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Manual transmissions are dead. I grew up learning to drive a manual transmission car. Awesome. I loved the feeling of driving and shifting gears up the hilly,

Manual transmissions are dead. I grew up learning to drive a manual transmission car. Awesome. I loved the feeling of driving and shifting gears up the hilly, mountainous, twisty horrible roads in Jamaica. Exhilarating! But cars got better. I got older, and now automatic transmissions are so much more efficient than manual transmissions * for ordinary people *. We're not talking about people who love driving here. We are talking about people who drive an ordinary car. People who just want to commute and relax. We are not talking about Porsche or Konignsegg's (sp) latest car with a manual transmission. These days I'm in a taxi in Thailand almost every day, and half of the drivers use a manual transmission and the other half use an automatic transmission. I think the reason is that cars with manual transmissions are older and cheaper. But at the same time, the driving experience in those taxis with the manual transmission is horrible. Herky-jerky, and most of the drivers don't even know how to use the manual correctly. The world changes. It is what it is.

mnw21cam 4y ago
Huh? I haven't seen or heard of anyone I know driving an automatic transmission car since 2005 or so, and that was a bizarre oddity at the time.
masklinn 4y ago
> I got older, and now automatic transmissions are so much more efficient than manual transmissions * for ordinary people *. It’s not just ordinary people. The opposite, if anything. F1 and rally cars haven’t been manual for decades. I don’t think any modern super is manual. Though with the ev-ification the point is moot as save for a few rare exceptions they’re single-gear.
- vlan0 4y ago
  While true, the motivating factors for F1 and mass production vehicles are not the same. F1 is pure min/max. Which of course means manual is gone. But min/max on my GTI means I lose connection with the vehicle and my ability to drive matters less. For what? .4 faster 0-60 or 1/4? Eh
  - masklinn 4y ago
    The comment I replied to was a statement of efficiency. Not a statement of the pleasure you derive from transmission vinyl.
    - vlan0 4y ago
      Huh, thanks for calling me out on that. My brain must have been in a different gear.
  - mstump 4y ago
    F1 isn’t even about max performance, it’s about trying to maintain an element of driver skill as a factor of outcomes. It’s why they outlawed the Williams continuously variable transmission (CVT). A lot in F1 is done to maintain the suspense/excitement of a race for the TV audience.
- originalvichy 4y ago
  Saying they aren’t manual can be misleading. F1 and rally cars have automatic clutching but they certainly gear up and down manually.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    There’s nothing misleading about it. Shift paddles are pretty standard on cars with automatic gearboxes. The only difference is that outside of sports cars “consumer” gearboxes will usually restrict the range they’ll let you use with semi-automatic shifting and will override that if you redline or bottom out.
    - hugh-avherald 4y ago
      F1 cars will not automatically shift gears though. That's the defining feature of automatic transmission.
      - masklinn 4y ago
        It’s completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand: whether the user or the computer initiates the gear change does not change the efficiency of the gearbox. When manuals are discussed on the internet, it’s the manual clutch which is the central difference, not what’s essentially a firmware feature or lack thereof. That’s what’s mentioned in pretty much every comment other than your nitpicks.
  - djhworld 4y ago
    This feature is on ordinary cars too (sometimes called 'semi automatics') I actually have it on my car, there are paddles behind the steering wheel that can shift the gears up and down. It's a bit of a gimmick for ordinary driving as you can just let the car choose the appropriate gear, but I guess if you want to shunt down a few gears quickly on a hill to get some engine braking it can be useful
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      I use this for people that get easily carsick, it allows me to pull away in 2nd gear rather than first and that means fewer gearshifts and more smooth starting. It's not super good for the clutch but it certainly beats cleaning up...
- jjav 4y ago
  > F1 and rally cars haven’t been manual for decades. In racing, but particularly in F1, you can't leave a single millisecond on the table because the competitors won't. So F1 gearboxes shift in milliseconds which is obviously impossible for a human to do with a clutch pedal. And that is all F1 teams optimize for, speed. When driving purely for fun (as most street sports cars are used) there is no stopwatch, so it hardly matters if the shift happens in 10 milliseconds or a 1000. What matters is how much fun it is and that is where a good shifter and a clutch pedal with a nice feel shine.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > What matters is how much fun it is and that is where a good shifter and a clutch pedal with a nice feel shine. The comment I replied to was talking about efficiency, and my reply was in those terms as well. If what matters to you is the car equivalent of putting your audio cables on pyramids you do you, but this is not “what matters” to what we were talking about. It couldn’t be any further really.
- R0flcopt3r 4y ago
  Rally transmissions at least are very much manual. Along with most other race transmissions. They use dog-ring gearboxes, which are just really beefy synchronizing rings that let you just slam it into gear without decoupling from the engine. The paddles are electric, but they tell some pneumatic system to push a lever forwards or backwards. F1 might use some decoupling? But I would expect them to work like most other race transmissions, by not decoupling. There are computers that control the rev-matching, but that's technically on the engine side of things. There are sensors on the gearbox that let the controller know when to add throttle, but it's still very much not the responsibility of the transmission. There are also downshift protection to make sure you don't over-rev the engine, but this is also on the engine side of things, but it does block the signal from the paddle shifters.
NonNefarious 4y ago
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  Or the Europeans are too ignorant and lazy to update to new stuff like AC (and auto transmission). ;p
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    I have an AC in the Netherlands. It’s in the guest room for when our American friends visit and we occasionally all pile in there for the two (non-consecutive) days to weeks of the year it is ridiculously hot.
    - rasz 4y ago
      todays 32C is not ridiculously hot?
      - withinboredom 4y ago
        I’m not home today, but I wish I was…
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    Eu here: have ac and man tx. So does everyone i know. A big difference may be that we turn on the ac only when really necessary, and a manual tx isn't that hard...kids at 16 do it, and have to pass their tests doing it in that, if you take your test in an automatic you are not allowed to drive a manual without being considered a learner again.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Nah, we like the control manuals give us, and above all, cheaper maintenance rates.
- taxyz 4y ago
  Sixt rental cars in France hasn’t been doing manual transmission cars for years - automatics get better gas mileage and are actually better on overall emissions (you’ll notice modern manual cars keep the revs up even when you let off the throttle). Germany has followed, I believe. But you’re right, it’s probably those dumb Americans’ fault.
ciconia 4y ago
> now automatic transmissions are so much more efficient than manual transmissions * for ordinary people *. Efficient in what way? I find it highly unlikely an automatic would have better fuel economy than a manual.
- fragmede 4y ago
  power transmission. With 7 and 8-speed clutched automatics, there is no longer the same transmission loss as with older torque converter models.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  They weren't for about 100 years, but automatics are now mostly better than manuals in terms of performance and economy. Unfortunately, some the the things that make them "better" like 8 gears makes the driving feel worse, with constant shifting. The other big gain is in improved torque conversion. https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/how-automatic-transmissions-overtook-manuals-in-speed-and-efficiency https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/how-automa...
- gorgoiler 4y ago
  Automatics traditionally had a single clutch and a viscous coupling to convert smooth the torque between gear shifts. Switching gears was slow and the transmission as a whole was less fuel efficient. Modern automatic gearboxes have dual clutches and two separate sets of gears for even and odd numbers. You alternate between them as you shift up and down. Shifting is faster and smoother. (The system isn’t perfect. If you switch to manual selection of gears the transmission computer sometimes guessing wrong — while you’re in 3rd and accelerating it’ll get 4th ready for on the even-numbers clutch, so if you suddenly brake and shift down there is a longer delay while the transmission shifts to 2nd instead.) Here’s Audi’s marketing material on their version: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_as29ym51M https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_as29ym51M
  - hnov 4y ago
    That’s not quite how traditional autos worked, they also have sets of clutches and bands, controlled by a complex hydraulic system. Modern automatics are electronically actuated and are basically killing the need for DCTs, with VW Group and Hyundai (and some exotic makers) being the lone holdouts in the U.S. market.
lisper 4y ago
I drove a manual for about 20 years and I still really enjoy them, but there is one thing that made me happily leave them behind: stop-and-go traffic. Not having to clutch constantly when driving in the city is a big enough win that I'm willing to give up the fun of a manual for it. But I do sometimes miss having a stick on a windy mountain road.
- euroderf 4y ago
  And don't forget leaving from a stop uphill.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    There are many techniques to start uphill. In Italy the driving test is on manual transmission and many people use manual. I trained in Rome, parking on the left side downhill (so backward is uphill), it was tough, but learned a lot of tricks in the process to prevent stalling. You also become very attuned to the clutch I do love manual transmission, but the purpose is to have fun, not for daily usage.
    - euroderf 4y ago
      Yes the clutch becomes your BFF. But can you really say that a manual is not for daily use ? It certainly helps when dealing with ice & snow.
      - wil421 4y ago
        I’m doubting the person in Italy has a need for ice and snow driving. Where I am it might snow or ice once a year. However I do own an SUV that has a snow mode. It starts in second to avoid spinning the wheels and will let you manually cycle through the 8 speeds if you want.
        badpun 4y ago
        > I’m doubting the person in Italy has a need for ice and snow driving. They have high mountains in there, including Alps, with highest peak at 2912 meters.
jacquesm 4y ago
The vast bulk of the Porsches is sold with automatic transmission. https://www.topgear.com/car-news/supercars/how-many-people-actually-buy-manual-porsche-sports-car https://www.topgear.com/car-news/supercars/how-many-people-a... It's basically 'daily driver' versus 'enthusiast' or 'track car' now even for cars in that bracket. One big advantage in the second hand market is that if you look for an automatic you can be fairly sure that the engine won't have been overrevved. (The engine computer registers this and if you read it out you can see how long and how often it was overrevved, for stick shift cars this isn't unusual at all, on automatics it just doesn't happen.)
- dingaling 4y ago
  Over-revving is next to impossible nowadays as the ECU will cut fuel flow to prevent it. Hence "bouncing off the limiter".
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    It's super easy: downshift into the wrong gear and let go of the clutch. That's the bulk of those cases.
    - 0x0000000 4y ago
      Colloquially known as the "money shift"
wobbleblob 4y ago
Automatic transmission is very rare in Europe.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- iso1631 4y ago
  No they're not. Not any more. https://fordauthority.com/2020/07/automatic-transmissions-gaining-in-popularity-in-europe/ https://fordauthority.com/2020/07/automatic-transmissions-ga... Specifically, automatics accounted for around 10 percent of Ford Europe sales volume in 2017. That figure has climbed to over 31 percent in the first month of the 2020 calendar year.
commandlinefan 4y ago
> People who just want to commute and relax. Honestly, it kind of feels like we're not that far away from cars with steering wheels and gas pedals being the oddity.

mnw21cam 4y ago

Huh? I haven't seen or heard of anyone I know driving an automatic transmission car since 2005 or so, and that was a bizarre oddity at the time.

masklinn 4y ago

> I got older, and now automatic transmissions are so much more efficient than manual transmissions * for ordinary people *. It’s not just ordinary people. The opposite, if anything. F1 and rally cars haven’t been manual for decades. I don’t think any modern super is manual. Though with the ev-ification the point is moot as save for a few rare exceptions they’re single-gear.

vlan0 4y ago
While true, the motivating factors for F1 and mass production vehicles are not the same. F1 is pure min/max. Which of course means manual is gone. But min/max on my GTI means I lose connection with the vehicle and my ability to drive matters less. For what? .4 faster 0-60 or 1/4? Eh
- masklinn 4y ago
  The comment I replied to was a statement of efficiency. Not a statement of the pleasure you derive from transmission vinyl.
  - vlan0 4y ago
    Huh, thanks for calling me out on that. My brain must have been in a different gear.
- mstump 4y ago
  F1 isn’t even about max performance, it’s about trying to maintain an element of driver skill as a factor of outcomes. It’s why they outlawed the Williams continuously variable transmission (CVT). A lot in F1 is done to maintain the suspense/excitement of a race for the TV audience.
originalvichy 4y ago
Saying they aren’t manual can be misleading. F1 and rally cars have automatic clutching but they certainly gear up and down manually.
- masklinn 4y ago
  There’s nothing misleading about it. Shift paddles are pretty standard on cars with automatic gearboxes. The only difference is that outside of sports cars “consumer” gearboxes will usually restrict the range they’ll let you use with semi-automatic shifting and will override that if you redline or bottom out.
  - hugh-avherald 4y ago
    F1 cars will not automatically shift gears though. That's the defining feature of automatic transmission.
    - masklinn 4y ago
      It’s completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand: whether the user or the computer initiates the gear change does not change the efficiency of the gearbox. When manuals are discussed on the internet, it’s the manual clutch which is the central difference, not what’s essentially a firmware feature or lack thereof. That’s what’s mentioned in pretty much every comment other than your nitpicks.
- djhworld 4y ago
  This feature is on ordinary cars too (sometimes called 'semi automatics') I actually have it on my car, there are paddles behind the steering wheel that can shift the gears up and down. It's a bit of a gimmick for ordinary driving as you can just let the car choose the appropriate gear, but I guess if you want to shunt down a few gears quickly on a hill to get some engine braking it can be useful
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    I use this for people that get easily carsick, it allows me to pull away in 2nd gear rather than first and that means fewer gearshifts and more smooth starting. It's not super good for the clutch but it certainly beats cleaning up...
jjav 4y ago
> F1 and rally cars haven’t been manual for decades. In racing, but particularly in F1, you can't leave a single millisecond on the table because the competitors won't. So F1 gearboxes shift in milliseconds which is obviously impossible for a human to do with a clutch pedal. And that is all F1 teams optimize for, speed. When driving purely for fun (as most street sports cars are used) there is no stopwatch, so it hardly matters if the shift happens in 10 milliseconds or a 1000. What matters is how much fun it is and that is where a good shifter and a clutch pedal with a nice feel shine.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > What matters is how much fun it is and that is where a good shifter and a clutch pedal with a nice feel shine. The comment I replied to was talking about efficiency, and my reply was in those terms as well. If what matters to you is the car equivalent of putting your audio cables on pyramids you do you, but this is not “what matters” to what we were talking about. It couldn’t be any further really.
R0flcopt3r 4y ago
Rally transmissions at least are very much manual. Along with most other race transmissions. They use dog-ring gearboxes, which are just really beefy synchronizing rings that let you just slam it into gear without decoupling from the engine. The paddles are electric, but they tell some pneumatic system to push a lever forwards or backwards. F1 might use some decoupling? But I would expect them to work like most other race transmissions, by not decoupling. There are computers that control the rev-matching, but that's technically on the engine side of things. There are sensors on the gearbox that let the controller know when to add throttle, but it's still very much not the responsibility of the transmission. There are also downshift protection to make sure you don't over-rev the engine, but this is also on the engine side of things, but it does block the signal from the paddle shifters.

NonNefarious 4y ago

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
Or the Europeans are too ignorant and lazy to update to new stuff like AC (and auto transmission). ;p
- withinboredom 4y ago
  I have an AC in the Netherlands. It’s in the guest room for when our American friends visit and we occasionally all pile in there for the two (non-consecutive) days to weeks of the year it is ridiculously hot.
  - rasz 4y ago
    todays 32C is not ridiculously hot?
    - withinboredom 4y ago
      I’m not home today, but I wish I was…
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Eu here: have ac and man tx. So does everyone i know. A big difference may be that we turn on the ac only when really necessary, and a manual tx isn't that hard...kids at 16 do it, and have to pass their tests doing it in that, if you take your test in an automatic you are not allowed to drive a manual without being considered a learner again.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Nah, we like the control manuals give us, and above all, cheaper maintenance rates.
taxyz 4y ago
Sixt rental cars in France hasn’t been doing manual transmission cars for years - automatics get better gas mileage and are actually better on overall emissions (you’ll notice modern manual cars keep the revs up even when you let off the throttle). Germany has followed, I believe. But you’re right, it’s probably those dumb Americans’ fault.

ciconia 4y ago

> now automatic transmissions are so much more efficient than manual transmissions * for ordinary people *. Efficient in what way? I find it highly unlikely an automatic would have better fuel economy than a manual.

fragmede 4y ago
power transmission. With 7 and 8-speed clutched automatics, there is no longer the same transmission loss as with older torque converter models.
WillPostForFood 4y ago
They weren't for about 100 years, but automatics are now mostly better than manuals in terms of performance and economy. Unfortunately, some the the things that make them "better" like 8 gears makes the driving feel worse, with constant shifting. The other big gain is in improved torque conversion. https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/how-automatic-transmissions-overtook-manuals-in-speed-and-efficiency https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/how-automa...
gorgoiler 4y ago
Automatics traditionally had a single clutch and a viscous coupling to convert smooth the torque between gear shifts. Switching gears was slow and the transmission as a whole was less fuel efficient. Modern automatic gearboxes have dual clutches and two separate sets of gears for even and odd numbers. You alternate between them as you shift up and down. Shifting is faster and smoother. (The system isn’t perfect. If you switch to manual selection of gears the transmission computer sometimes guessing wrong — while you’re in 3rd and accelerating it’ll get 4th ready for on the even-numbers clutch, so if you suddenly brake and shift down there is a longer delay while the transmission shifts to 2nd instead.) Here’s Audi’s marketing material on their version: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_as29ym51M https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_as29ym51M
- hnov 4y ago
  That’s not quite how traditional autos worked, they also have sets of clutches and bands, controlled by a complex hydraulic system. Modern automatics are electronically actuated and are basically killing the need for DCTs, with VW Group and Hyundai (and some exotic makers) being the lone holdouts in the U.S. market.

lisper 4y ago

I drove a manual for about 20 years and I still really enjoy them, but there is one thing that made me happily leave them behind: stop-and-go traffic. Not having to clutch constantly when driving in the city is a big enough win that I'm willing to give up the fun of a manual for it. But I do sometimes miss having a stick on a windy mountain road.

euroderf 4y ago
And don't forget leaving from a stop uphill.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  There are many techniques to start uphill. In Italy the driving test is on manual transmission and many people use manual. I trained in Rome, parking on the left side downhill (so backward is uphill), it was tough, but learned a lot of tricks in the process to prevent stalling. You also become very attuned to the clutch I do love manual transmission, but the purpose is to have fun, not for daily usage.
  - euroderf 4y ago
    Yes the clutch becomes your BFF. But can you really say that a manual is not for daily use ? It certainly helps when dealing with ice & snow.
    - wil421 4y ago
      I’m doubting the person in Italy has a need for ice and snow driving. Where I am it might snow or ice once a year. However I do own an SUV that has a snow mode. It starts in second to avoid spinning the wheels and will let you manually cycle through the 8 speeds if you want.
      - badpun 4y ago
        > I’m doubting the person in Italy has a need for ice and snow driving. They have high mountains in there, including Alps, with highest peak at 2912 meters.

jacquesm 4y ago

The vast bulk of the Porsches is sold with automatic transmission. https://www.topgear.com/car-news/supercars/how-many-people-actually-buy-manual-porsche-sports-car https://www.topgear.com/car-news/supercars/how-many-people-a... It's basically 'daily driver' versus 'enthusiast' or 'track car' now even for cars in that bracket. One big advantage in the second hand market is that if you look for an automatic you can be fairly sure that the engine won't have been overrevved. (The engine computer registers this and if you read it out you can see how long and how often it was overrevved, for stick shift cars this isn't unusual at all, on automatics it just doesn't happen.)

dingaling 4y ago
Over-revving is next to impossible nowadays as the ECU will cut fuel flow to prevent it. Hence "bouncing off the limiter".
- jacquesm 4y ago
  It's super easy: downshift into the wrong gear and let go of the clutch. That's the bulk of those cases.
  - 0x0000000 4y ago
    Colloquially known as the "money shift"

wobbleblob 4y ago

Automatic transmission is very rare in Europe.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
iso1631 4y ago
No they're not. Not any more. https://fordauthority.com/2020/07/automatic-transmissions-gaining-in-popularity-in-europe/ https://fordauthority.com/2020/07/automatic-transmissions-ga... Specifically, automatics accounted for around 10 percent of Ford Europe sales volume in 2017. That figure has climbed to over 31 percent in the first month of the 2020 calendar year.

commandlinefan 4y ago

> People who just want to commute and relax. Honestly, it kind of feels like we're not that far away from cars with steering wheels and gas pedals being the oddity.