The European mood is shifting (no pun intended). I see an increasing number of models being offered with automatic gearboxes, even at the lower end of the price

The European mood is shifting (no pun intended). I see an increasing number of models being offered with automatic gearboxes, even at the lower end of the price scale. Sales numbers are probably available somewhere, but, for a quick sample, I took a cursory look at a local used car site - out of 5058 cars listed from 2010 onwards, some 716 are automatic. Nearly 15% is pretty good for something that used to be much harder to come by.