothly-flowing traffic, there is rarely any need to touch the brakes, yet I see a constant flickering of red in front of me, together with the occasional car that has its brake lights lit most of the time.
It used to be a form of saving money and better control of your car, but now is more of an acquired taste to want to use manual shift. For me, the fun is in doing perfect rev match down shifts or doing a goo toe-heel move before a tight turn. Otherwise comparing to all the AI and radars, there isn’t much practical use anymore.
My advice to British learner drivers - take the test in a manual car and do your utmost to get an automatic car. Especially so if existing family cars are manual.
The vast majority of cars around are manual, unfortunately. This means that you won’t be able to drive most cars around. In the case of one person I know, they had to retake their driving test a couple of years later because they were forced to drive a manual car. In addition, if you are buying a car as a young adult, it is likely that price matters, and the number of cheaper, used manual cars vastly outnumbers cheaper, used automatics.
It isn’t much extra effort to learn manual, and you can let the skill atrophy afterwards.
Totally agree. After driving an automatic for years in the US, I came back to the UK and had to hire a manual for a week. Even though I learned in a manual it was a horrible experience. Hill starts are a nightmare, and you're driving with all your arms and feet, like an octopus. After that, my wife, who had learned to drive in the US and had to do the UK test, opted just to take the automatic test, passing in just a few lessons.
Cities and freeways are one thing, but I think it's more about suburbia. Stop signs over yields by default, four way stop signs, and roundabouts (circles) being a completely alien concept. These things are kinda fine in an automatic but vastly less comfortable in a manual.
My wife and I would prefer a manual transmission. However, we want to have a station wagon, and when we last went shopping for a car, the only station wagons with a manual transmission were Audi and VW. So we have an Accord (rebadged Honda) with an automatic transmission.
I will never choose a car with stick shift to drive around. Not in Los Angeles with the stop/go traffic freeway. Nope.
But it is a useful skill to have. What if you go abroad and have to drive a stick shift. Looks like in many nations, stick shift is sometimes the only option.
Eh, driven both. The PDK in my Porsche is faster then I am. All my friends that screamed and yelled about being smarter then the PDK I took out for a ride on a long fun Mt road. At the end they said the PDK was better. This is and should be a task for a computer.
I have no doubt PDK (and even far less sophisticated (semi-)automated transmissions) is _faster_ and less likely to make a mistake, but what if outright performance isn't the ultimate goal?
I had the pleasure of driving a 991.1 GT3 with PDK, and it was blisteringly fast (both the car and the transmission). But I was definitely more of a passenger than in my 2004 6-speed manual Miata, and the fact that I noticed that is pretty telling about my preferences.
In a multi-car garage I certainly wouldn't complain about a great (semi-)automated transmission in a daily driver (PDK, DSG, DCT, or even ZF's lauded 8-speed auto), but next to it would have to be a toy with a good manual.
Automatic gears are much better for parking, etc. in particular when you have to park in a gradient. I've always longed for an automatic, bought the first when I could, and convinced the rest of the family to do the same with "test drives".
Ya, I have no idea how someone parallel parks a manual (w/out hill assist) on a 15% grade; I personally have to keep one foot on the break and one foot on the accelerator!
You can use the e-brake as you lift off the clutch pedal and press on the accelerator. With some learning, I'm now pretty OK at it after some 13,000 miles of manual driving total.
I bought the new JL Wrangler. For a vehicle that is about fun and adventure I was between the automatic and manual.
When it came time to order and saw the automatic was a $2k option, it was an easy choice. I could have gone either way.
Low speed/rock crawling/grades I feel would suck with a clutch, though. On fairly basic rough stuff like cutting through woods over logs and what not to get to my camping destination I often need 2 hands on the wheel to gently fight mud/etc pulling them in the wrong direction. The easier control of your torque w/ manual is probably nice, though. When you're doing this stuff you're typically locked to under 15mph because of the sway bar disconnect (it pops back on if you hit 17mph) & lockers, so you're not even changing gears out of 1st so maybe it's not even a problem.
Anyway hope you're able to get some adventuring in it, I moved to the big city and haven't put many miles on mine since I bought it in May. Just a few offroad trips. Hopefully a caravan to Overland expo next year.
Something to add about why some automakers still offer manuals: they help bring down the lowest advertised base price (still significantly enough cheaper) and they help lower CAFE (still a bit of a fuel efficiency benefit).
Sad to see it. I love manual transmissions, they can make driving more fun.
My last car (a Subaru STi) had a nice 6 speed. I replaced it this spring, with a newer ride that came only with an automatic. Probably is the wave of the future.
Manuals just make driving fun IMO. I've been trying to find a manual 2013 to 2016 Audi A4 for weeks/months now, and its dishearteningly difficult to find any without expanding my search to be nationwide.
Manual transmission s basically the command line of cars. It does have its utility, like if you are a sysadmin, but for most part a GUI is much better. Further, as with GUI, automatic transmission poses new problems that need innovative solutions, and this is always a fun thing to happen.
Automatic transmission is a godsend for developing countries like India where roads are too crowded, and filled with bad drivers with bad driving etiquette, and the start-stop driving happens for more than one reason. Its a shame that the market hasn't grown here, at least AFAIK. On the flip side, making it easy to drive might worsen the bad driving and make it accessible to even more incompetent people, as has happened with gearless scooters. It would be interesting to see how things unfold.
Real reason is simple: can drive manual implies can drive automatic which means that automatics are more marketable and dealers adjust inventory accordingly. Negative feedback loop ensues.
A popular topic on HN is how Europe does XYZ better than the US. Particularly in traffic, actually. But here, the Americans truly got it right.
Most people just want a car to get them from A to B. Manual has little to go for it among non-car-geeks, other than "people think it's normal" (in Europe). Automatic is sold as an expensive option here but that makes no sense to me - how can a chip be more expensive to produce than a physical gear box? I assume it isn't and the auto companies just charge what they think people are willing to pay.
I'm glad that EVs are taking hold because then, finally, automatic will become the default. It breaks a ridiculous habit that benefits nobody.
> Automatic is sold as an expensive option here but that makes no sense to me - how can a chip be more expensive to produce than a physical gear box?
I'm not sure what you mean by "chip" here -- all cars have gear boxes (in some form -- you need to have a way of converting the engine's rotation into wheel rotation without stalling or overworking the engine) the question is how they work and what controls the gear ratio. A manual gearbox is actually very simple conceptually and mechanically, resulting in cheaper hardware (and the repair costs are quite cheap too).
Common automatics use a fluid coupling as their gearbox with a torque converter, which is a more complicated piece of machinery (with more significant repair costs in the medium-term -- a clutch replacement is $1000 while an automatic transmission rebuild is $5000). So it makes some sense that they are more expensive -- though it's not always the case that automatics are more expensive to buy (it's only really the case of cheaper cars that they're always more expensive).
The only kind of automatic I can think of that is a "chip" would be a double-clutch transmission (which might appear like an automatic to a user), but as the name suggests under the hood it is two manual transmissions with a computer trying to predict the future to know what gear is needed next). Those are even more expensive because they are ridiculously complicated, and probably require some sort of license from the manufacturer to sell.
After decades of driving shift I was forced by circumstances into Honda with auto. I still drive with my left hand on the wheel and right on the shift.
> habit of "quickly replying" to a text or e-mail.
Once you are on the highway and driving at 80 km/h or above, in most manual cars you are already shifted to the highest gear. In my Hyundai Matrix I am already shifted to the highest gear at 55 km/h.
Oh, and regardless which car you have, please, do not touch your mobile phone.
for me - the first sign of stick shift death was the GM LS1 set of vehicles. I honestly don't know how it was before them, but I know the Camaro Z28, Pontiac Trans Am, and I believe even the Vette with the LS1 sold the automatic for the same price as the manual.
Anecdata: this is the second article on HN this week for which I have seen another article in one of the national newspapers of the European country I live in. 2minutes to fall asleep like the military was the other one. Both had some kind is sensationalist vibe.
This article completely misses what I have observed as a major factor in nearly everyone switching to automatics:
Drunk driving became illegal, then agressively enforced.
This created a powerful incentive for having a vehicle anyone can drive.
All my friends growing up were gearheads of some kind, and drove manual cars. Now they have automatics, so they can continue to get drunk when out and have someone sober (their wives, generally) drive them home.
Don't forget letting the female half of the population drive in the US is a relatively new development as well...
Don't forget letting the female half of the population drive in the US is a relatively new development as well...
Do you mean to say "new" as in "before this old man who is bordering on retirement was born"? Maybe you city folk kept the ladies in the passenger seat, but out on the farm and you don't drive stick, you're not much use. My long-dead grandmother drove everything from the farm truck full of livestock for the sale barn, to driving us kids to church on Sunday when we stayed with her. Were I to guess, if there were a time women didn't generally drive, it was maybe the '50s and before. Sure wasn't the 60s.
Besides, as I was discussing with my wife (who shifts more smoothly than you do) this weekend: manuals aren't what kept women from driving, it was lack of power steering. You can teach a seven-year-old to drive stick.
Any societal shift I can clearly see in my lifetime beginning with my grandparents spanning into my generation I consider relatively new.
Hell it's still a novelty to see coverage of women in automobile racing. Even when they aren't competitive, the media will broadcast their image just for participation alone.
Culturally, it's still fairly common to hear comments about women drivers being inferior.
So I think we're clearly not even out of the woods yet today.
> Don't forget letting the female half of the population drive in the US is a relatively new development as well...
This is completely false, my understanding is there was never a prohibition against women driving in the USA, although maybe at one point in the past it was less common. Also I don't see what this has to do with your earlier point about drunk driving.
It was largely disallowed. Men made all the money, automobiles were expensive and complicated, and it was still considered uncertain if women were capable of handling the complexity.
Our history is full of examples of activities effectively prevented en masse by society without being explicitly illegal.
Just because our past is embarrassing doesn't make it untrue.
Edit:
With regards to how it integrates into my comments about drunk driving and designated drivers; having women become generally accepted as peers in the operation of automobiles changed the parameters for purchasing the vehicle for the household.
If I'm going to continue drinking regularly, and I'm no longer allowed to drive drunk, and we collectively regard women as perfectly acceptable behind the wheel - I'm buying a car that I know my wife can drive as well as I can, not necessarily my preferred model.
This reminds me of the Yoga Bera quote, (paraphrasing) "that place is so busy, nobody goes there any more."
If manual was universal, then everybody used to know how to drive it. The situation you describe wouldn't have made sense 50 years ago. The only reason a generation of wives would know how to drive automatic but not manual is if automatic was already the mainstream choice.
So what you're saying might strengthen the feedback loop, but it can't be the cause of the trend to start with.
Adaptive cruise control in stop and go traffic.
I used to have to deal with a six-speed manual transmission in stop and go traffic for an hour every day, and it was pure torture. I mean, sure, it was fun for a weekend drive in the mountains, but it sucked the rest of the time.
Oh, and as a side note, my new car with an automatic transmission and a 400+ HP engine accelerates from zero to 60 faster and smoother than any one of my previous cars. I will never go back! And I have paddle shifters, if I ever want to manually control the gears.