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Not sure whether your statement is ignorant or insightful. Yes, once electric cars (with superior traction and brake control) take over automatic gearboxes (ac

by spurgu 8y ago

Not sure whether your statement is ignorant or insightful. Yes, once electric cars (with superior traction and brake control) take over automatic gearboxes (actually electrics don't even have gearboxes) will be the norm, but as long as there are engines driven on dinosaur fuel there will be a need for manual gearboxes. Which is why you should learn how to drive one. Once you're able to do that, driving an automatic is trivial, which was the point I was trying to illustrate.

dahart 8y ago
> Not sure whether your statement is ignorant or insightful I’ll answer that for you. It’s insightful. In the U.S. today, less than 2% of new cars sold are manual now. Automatic gearboxes are well beyond the norm already. https://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sc-auto-cover-manual-transmissions-20180710-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sc-auto... I didn’t understand why you said there will always need to be manuals for vehicles that run on gas... what do you mean?
- dave7 8y ago
  > In the U.S. today, less than 2% of new cars sold are manual now. Automatic gearboxes are well beyond the norm already. At that percentage, the U.S. is a huge outlier however, and accounts for quite some chunk of of worldwide automatic gearbox equipped vehicle production on it's own. The automatic gearbox remains the less popular option worldwide [1], though as you can see they are more popular than they were before. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/204123/transmission-type-market-share-in-automobile-production-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/204123/transmission-type...
  - oblio 8y ago
    The real reason that's the case is because most of the rest of the world is much poorer than the US. Also many the people in those other countries don't have to drive as much or as far as people in the US. At some point it's just Stockholm syndrome (we can only afford manual, everyone has it, so let's at least pretend it's cool!).
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Indeed, if I could afford semi-automatic gearbox for the same price as manual, including the regular servicing, I would certainly use it. After all, as GC fan, it does not make much sense to malloc()/free() my gearbox. :)
pjmlp 8y ago
I mentioned future, naturally I drive manual today. The point being that what is right to learn today won't stay like that forever. Only people that maintain old timers still know how to use a motor starter.

by spurgu 8y ago

dahart 8y ago

> Not sure whether your statement is ignorant or insightful I’ll answer that for you. It’s insightful. In the U.S. today, less than 2% of new cars sold are manual now. Automatic gearboxes are well beyond the norm already. https://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sc-auto-cover-manual-transmissions-20180710-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sc-auto... I didn’t understand why you said there will always need to be manuals for vehicles that run on gas... what do you mean?

dave7 8y ago
> In the U.S. today, less than 2% of new cars sold are manual now. Automatic gearboxes are well beyond the norm already. At that percentage, the U.S. is a huge outlier however, and accounts for quite some chunk of of worldwide automatic gearbox equipped vehicle production on it's own. The automatic gearbox remains the less popular option worldwide [1], though as you can see they are more popular than they were before. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/204123/transmission-type-market-share-in-automobile-production-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/204123/transmission-type...
- oblio 8y ago
  The real reason that's the case is because most of the rest of the world is much poorer than the US. Also many the people in those other countries don't have to drive as much or as far as people in the US. At some point it's just Stockholm syndrome (we can only afford manual, everyone has it, so let's at least pretend it's cool!).
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Indeed, if I could afford semi-automatic gearbox for the same price as manual, including the regular servicing, I would certainly use it. After all, as GC fan, it does not make much sense to malloc()/free() my gearbox. :)

pjmlp 8y ago

I mentioned future, naturally I drive manual today. The point being that what is right to learn today won't stay like that forever. Only people that maintain old timers still know how to use a motor starter.