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...
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)
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.
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.
I will never understand all the "this did it for me" talk. I drove a manual Tacoma in all conditions for 16 years, including lots and lots of heavy traffic. Never was an issue.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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 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?
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 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.
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 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...
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.
> 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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.
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)
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".
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.
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.
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...
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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 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.
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.
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."
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).
> 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I had a Subaru Legacy with a CVT. Awful. Just plain awful. I would back out of my driveway and there would be this 2 second delay after selecting "D" and trying to go forwards. WTF Subaru?
CVTs are cheap garbage and "infinite gears" are not that useful. Heck, even the 8,9,10 speed autos now have too many gears. They're always hunting for which gear to be in and CVTs are the same way.
The argument that manual drivers are less efficient that autos rings hollow to me. I always got better mileage driving a manual than an auto and the manuals always got all the performance out of under-powered cars versus the slushbox. The computer can't know what is going on in the traffic or if a slow curve is coming up ahead. It can only react to rpm and maybe steering inputs. You just have to get better at driving one!
The reasons manuals are going away is government regulation of emissions. The automakers can't control all the inputs and they hate that!
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 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 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.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadInteresting they chose a picture of a floor shift automatic for the article.
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...
You just didn't go old and crappy enough. Studebaker had "Hill Holder" back in the 1930s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill-holder
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...
Pretty common on late 60's, 70's, and some 80's cars.
Performing a hill start correctly is often part of driving tests in the UK.
Joking apart, I’d swap my manual for an ‘automatic’ with paddle-shift manual controls.
If I was commuting in a city I’d definitely want an automatic though.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 will have :wq! on my headstone, though.
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.
From http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2017/06/09/production-statist...
For 2017, a total of 25556 paddle shift automatics, and a total of 7226 manual shift.
Based on personal experience, it takes about three years to get over that. YMMV.
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.
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.
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.
Most cars are designed to make you feel nothing and hear nothing. Nothing from the road and nothing from the engine.
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.
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?
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.
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)
From the UK, where stick shift is very much the norm, it doesn't.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
For a sample size of one I don’t actually need one myself.
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.
Doesn't that go against the adage that after a week shifting becomes muscle memory or is there something else?
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.
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...)
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)
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.
Yes, I'm in a niche, but so is the car.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
The UK is moving away from manuals for hybrid and fully electric vehicles which often use a CVT, or no transmission in some cases (direct drive).
Point is, automatics are pretty sturdy these days, and there are fewer shops in the U. S. that will work on manuals anymore.
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.
Meanwhile you can take the automatics apart in your garage with few-to-no specialized tools.
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.
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.
Edit: some words
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.
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!
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.
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.
That said, we don't have many big pickup trucks like the US does - here it's much more common to see mid-duty trucks like the Isuzu Elf in that space.
Why has "having fun" disappeared from people's list of requirements in a vehicle?
CVT's are boring to drive. Extremely boring.
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 ;)
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.
CVTs are cheap garbage and "infinite gears" are not that useful. Heck, even the 8,9,10 speed autos now have too many gears. They're always hunting for which gear to be in and CVTs are the same way.
The argument that manual drivers are less efficient that autos rings hollow to me. I always got better mileage driving a manual than an auto and the manuals always got all the performance out of under-powered cars versus the slushbox. The computer can't know what is going on in the traffic or if a slow curve is coming up ahead. It can only react to rpm and maybe steering inputs. You just have to get better at driving one!
The reasons manuals are going away is government regulation of emissions. The automakers can't control all the inputs and they hate that!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.