4 ms·

Can’t comment on weight, but on efficiency, automatics have better mpg than manual. Are clutch burns weight related? I’ve not heard of them coming from urban us

Can’t comment on weight, but on efficiency, automatics have better mpg than manual. Are clutch burns weight related? I’ve not heard of them coming from urban use, only track days. There was a small resistance to young people learning automatic as it would be a limit on their licence but that seems to have gone away in the last decade.

lloeki 4y ago
> automatics have better mpg than manual modern automatic, the 7-10 gear kind with a high end smart enough controller, and even that is not a given. It's basically an epicyclic gear train + a torque converter sloshing in oil (basically using fluid as a clutch that never wears out), which has big loss overall (because fluid dynamics), and the added gears+smarts in control offsets that, but they're generally less efficient mechanically than a simple manual gear train. That said, the "automatic" moniker these days covers a whole lot of varying technologies, including CVT, and automatic (single or dual, wet or dry) clutch+gear change, which are basically manual gearboxes except stick and clutch are not mechanically user operable but driven by servos. And there you get the benefit of the more efficient gearbox and the smart control (a.k.a shift to the higher gear possible ASAP when little torque is needed instead of having the engine stay at a higher RPM, which means more travel, which means more friction) All things being equal, MPG ratings are usually (there are exceptions) a dead giveaway of the kind of gearbox. (Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised the least if tomorrow I learned that gearbox control programs would be "tuned" to get good MPG tests with flying colours, the VW way.) But all of this doesn't really matter, parallel hybrid (e.g Prius&al) basically requires a more complex drivetrain involving an epicyclic gearbox+torque converter (thus auto) (+ IIRC some kind of differential gear train) to mix the two mechanical power sources that can rotate at different speeds (including not rotating at all), and serial hybrid is basically an EV, except with a power generator on board, and EV means either no gearbox or low-count gear one that is entirely driven automatically. So, manual is going to die anyway as we're being pushed towards low emission vehicles. Also, a factor of stick being popular in EU is also that in most countries its product bracket and image used to be placed as luxury/high end, and thus used to be subject to higher taxes/insurance premiums for some reason, which pushed the market towards the cheaper option.

lloeki 4y ago

> automatics have better mpg than manual modern automatic, the 7-10 gear kind with a high end smart enough controller, and even that is not a given. It's basically an epicyclic gear train + a torque converter sloshing in oil (basically using fluid as a clutch that never wears out), which has big loss overall (because fluid dynamics), and the added gears+smarts in control offsets that, but they're generally less efficient mechanically than a simple manual gear train. That said, the "automatic" moniker these days covers a whole lot of varying technologies, including CVT, and automatic (single or dual, wet or dry) clutch+gear change, which are basically manual gearboxes except stick and clutch are not mechanically user operable but driven by servos. And there you get the benefit of the more efficient gearbox and the smart control (a.k.a shift to the higher gear possible ASAP when little torque is needed instead of having the engine stay at a higher RPM, which means more travel, which means more friction) All things being equal, MPG ratings are usually (there are exceptions) a dead giveaway of the kind of gearbox. (Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised the least if tomorrow I learned that gearbox control programs would be "tuned" to get good MPG tests with flying colours, the VW way.) But all of this doesn't really matter, parallel hybrid (e.g Prius&al) basically requires a more complex drivetrain involving an epicyclic gearbox+torque converter (thus auto) (+ IIRC some kind of differential gear train) to mix the two mechanical power sources that can rotate at different speeds (including not rotating at all), and serial hybrid is basically an EV, except with a power generator on board, and EV means either no gearbox or low-count gear one that is entirely driven automatically. So, manual is going to die anyway as we're being pushed towards low emission vehicles. Also, a factor of stick being popular in EU is also that in most countries its product bracket and image used to be placed as luxury/high end, and thus used to be subject to higher taxes/insurance premiums for some reason, which pushed the market towards the cheaper option.