18 ms·

Driving conditions can vary a huge lot. Stuck in city traffic, there's nothing to gain from manual stick. But if you are coming down a steep mountain road or ru

by pif 10y ago

Driving conditions can vary a huge lot. Stuck in city traffic, there's nothing to gain from manual stick. But if you are coming down a steep mountain road or running a car race, you want to use your engine to brake as well as to accelerate. As far as I know, in such a case, manual is unbeatable.

pjmlp 10y ago
> As far as I know, in such a case, manual is unbeatable. I guess that was a big mistake for F1 and other sport cars to have adopted semi-automatic gear boxes then.
- zdkl 10y ago
  I don't know of a lot of F1/automatic gear cars being involved in steep terrain where the engine braking scenario would come into its own.
  - detaro 10y ago
    The grandpartent comment clearly says "or running a car race" as another example. That said, I see no reason why a (semi-)automatic couldn't engine brake.
    - zdkl 10y ago
      I understand, my point was that manual shift cars are used in every discipline where such things matter like rally driving afaik
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        You mean like WRC? Better update yourself. The Subaru Impreza WRC2004 gearbox does a gear change in 0.05s vs 1s taken by the best manual ones. http://m.crash.net/wrc/feature/112516/1/technical-talk-semiautomatic-gearboxes.html http://m.crash.net/wrc/feature/112516/1/technical-talk-semia... Do you know any WRC driver able to beat that?
    - pif 10y ago
      > I see no reason why a (semi-)automatic couldn't engine brake. The semi surely can. The full automatic, I don't know. How can the car understand that you want a lower gear before you touch the brake?
- pif 10y ago
  From Wikipedia: > A semi-automatic transmission ... is an automobile transmission that does not change gears automatically, but rather facilitates manual gear changes by dispensing with the need to press a clutch pedal at the same time as changing gears. I wasn't talking about clutch-and-stick vs. push-a-button. I was talking about controlling which gear is on vs. letting the car guess alone. I've never heard about race cars where the driver does not decide himself which gear is on at which moment; if you have, thanks for letting me learn something new.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Just like reference counting...

by pif 10y ago

pjmlp 10y ago

> As far as I know, in such a case, manual is unbeatable. I guess that was a big mistake for F1 and other sport cars to have adopted semi-automatic gear boxes then.

zdkl 10y ago
I don't know of a lot of F1/automatic gear cars being involved in steep terrain where the engine braking scenario would come into its own.
- detaro 10y ago
  The grandpartent comment clearly says "or running a car race" as another example. That said, I see no reason why a (semi-)automatic couldn't engine brake.
  - zdkl 10y ago
    I understand, my point was that manual shift cars are used in every discipline where such things matter like rally driving afaik
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      You mean like WRC? Better update yourself. The Subaru Impreza WRC2004 gearbox does a gear change in 0.05s vs 1s taken by the best manual ones. http://m.crash.net/wrc/feature/112516/1/technical-talk-semiautomatic-gearboxes.html http://m.crash.net/wrc/feature/112516/1/technical-talk-semia... Do you know any WRC driver able to beat that?
  - pif 10y ago
    > I see no reason why a (semi-)automatic couldn't engine brake. The semi surely can. The full automatic, I don't know. How can the car understand that you want a lower gear before you touch the brake?
pif 10y ago
From Wikipedia: > A semi-automatic transmission ... is an automobile transmission that does not change gears automatically, but rather facilitates manual gear changes by dispensing with the need to press a clutch pedal at the same time as changing gears. I wasn't talking about clutch-and-stick vs. push-a-button. I was talking about controlling which gear is on vs. letting the car guess alone. I've never heard about race cars where the driver does not decide himself which gear is on at which moment; if you have, thanks for letting me learn something new.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Just like reference counting...