I will give up my manual transmission, if you will bring back pull-knobs, twist knobs and other tactile switches for the main controls of my vehicle, with the appropriate tactile feedback at set points so I can set them without looking.
After thinking on it, I am going to raise my demands, however: you also need to produce cars that are as visually appealing and reasonably sized as in the 50s and 60s. Fire all your designers, go back to whatever your models were in 1965, and begin anew. When in doubt, don't.
A great number of the cool designs from the 50's and 60's are illegal because the front of the car eats people. Swallows them, chews them up, and spits them out.
The sloped design of new cars isn't just about aerodynamics. In a low-speed impact a pedestrian is lifted onto the hood. Forward leaning grills, such as on the Dodge Charger, some of the beefier Mustangs, and any number of other muscle cars or sedans, instead clip pedestrians in the knee or hip, tip them over and drop them onto the ground, where the car then runs over them.
I think there was also an issue with those profiles and Jersey barriers, in that they were more likely to pole vault over them off the side of a bridge or onto - not into - oncoming traffic.
the sloped design of... a current Escalade? I do doubt designers in the 50's were worried about the top of the grill hitting a full grown mans head on contact.
Those "forward leaning grills" you're crapping on are just flimsy plastic with a bunch of air behind them. If they strike a pedestrian at any speed they deform and crumple and whatnot and the pedestrian winds up on the hood.
While not styled to lean forward like what Dodge does pretty much all the tall bulbous front ends that HN hates and are found on modern cars and crossovers are designed like this. A bunch of plastic with air behind it is the primary means by which OEMs meet the European pedestrian safety requirements. The styled plastic provides something that's softer than the quasi-structural radiator core support that all the front end cosmetic stuff attaches to for the pedestrian to hit.
Can I add a request? A car that doesn't phone home. That is, one that the government is utterly unable to remotely turn off, monitor, or impose distance quotas. One that cannot be hacked through a poorly secured server in a car maker's server farm or government server with the username/pass admin/admin.
It seems like it should be straightforward to pull out any cell radios, no? I've removed them from cell phones with ease, and I have to think the larger size of a car would lend itself to this being easy.
> government is utterly unable to remotely turn off, monitor, or impose distance quotas
This is reality already? I'm starting to think maybe computers were a mistake. I mean how much more screwed up can our world get before it turns into a cyberpunk hell?
> reasonably sized as in the 50s and 60s. Fire all your designers, go back to whatever your models were in 1965
What alternate dimension are you from? My older brother had a 60's Ford Fairlane when I was growing up. My first car was a 67 mustang. I had a friend with a 68 Camaro. I knew someone else that had multiple Thunderbirds from that era.
These were not small cars. The Mustang and Camaro were the size of a full size sedan today , if not bigger. The cross sections of the doors were very large, they just aren't very space efficient at all. They're only small relative to the other cars of the era, and I wouldn't call their size reasonable in any real way.
Those are the coupes. The sedans, such as the Fairlane and Thunderbird? Those were about as big as a modern full size crew cab pickup.
> The Mustang and Camaro were the size of a full size sedan today , if not bigger
This is verifiably false with three minutes of searching, which I did on my cellphone as I sit by a campfire. As an owner of both a 1965 Mustang and a 2015 Explorer, the difference in size between these vehicles is comical. I've rented a 2020 Camry that was larger in every dimension. It got great gas mileage, but small it was not.
1967 Ford Mustang
Length: 183.6"
Width: 70.9"
Height: 51.6"
2020 Toyota Camry
Length: 192.1"
Width: 72.4"
Height: 56.9"
The 1965 Mustang was even smaller and lighter. The 1969-1970 Mustangs, while larger, are still smaller in every dimension than a modern Camry. Some older cars were indeed boats, but almost all modern American automobiles are boats, and a lot of this has to do with the laws that regulate and shape the products created by the American automotive industry.
> Those are the coupes. The sedans, such as the Fairlane and Thunderbird? Those were about as big as a modern full size crew cab pickup.
I’m reminded of my grandparent’s 1979 Cadillac (Not sure of the model). It barely fit in the garage. They parked their Chevy Suburban in that same garage.
If it's in your budget I highly recommend test driving the Porsche Macan.
It has a screen but as far as I can tell it's not required for anything that doesn't implicitly require a screen (i.e. GPS).
Overall the car is amazingly well designed. The tactile experience is there, you can feel your way around everything without moving your eyes from the road/immediate dash area. It still has an analog clock. I also feel like there are a lot of advanced, car enthusiast friendly features I have yet to explore.
It's also a stupidly practical car. I've frequently loaded the back with cinder blocks and bricks, filled it with a small arboretum of house plants, drum sander, multiple bikes, small couches, etc. I feel a bit silly loading up a Porche at home depot, but boy does it do the job well.
And at the same time, when you're getting on the highway it has all the power you could want, and is just a blast to drive around at night on empty roads. Comfort wise it feels like it has exactly what you want, but nothing more.
Overall the car is amazingly well designed. The tactile experience is there, you can feel your way around everything without moving your eyes from the road/immediate dash area.
Not anymore, unfortunately. In the current gen (2022+) Macan they got rid of the buttons in favor of a glossy touch panel. It looks cleaner, but it won't by the time you get home from the dealership.
Right. This amazing car refuses to open its trunk from inside when being in park mode and engine switched off when you are not in Home Screen on central panel.
Another interesting issue is compatibility porsche id and apple car play. it seems the car play kicks out porsche id 3 times out of 4 given that you use your iphone as identification means.
Pretty cool to read about somebody using their Porsche the same way I use my 12yo Toyota Rav4! My record is still fitting a full-sized washer and dryer in the back...
Don't feel silly for utilizing your vehicle's capabilities!
I second this, Macan owner since 6 years and have not been more satisfied going 0-60 in 6 seconds in a car that i have loaded with close to 50 gravel bags from Home Depot :) oh and going back to original post, two main reasons i chose the car was 1. Way it drives and 2. Tactile buttons
If you’re looking for an all-electric with the same feeling, the Hyundai Kona fits the bill. Everything is a button or knob, except the GPS. It’s a breath of fresh air after the Tesla and the bmw i3.
I don't own a car anymore, but it's something I online window shop sometimes. It seems like Lexus is going to be the last luxury car brand to keep physical controls instead of all screen.
> Olympian believes in reducing the number of buttons and switches to simplify the cockpit. We take a voice-first approach to control infotainment, HVAC, seats, doors, and lighting systems.
This sounds like the opposite of OP's request for physical controls.
Yeah, this is a completely valid complaint. How in the world did automakers manage to get vehicles on the market that require you to look away from your 70 mph trajectory on a highway to visually confirm that you clicked "OK" instead of "Cancel"? Major safety design failures. You know it the first time you encounter it.
> you also need to produce cars that are as visually appealing and reasonably sized as in the 50s and 60s. Fire all your designers, go back to whatever your models were in 1965, and begin anew.
Safety considerations aside, the aesthetics of the rocket and atomic age reflect the hope on humanity's future that was dominating back then. Automotive designs of late 10's early 20's are a tiny bit fancier than in previous couple decades, but they don't look futuristic, they tend to look more aggressive instead. That's also because there's demand for that aesthetic in our era.
To change the way cars look, change the way you live your life.
Look into the Dacia Sandero, then. When they launched they were about six grand in the highest trim spec, which included a space to fit a stereo. Not the stereo, just the space to fit it.
Manual door locks, manual windey windows, manual seats, buttons and dials, mechanical gauges. All based on "proven technology" first-gen Renault Megane components, so it's easy to fix.
I picked up a 1994 Toyota Pickup for this exact reason. It's so insanely simple, they didn't even give it a proper name. One of the last true work horses, if it wasn't for that damn rusty frame.
Coachbuild the inside, you can basically be rolls royce here because you're low volume.
Obviously all the knobs and switches would be built with reliability in mind.
Sound system I was thinking would just be a good bluetooth speaker system and a phone mount. Dont have to worry about android auto or carplay or sound system or gps going out of date. its just your phone.
As someone who hates how ugly modern cars have become, I can also acknowledge the extraordinary leap in safety they've achieved since then. Many of the rules are designed around safety.
Although a counterpoint to this is the giant A pillars limit visibility so much as to be dangerous themselves.
meh, my wife's car does that, but to me it's not the same. I think if I can put into words what I like about manual transmissions, it's more than just the control to change the gears, it's the actual tactile feeling of removing power from the drivetrain (via clutch), then re-applying it. it's the cliche feeling of "connection" to the car, road, and what's happening. But I understand why the manual is dying. Most people don't want it, today's automatics are much better suited for towing (thus eliminating the manual in trucks and SUVs), and the top of the top of performance cars paddle shift light years faster than anyone could in a proper manual transmission.
But anyone that drives a manual will let you know it's mostly about the clutch and how you use it, rather than choosing what gear you're in. Using a clutch just right can produce amazing amount of torque just when you need it. Automatic clutch can be incredibly efficient, but it simply can't know what you want to do.
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.
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.
I currently use a (automatic) borrowed car from the shop while my (manual) car is being repaired. I mostly do city-driving.
One of the biggest issues with the automatic is stop-and-go traffic. It's absolutely trash at accelerating smoothly but fast, and I have no choice but to either go very slowly forward to not make it janky, or really aggressive acceleration. With a manual car, smooth-but-fast acceleration is easy to achieve, but with this (Audi Q3) borrow car, it seems short of impossible to achieve.
More pet-peeves of automatic VS manual I'm experiencing are outlined here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32591426 but smooth city driving is probably what I miss the most currently, as that is mostly how I spend my driving.
People say they hate driving manuals in stop-and-go-traffic and I don't get it - maybe it's because I've been driving them as my daily driver for over 30 years? My left foot and right hand just take care of what needs to be done without my even having to think about it. Essentially I am driving an automatic! :)
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.
> 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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.)
I find it highly unlikely an automatic would have better fuel economy than a manual.
I saw a study from, I think it was Volvo, that basically concluded that while trained drivers focusing on driving efficiently could get better fuel economy out of a manual, 'normal' people driving normally got better fuel efficiency out of an automatic. And this was a good 10 years ago, so automatics have only gotten better.
At one point I had two manual and two automatic Citroën XMs, with identical 2.0 litre fuel-injected engines. On average driving, all four got 32mpg.
Bear in mind this was a relatively primitive late-80s Zf 4HP18 gearbox, with a lockup clutch in 3rd and 4th, giving similar ratios to 4th and 5th with the manual box. If anything the manual box let the engine rev a couple of hundred RPM higher in 5th, but the auto box would drop briefly out of lockup on moderate acceleration in top allowing the engine to reach a bit higher speed.
Mostly that the OEM's engineers can choose to tune it to upshift or resist downshifting in situations where the average consumer with a manual would just wind it out.
Why do you think it unlikely an automatic can match or exceed a manual in fuel economy? Computers can better fit the torque needs to the most efficient RPM than most humans will, it's not a hard problem to solve.
Traditionally (and this is from the very olden days) manuals had an extra gear over automatics, which is why they'd have better fuel economy. Also less drivetrain loss. Nowadays the reverse is true, automatics consistently have more gears to play with, and automatic clutch packs are fantastically fast & good.
Now an efficient automatic is more complicated to design & manufactur, but that's where economies of scale and advancements in engineering tools and manufacturing come into play
In large SUV with powerful engine, modern automatic transmission like ZF 8speed surely have better fuel economy than scenario adequate manual transmission.
> As sad as it may be, manual vehicles make up a miniscule percentage of the current market share.
Is the author talking about the world or the US?
AFAIK the vast majority of vehicles sold in Europe are manual. Not sure about the rest of the world.
I'm from Spain and I've never seen an AT car there. I'm sure they exist though, probably.
I now live in Mexico where AT is very common and I've gotten used to it. I think the best AT is better than the best MT, but I think the average MT is way better than the average AT. I'd be totally happy driving MT.
> AFAIK the vast majority of vehicles sold in Europe are manual.
This was true up until a few years ago, but it's around 50/50 now for passenger cars. There is a definite regional split, with manuals still popular in southern Europe, but having rapidly declining market share in northern Europe. Part of that is that hybrid and electric cars have had more uptake in northern Europe and are almost always automatic (there are a handful of manual hybrids, but they're not common).
Automatics as a percentage of new passenger car sales in 2020 for a few European countries [1]:
Yeah, I do a lot driving in Spain and surrounding countries (Portugal, Italy and France mainly), sometimes with my own car (manual) and sometimes with rentals. I prefer manual but it's getting really hard to even find rentals that are manual. In the few cases they advertise a model as manual, it's a 50/50 chance the car is actually automatic when you come to pick up the model, and when you request to change it to whatever model that has model, they tell you they don't even have any manual cars anymore.
Average MT cars also last a lot longer than AT cars… although with cars these days it’s almost as much about the software experience and interior than long term longevity so the market is really changing.
Porsche, Ferrari, etc all commanded huge premiums this year for their manual versions. Specifically among younger buyers and first time buyers! You even see this effect downmarket - Toyota promised to never make a manual version of their Supra, then just this last year they put together a cobbled transmission to save their car.
Manuals are also an order of magnitude less complex and cheaper - so automakers will still have some incentive to include them on small budget cars to keep down their base MSRP (even if they don't offer a ton of them). It helps that in most other countries, manuals are still king.
Finally, manual transmissions are overrepresented on the used market. Because manual cars are roughly half as complex as automatics, that translates to many fewer components going bad over time. Less likely to die = cars that stay circulating in the market longer. So if you buy used cars, the options for manuals increases dramatically.
The real issue isn't the demise of manual transmissions. It's the upcoming demise of transmissions entirely as electrification continues it's march towards ubiquity.
You need a lot more mining and environmental destruction to get enough batteries for replacing all cars with electric vehicles. Kind of wondering if maybe one day we could have safe micro reactors that can power vehicles.
the amount of metal harvested to achieve ubiquity electrification is nowhere near enough... this march could take quite some time if we don't invent something new fast
> You even see this effect downmarket - Toyota promised to never make a manual version of their Supra, then just this last year they put together a cobbled transmission to save their car.
They didn't say never, just that it was unlikely. I think the new Nissan Z scared them into offering one. The timing was too perfect to be coincidental. From the lead engineer a few years ago:
> Tada said he knows people keep asking for a manual in the Supra and in time, after customers have driven the Supra with the automatic, if they are still clamoring for a manual, he will consider it. "It is not out of the question to see an update like that."[1]
Haha! Fair enough. I remember at the time this was considered bell tolling for manuals. And then a couple years later Toyota is showing up with their tail between their legs.
I had a VW bug in high school that had some kind of short that would constantly drain the battery. I just got in the habit of parking on a small rise, i could put the car in neutral, roll down, pop the clutch and off i went. The fuel gauage also didn't work but i could pop the clutch then hit the brakes and turn off the engine and listen to the gas slosh to get an idea of how much gas i had. Speedometer didn't work either but didn't seem to be much of a problem. heh reverse also didn't work... not much worked on that car. it sure was fun though.
btw my little sister took-it-without-asking/stole it and crashed it when she was 14 :(
Used and vintage Ferrari's have premiums on the manual version if you can find one. They pushed the F1 gearbox hard from its introduction with the 355. Ferrari hasn't even built a car with a manual transmission since 2012, and in the mid 2000s manuals were under 10% of their builds. 599 was the last car they made with a stick, and even that was only 30 of 600 cars.
Porsche was ready to kill their manual with the 991.1 911 GT3 being PDK only, but there was enough outcry they brought it back for 991.2 and 992. The recently unveiled 992 GT3 RS is PDK only since it's a true track car and PDK puts in faster lap times. Even the revived GT 6-speed only accounts for a fraction of their builds and the 7-speed is hardly ordered on the regular 911 at all.
They’re remarkably popular in developing economies, even with their emerging middle classes. The manual model of a typical family sedan is usually at least a couple thousand USD cheaper, which is enough to make manual the most popular option in a lot of places.
That being said I own a 991.1 C2S w/ 7MT and I'm never upgrading bc I don't want a turbo and I'm not into the GT3 anymore as I stopped going to the track
Huge premiums != large market. It just means the market is bigger than their production.
Manual transmissions are not "an order of magnitude less complex and cheaper." They're far more expensive because the volume is much lower and every configuration has to be crash-tested, so the cost of that crash testing is amortized over a much, much smaller number of vehicles.
Manual transmission vehicles get significantly worse mileage and this drags down the fleet emissions which means they need to spend significantly more pushing out low or zero emission vehicles, or can't produce as many SUVs and trucks, where the profit margins are highest.
Porsche and Ferrari don't represent the market as a whole, or any significant portion of it. Both are acquired to a large degree as investments - they often appreciate in value if well-cared for, or at least lose significantly less value compared to the average vehicle.
People are buying manual transmission vehicles because they're rare and likely to appreciate in value more, not because they're better in any sense. They get worse gas mileage, are slower, and less capable. Dual-clutch gearboxes can shift fast enough that the limitation in them is the rotational inertia of the engine, to the point that there's little or no interruption in delivered torque, thus enabling shifts without upsetting the balance of the car. No manual transmission car can be up/down shifted during track in / cornering / trackout without upsetting the car's balance; dual-clutch gearbox cars can be. And lastly, they can have more gears.
Early gearboxes had longevity issues (clutches) but that's largely been sorted out and is no worse than manual transmission cars.
> No manual transmission car can be up/down shifted during track in / cornering / trackout without upsetting the car's balance; dual-clutch gearbox cars can be.
Speak for yourself, but I don't really have much of an issue shifting while going hot through a corner.
> And lastly, they can have more gears.
Why is this better? Fuel efficiency, sure, but are we going for a Fast and the Furious race scene shifting thing?
> Manual transmissions are not "an order of magnitude less complex and cheaper."
Don't take my word for it. Just look at the size of a manual drivetrain vs an automatic. The increase in steel is directly proportional to the engineering required/number of moving parts.
>Manual transmission vehicles get significantly worse mileage
While it's true that CVTs have finally surpassed manuals for fuel efficiency, I think you are largely overstating the difference. We are taking about 1 to 2 MPG difference.
Dual clutches are certainly faster, but again they are huge and complex things. And not more efficient. Among car enthusiasts, they are becoming about as popular as devices that chew your food for you - technically superior, but who cares?
>Early gearboxes had longevity issues (clutches) but that's largely been sorted out and is no worse than manual transmission cars.
I don't know how someone can take this seriously. A Nissan CVT is not even serviceable - you literally have to swap the entire unit when it goes bad. Which costs more than a used Nissan! Meanwhile a comparable manual will run as long as it's engine.
Again, there's fundamentally half as many moving parts in the drive train. You can't escape the laws of thermodynamics.
> No manual transmission car can be up/down shifted during track in / cornering / trackout without upsetting the car's balance;
That auto-rev matching feature is used in DCT cars for smooth down shifting: almost every manual transmission sports car out there has this exact same technology.
I doubt I'll never buy an automatic transmission vehicle. If that means never buying a new car after some point, then so be it. I've had quite a few manual transmission cars over the years and have driven them through all the things people complain about like steep hills in icy winters, stop and go traffic for an hour or two commute, etc. and I'd still go for a MT every time. Not only is it cheaper and less complex, I thoroughly enjoy driving a manual over an automatic. Every AT I've ever driven (rentals, friend's vehicles, etc.) have just felt boring and in some limited cases, less in control.
I ended up going back to automatic after 3 years of manual. Automatic is more fuel efficient, more convenient, and honestly I can't enjoy urban traffic either way, at least with automatic I don't have to think about it. If I truly want to enjoy a manual I'll do it on the race track.
It’s all in how you drive. I got 50-57 mpg in my old manual. My wife had the same engine in a different car as an automatic. I would only get 20-30 in it. My car was rated for 25-30 mpg. Most people don’t know how to drive a manual transmission for efficiency or never cared to find out, so they drive it like an automatic, which the car isn’t. Thus they end up with less mpg than they would in an automatic.
When he was alive, my ol grandpa once told me: "Nobody makes anything for me anymore--they've all just left me behind!" I thought to myself HA! I'll never get like that! I'm always going to be an early adopter, I'll always be optimistic for the new, I believe that technology always marches forward!
Now that I'm getting up there in age, despite swearing otherwise, I'm starting to feel like grandpa. I'm just not the target market anymore, for anything. New cars are boring identical bars of soap with dumb-dumb transmissions. New homes are ugly and made of cheap materials. Computers keep getting more and more locked down and are losing peripheral ports. Everything from appliances to clothing wears out after a few years. Media is made for 5 minute attention spans. Everyone leases and streams things instead of owning them. You can't even buy a lot of software anymore, you have to pay every month. Everything seems to be just getting worse, and only my age cohort seems to notice it. We're turning into those stereotypical cranky old people that we used to ridicule.
The boomers before me were a huge market, and for a long, long time, industry could profitably make things for their taste. Now everything is made for 18-38 year olds who are also a ginormous generation with similar taste. My generation was tiny, and no marketer really ended up caring what we like. I got skipped over, and indeed it's starting to feel like nobody makes anything for me anymore!
"The old Model A had a spark advance you could manipulate. I don't know why they got rid of it. Well, that's your Detroit smarties. The hand choke too. That's gone. Been gone." - Charles Portis, The Dog of the South, 1979
Manual is stupid. Automatics have been better than manual for a while and who the hell wants to spend all that time changing gears for no reason. Boring is the silliest rationalization there is.
This article misses mentioning that by far most EVs have no gear changing at all. The Porsche Taycan has 2 gears as did the original Tesla Roadster. Pretty much every other EV has one. So it's not only that manuals have been losing ground to automatics, but automatics have their days numbered as well.
Also grouping dual clutch transmissions like the PDK with regular old torque converter automatics is extremely silly.
But, ... imitation is the new game- the new '24 electric Dodge Charger will supposedly purposely come with gears ... and air baffles. Baffles, to generate 'engine' sounds because speakers are too fake, and gears to make it seem like arriving to the next intersection is a series of arm wrestling steeple chases despite having a steadily controlled torque curve.
To be fair, plenty of internal combustion cars prior to this rising electric era have embraced sound issues and overcompensated. Like the Mustang engine sound passthrough to entertainment system speakers, and the GT-86 / FRS / BRZ engine sound tube passing through the firewall.
The article feels like it's about a decade out of date. These days the issue has largely shifted from manual vs automatic to ICE vs hybrid vs full electric, with the obvious consequences for transmission type.
I always found it strange how people in the UK prefer driving manual transmissions, there's always talk of liking the "feeling" and "control" when driving, this is coming from people who are not enthusiasts and don't even like driving sometimes. 90% of driving tests in the UK are done in manual transmission cars[1]. Taking your driving test in an automatic means that you are not allowed to drive a manual[2].
After living in the US for a few years, I'd never go back to a manual car. I view driving as a chore more than a pleasure and I can't wait for them to be fully self driving.
It definitely seems to be more luxury cars over here that are automatic, and the cars for the everyman seem to still be manual.
Im not from/in the UK or US, but not sure that matters. I also prefer manual transmission. As my car is currently in the shop for repair, I have a borrowed car from the shop, who has automatic transmission instead of manual.
It's true that it takes less effort to drive. Easier to drive by just using one leg and easier to use one arm. But the loss of control is real, at least for me.
One example is moving from zero to non-zero. If I just release the break while standing still, the car slowly accelerates, too slowly. If I gently press the accelerator pedal, same problem. If I press is slightly more, the car accelerates too much. There doesn't seem to be a sweet-spot anywhere for a smooth but fast "takeoff", which is easy to achieve with my manual car.
Another example is highway driving and wanting to accelerate to pass someone. Sometimes the car decides that when I press the accelerator (while driving in 120km/h already), to shift down a gear to be able to speed up faster, but it's completely unnecessary, just go faster instead.
Last pet peeve is reversing. Instead of pressing the accelerator to go backwards, you release the brake pedal. But this again is hard to find a sweetspot and I end up doing stop-slow-stop-slow-stop... and so on, instead of just smoothly backwards without stopping, while being to adjust the speed.
Overall, I can't wait to get back to my car with manual transmission, so I can have a smooth driving experience again.
> Another example is highway driving and wanting to accelerate to pass someone. Sometimes the car decides that when I press the accelerator (while driving in 120km/h already), to shift down a gear to be able to speed up faster, but it's completely unnecessary, just go faster instead.
This is the number one problem I have with automatics!
Even in 'eco' mode, most tend to shift down. It seems completely wrong. It should just be in 'sports' mode that it always kicks down.
And I'm pretty sure I've driven an automatic car that had paddles to drive in manual mode but it STILL shifted down.
In my Land Rover, everything is very smooth with automatic transmission. I can switch to manual mode but it seems so unnecessary as I can hardly make car goes smoother than with default automatic mode.
I think that plenty of power and superb automatic transmission make the difference. Sure for budget cars that lacks power, manual transmission is preferable.
Living in a hilly, mountainous area with an automatic transmission is a nightmare because you're constantly having to 'convince' (jamming the gas pedal a few times) the transmission to get into the right gear to negotiate an incline.
I think this is largely dependent on the car, which is a pro for manual transmission (the consistency and sensitivity when driving). I personally prefer the less sensitive automatics because it's better for fuel economy. In my car, switching to Eco mode helps with this.
I find automatic transmissions absolutely infuriating for all of those exact same reasons.
Except that I drove an auto for all but my first 3 years and last 3 years of driving.
Now I drive a Tesla and the janky auto transmissions and lag in an ICE for the engine to rev is so maddening I actively cringe just trying to drive a rental.
I'm from the UK, there's probably an element of cultural momentum behind it, but I suspect it may also be due to the less flat terrain:
UK roads can be very undulating and windy, for the couple of times I drove someone else's automatic car it always felt like I was waiting for it to figure out the correct gear - some of this is probably historically inferior designs, but the other element is anticipation...
I can see the steep hill suddenly rearing up around the tight bend, I know to drop down in advance to keep the revs high if i don't want to start rolling backwards (or more realistically in todays cars, resulting in just slogging up it) - an automatic transmission can't do that, it has to wait to feel the load just before it's too late, I can also see the top of a hill quickly drop back down so i know exactly the right moment to shift up again - In short, I don't have to guess like the gear box because I can see and know when I'm going to need more or less torque.
You actually see the same problem in new drivers, they don't anticipate or select the right gear so they crawl up hills and their cars speed tends to match the angle of the road, it's a bit like automatics are newbie drivers, they will eventually select the right gear but not before they've lost all their momentum and revs.
I'd guess that the opposite is true for the US (which by comparison looks to be as flat as a pancake) for the very same reason, you don't need to anticipate gears when the terrain ahead is unchanging, once the box can infer you want to go faster and how much faster, making perfect timing for good acceleration is probably better than a human.
Manuals are also quicker to go from a standstill than automatics. All automatics I've driven have a noticeable lag and don't inspire much confidence. This is important because we have a lot of roundabouts and it makes it much easier if you are confident about taking a small gap to get on to the roundabout. It doesn't matter at all with traffic lights which are more prevalent in the US.
Yeah I'd agree with this. Smaller more windy roads, maybe need more control.
I think a lot of it does have to do with historically bad automatics as well, and the fact that doing your test in an automatic locks you into driving them forever.
Regarding hills, I normally drive with cruise control on so if I'm going 50mph, the car will automatically downshift to maintain that speed. You'd be surprised how many people slow down by default when going up hill because they don't try to maintain the speed and you end up zipping past.
I think for most people in Europe it's a matter of cost. Manual cars are cheaper to buy, so that's what people get. When you look at the high-end segment you find mostly automatics. And everyone I know who tried an EV raves about the smooth driving experience, and loves that there's no clutch.
I believe at least part of the reason is highlighted in the article:
> Most of my sense of accomplishment came from navigating the steep curve of learning how to drive a stick shift with my dad at my side—it’s not something you master overnight.
I've noticed, in general, when people have invested significant effort into developing a skill they are reluctant to let it go. This happens a lot in programming too.
Automatic cars were expensive, only posh audis, Mercs and top end "british" cars had them, all the way up till the mid 2000s. they still feel expensive to buy (even though electric cars are all autos now) and there is a fear that they are unreliable and expensive to fix (not sure if that's still the case)
Here in the UK if you only plan to use automatic, you can take an automatic driving license, but you can't drive manuals. So its a bit pointless really. Although one of my mates did it.
Unless I'm going to do track driving, I don't really want a manual (actually if its track I'd rather semi auto)
However, when driving automatic car, I still get the panic "ARGHH CLUTCH OTHERWISE YOU'LL STALL" reflex when I am coming to a halt.
Although you're joking, I just want to say that avoiding needless work isn't laziness, it's efficiency. Maybe those are two sides of the same coin, but I could equally say people in the UK are being needlessly inefficient.
Not just for themselves, but for others - automatics have had better fuel efficiency (less pollution) for years now.
We could even go further and say that needlessly polluting to improve the "feel" of driving is immoral.
> it’s not something you master overnight. I’m not ashamed to mention that it took me a few sessions in a parking lot to get the fundamentals down
This kind of line always confuses me. I mean, I remember my first driving lesson in the UK. Guy arrived in a BMW 116, manual. He said to me: what is there to explain, you get in and drive. So I got in and drove. Did my first hour, took 5 minutes to get comfortable with the clutch and shifting. Why do the people in the US make it such a big ordeal? Is it like a badge of honour?
It's unlikely it took you five minutes to get the hang of clutch control and shifting gears. OK, it is possible you managed to avoid kangerooing but only for a small range of circumstances.
From rest (with a gear selected and clutch depressed), you have to unlatch the handbrake, whilst at the same time gradually engage the clutch and deploy power via the throttle pedal. You have to ensure you don't go backwards on a hill nor stall the engine and quite a few other factors. You also have to be aware of what is around you and deal with weather etc. That's the simple description with only a few complications. At home we reverse hill start onto a narrow gravel track that runs at 90 degrees from the concrete parking stand - it is quite tricky! More so in a long wheel base Transit.
I drive two manuals - a car and a large van, and one auto - car, at the moment but I've driven most vehicles from 7.5t down, with or without auto.
An auto feels torque from the engine/wheels/conditions and your fuel input. You can floor the pedal to get going and then reduce power gradually as speed is picked up and eventually you know when the auto changes gear and can influence that accordingly - hard to describe.
In a manual you can see what is ahead and take action accordingly. You don't feel the actual torque but you can tell (with experience) from the engine noise and the feeling of acceleration.
It's all about using your array of sensors - eyes, hands, bum etc. and a shed load of experience. You do not learn that in five minutes and autos are not simply stop/start either.
In Switzerland, most instructor cars are Diesels, since they have higher torque and are very hard to stall. Then you go home and drive your parent's petrol engine car and you stall it all the time
When I bought a manual about 25 years ago, I had tried out a stick a few times but had never seriously driven one. I definitely wasn't comfortable in anything like 5 minutes. Especially on non-flat roads; for the first month or so I planned my commute a bit around not being in stop and go traffic especially on any hills.
It took me quite a while to really get the hang of driving. I was learning on standard shift. Definitely stalled a lot that first day, and second.
On the other hand, it comes easier to some people. I taught my best friend, and he was better than I within about a minute. I gave him the general instructions on how it works and he stalled twice and then he was fine.
I think that the ease of use curve is entirely dependent on the thing between the shifter and the seat.
I had the same experience with my first manual car. I learned the basics by getting in and driving it.
Like many things if you understand it at a high level then getting the basics down quickly is easy. It's the details that require practice and experience, like starting on a hill.
I guess it depends on the car you started in and how easy it is to stall. My Jeep Cherokee with an inline 6 would have been an incredibly easy car to learn on, but my RX-8 - with about the same amount of low-end torque as a sewing machine - was much less forgiving. If it had been my first manual car, it would have taken ages to feel comfortable.
And to your question, the answer is actually yes. Because fewer folks in the US drive manual cars, the ones that do are often proud of having the skill.
> I guess it depends on the car you started in and how easy it is to stall.
I had similar experiences. I am British also, so, also learned in and mostly drive manuals. My instructor's car would stall if you looked at it funny. A secondhand car I drove after I passed my test would almost never stall at all. I don't remember the makes - I enjoy driving but I'm definitely not into cars that much, sorry. But there's definitely quite a bit of variation in how cars handle and even someone like me who doesn't care that much for the internal details realises they'll need to “figure out" a new manual car when they first drive it.
> I guess it depends on the car you started in and how easy it is to stall.
100% this. My 5-speed Jetta TDi was actually hard to stall w/ all its torque (even at idle). I learned on a 3-cyl. Geo Metro, though, and it was laughably easy to stall.
There are a lot of handed down memories of shifting in non-synchromesh transmissions with lousy cable driven clutches. These are very old memories. Modern manuals do a lot of interesting things like force shifting patterns for efficiency.
If you really want to geek out, do a NASCAR Racing Experience. Those clutches and transmissions are awful in comparison (they’re not supposed to be optimized for feel). They’re mushy, the clutch throw is long and very stiff, and the shifter takes forever to move into gear. The base model economy car stick shift I learned in (‘91 Mazda derived Ford Escort) feels like a luxurious precision instrument in comparison.
> If you really want to geek out, do a NASCAR Racing Experience. Those clutches and transmissions are awful in comparison (they’re not supposed to be optimized for feel). They’re mushy, the clutch throw is long and very stiff, and the shifter takes forever to move into gear. The base model economy car stick shift I learned in (‘91 Mazda derived Ford Escort) feels like a luxurious precision instrument in comparison.
As of 2022 they have the fancy five speed sequential stuff and the clutch is not always necessary.
Do you really think your experience is representative and that most people take a few minutes to learn how to drive? Honestly, it even sounds like a humble brag (mostly because I'm a little jealous)
I guess you are just better people across the pond. It took me more like an hour to get used to manual, and weeks before I could do it smoothly 100% of the time.
I learned on a very old non-luxury car and it also took me weeks to get comfortable with it. Either we're just incompetent here or BMWs are easier to drive.
The badge of honor is knowing how to drive a manual in the US. I say this as someone who can drive a manual, but it has become overly nostalgic for some.
Maybe we just have better cars? I kind of had the same experience. Remembering to shift at the right time is one thing (but happily the car starts whining if you forget), but starting to drive is as simple as releasing the clutch and pressing the gas.
How hilly was it where you learned to drive? Starting on a steep incline is the tricky part. If you are on mostly flat roads or have a car with hill assist it becomes much easier.
bmw does shift quite wonderfully. I learnt manual on a Mazda demio though around 1L engine and very predictable shifts gave me all the confidence in driving a manual full time...
Then I got a Honda Integra B16A engine (early 90s) which revved to 8000rpm and the vagueness of shifts meant a successful shift at those rpms was way too much fun for a teenager...
Readit News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32397975
I will give up my manual transmission, if you will bring back pull-knobs, twist knobs and other tactile switches for the main controls of my vehicle, with the appropriate tactile feedback at set points so I can set them without looking.
After thinking on it, I am going to raise my demands, however: you also need to produce cars that are as visually appealing and reasonably sized as in the 50s and 60s. Fire all your designers, go back to whatever your models were in 1965, and begin anew. When in doubt, don't.
The sloped design of new cars isn't just about aerodynamics. In a low-speed impact a pedestrian is lifted onto the hood. Forward leaning grills, such as on the Dodge Charger, some of the beefier Mustangs, and any number of other muscle cars or sedans, instead clip pedestrians in the knee or hip, tip them over and drop them onto the ground, where the car then runs over them.
I think there was also an issue with those profiles and Jersey barriers, in that they were more likely to pole vault over them off the side of a bridge or onto - not into - oncoming traffic.
You are not ever going to get those designs back.
While not styled to lean forward like what Dodge does pretty much all the tall bulbous front ends that HN hates and are found on modern cars and crossovers are designed like this. A bunch of plastic with air behind it is the primary means by which OEMs meet the European pedestrian safety requirements. The styled plastic provides something that's softer than the quasi-structural radiator core support that all the front end cosmetic stuff attaches to for the pedestrian to hit.
How so? Could we just use modern crumple materials in the same shape?
Fortunately shielding against one shields against both.
This is reality already? I'm starting to think maybe computers were a mistake. I mean how much more screwed up can our world get before it turns into a cyberpunk hell?
And where are the political candidates to take pliers and a blowtorch to the regulatory barriers to satisfying the customers?
Down with all or these regulatory pencil-necks and their doctrine of Portion-Controlled Servings[1], say I.
[1] http://www.murashev.com/dmdl/lyrics.php?disk=196
One of many reasons I will never buy a new car and will always buy classic cars no matter how much they cost.
What alternate dimension are you from? My older brother had a 60's Ford Fairlane when I was growing up. My first car was a 67 mustang. I had a friend with a 68 Camaro. I knew someone else that had multiple Thunderbirds from that era.
These were not small cars. The Mustang and Camaro were the size of a full size sedan today , if not bigger. The cross sections of the doors were very large, they just aren't very space efficient at all. They're only small relative to the other cars of the era, and I wouldn't call their size reasonable in any real way.
Those are the coupes. The sedans, such as the Fairlane and Thunderbird? Those were about as big as a modern full size crew cab pickup.
This is verifiably false with three minutes of searching, which I did on my cellphone as I sit by a campfire. As an owner of both a 1965 Mustang and a 2015 Explorer, the difference in size between these vehicles is comical. I've rented a 2020 Camry that was larger in every dimension. It got great gas mileage, but small it was not.
1967 Ford Mustang Length: 183.6" Width: 70.9" Height: 51.6"
2020 Toyota Camry Length: 192.1" Width: 72.4" Height: 56.9"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang_(first_generati...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Camry_(XV70)
The 1965 Mustang was even smaller and lighter. The 1969-1970 Mustangs, while larger, are still smaller in every dimension than a modern Camry. Some older cars were indeed boats, but almost all modern American automobiles are boats, and a lot of this has to do with the laws that regulate and shape the products created by the American automotive industry.
I’m reminded of my grandparent’s 1979 Cadillac (Not sure of the model). It barely fit in the garage. They parked their Chevy Suburban in that same garage.
It has a screen but as far as I can tell it's not required for anything that doesn't implicitly require a screen (i.e. GPS).
Overall the car is amazingly well designed. The tactile experience is there, you can feel your way around everything without moving your eyes from the road/immediate dash area. It still has an analog clock. I also feel like there are a lot of advanced, car enthusiast friendly features I have yet to explore.
It's also a stupidly practical car. I've frequently loaded the back with cinder blocks and bricks, filled it with a small arboretum of house plants, drum sander, multiple bikes, small couches, etc. I feel a bit silly loading up a Porche at home depot, but boy does it do the job well.
And at the same time, when you're getting on the highway it has all the power you could want, and is just a blast to drive around at night on empty roads. Comfort wise it feels like it has exactly what you want, but nothing more.
Not anymore, unfortunately. In the current gen (2022+) Macan they got rid of the buttons in favor of a glossy touch panel. It looks cleaner, but it won't by the time you get home from the dealership.
Don't feel silly for utilizing your vehicle's capabilities!
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It's beautifully styled imo and has only physical controls inside
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/olympian-motors
https://olympianmotors.com/
This sounds like the opposite of OP's request for physical controls.
Safety considerations aside, the aesthetics of the rocket and atomic age reflect the hope on humanity's future that was dominating back then. Automotive designs of late 10's early 20's are a tiny bit fancier than in previous couple decades, but they don't look futuristic, they tend to look more aggressive instead. That's also because there's demand for that aesthetic in our era.
To change the way cars look, change the way you live your life.
Old school Fiat 500 or Citroen 2cv style
Manual door locks, manual windey windows, manual seats, buttons and dials, mechanical gauges. All based on "proven technology" first-gen Renault Megane components, so it's easy to fix.
You goto Magna, Foxconn, tesla, and get their EV platform skateboard. With intention of manual transmission.
You goto https://www.factoryfive.com/hot-rod-truck/ for the body of the ev.
Coachbuild the inside, you can basically be rolls royce here because you're low volume.
Obviously all the knobs and switches would be built with reliability in mind.
Sound system I was thinking would just be a good bluetooth speaker system and a phone mount. Dont have to worry about android auto or carplay or sound system or gps going out of date. its just your phone.
Although a counterpoint to this is the giant A pillars limit visibility so much as to be dangerous themselves.
So, the original Mini Cooper?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uxHVVEEGx7Y
The Cyan Racing Volvo P1800 “restomod” is, in my opinion anyway, the most desirable car in the world.
Anything with a Koenigsegg sticker comes a close second.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_transmission
You choose when to change the gears but the computer deals with the clutch, best of both worlds.
You only represent yourself and you are mixing multiple issues. Why would car makers listen to this "compromise"?
Looking at you Mini. The clues in the name.
Dead Comment
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.
One of the biggest issues with the automatic is stop-and-go traffic. It's absolutely trash at accelerating smoothly but fast, and I have no choice but to either go very slowly forward to not make it janky, or really aggressive acceleration. With a manual car, smooth-but-fast acceleration is easy to achieve, but with this (Audi Q3) borrow car, it seems short of impossible to achieve.
More pet-peeves of automatic VS manual I'm experiencing are outlined here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32591426 but smooth city driving is probably what I miss the most currently, as that is mostly how I spend my driving.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.)
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.
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Honestly, it kind of feels like we're not that far away from cars with steering wheels and gas pedals being the oddity.
Efficient in what way? I find it highly unlikely an automatic would have better fuel economy than a manual.
https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/how-automa...
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
I saw a study from, I think it was Volvo, that basically concluded that while trained drivers focusing on driving efficiently could get better fuel economy out of a manual, 'normal' people driving normally got better fuel efficiency out of an automatic. And this was a good 10 years ago, so automatics have only gotten better.
Bear in mind this was a relatively primitive late-80s Zf 4HP18 gearbox, with a lockup clutch in 3rd and 4th, giving similar ratios to 4th and 5th with the manual box. If anything the manual box let the engine rev a couple of hundred RPM higher in 5th, but the auto box would drop briefly out of lockup on moderate acceleration in top allowing the engine to reach a bit higher speed.
Mostly that the OEM's engineers can choose to tune it to upshift or resist downshifting in situations where the average consumer with a manual would just wind it out.
This was true 15 years ago.
Traditionally (and this is from the very olden days) manuals had an extra gear over automatics, which is why they'd have better fuel economy. Also less drivetrain loss. Nowadays the reverse is true, automatics consistently have more gears to play with, and automatic clutch packs are fantastically fast & good.
Now an efficient automatic is more complicated to design & manufactur, but that's where economies of scale and advancements in engineering tools and manufacturing come into play
Dead Comment
Is the author talking about the world or the US?
AFAIK the vast majority of vehicles sold in Europe are manual. Not sure about the rest of the world.
I'm from Spain and I've never seen an AT car there. I'm sure they exist though, probably.
I now live in Mexico where AT is very common and I've gotten used to it. I think the best AT is better than the best MT, but I think the average MT is way better than the average AT. I'd be totally happy driving MT.
This was true up until a few years ago, but it's around 50/50 now for passenger cars. There is a definite regional split, with manuals still popular in southern Europe, but having rapidly declining market share in northern Europe. Part of that is that hybrid and electric cars have had more uptake in northern Europe and are almost always automatic (there are a handful of manual hybrids, but they're not common).
Automatics as a percentage of new passenger car sales in 2020 for a few European countries [1]:
[1] Full table is on p. 57 of this report: https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ICCT-EU-Pocke...Cheap hybrids get CVTs, good ones eCVTs (actually a differential couples to a couple of motors).
Manual is dying in Europe just like anywhere else
This is a common talking point but has actually swung hard in the opposite direction in recent years.
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World = USA for something like 90% of Internet posts/videos.
Why wouldn’t you expect Popular Mechanics to be talking about the American market?
Porsche, Ferrari, etc all commanded huge premiums this year for their manual versions. Specifically among younger buyers and first time buyers! You even see this effect downmarket - Toyota promised to never make a manual version of their Supra, then just this last year they put together a cobbled transmission to save their car.
Manuals are also an order of magnitude less complex and cheaper - so automakers will still have some incentive to include them on small budget cars to keep down their base MSRP (even if they don't offer a ton of them). It helps that in most other countries, manuals are still king.
Finally, manual transmissions are overrepresented on the used market. Because manual cars are roughly half as complex as automatics, that translates to many fewer components going bad over time. Less likely to die = cars that stay circulating in the market longer. So if you buy used cars, the options for manuals increases dramatically.
They didn't say never, just that it was unlikely. I think the new Nissan Z scared them into offering one. The timing was too perfect to be coincidental. From the lead engineer a few years ago:
> Tada said he knows people keep asking for a manual in the Supra and in time, after customers have driven the Supra with the automatic, if they are still clamoring for a manual, he will consider it. "It is not out of the question to see an update like that."[1]
[1] https://www.motortrend.com/news/why-2021-toyota-supra-doesnt...
Once I started the engine on a hill by engaging clutch. Kids were puzzled, but not so impressed. Oh well.
btw my little sister took-it-without-asking/stole it and crashed it when she was 14 :(
At least for enthusiasts, the love is alive and well
Porsche was ready to kill their manual with the 991.1 911 GT3 being PDK only, but there was enough outcry they brought it back for 991.2 and 992. The recently unveiled 992 GT3 RS is PDK only since it's a true track car and PDK puts in faster lap times. Even the revived GT 6-speed only accounts for a fraction of their builds and the 7-speed is hardly ordered on the regular 911 at all.
(1) PDK is a free option on the S models, you can't even get MT on the base Carrera anymore (2) the 7MT in the 991/992 is derived from the PDK unit: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15120538/a-tale-of-tw...
That being said I own a 991.1 C2S w/ 7MT and I'm never upgrading bc I don't want a turbo and I'm not into the GT3 anymore as I stopped going to the track
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But they've been putting a delicious 6 speed manual in their FRS/GT86/BRZ for 10 years, and continue to.
The supra is a rocket ship.
Manual transmissions are not "an order of magnitude less complex and cheaper." They're far more expensive because the volume is much lower and every configuration has to be crash-tested, so the cost of that crash testing is amortized over a much, much smaller number of vehicles.
Manual transmission vehicles get significantly worse mileage and this drags down the fleet emissions which means they need to spend significantly more pushing out low or zero emission vehicles, or can't produce as many SUVs and trucks, where the profit margins are highest.
Porsche and Ferrari don't represent the market as a whole, or any significant portion of it. Both are acquired to a large degree as investments - they often appreciate in value if well-cared for, or at least lose significantly less value compared to the average vehicle.
People are buying manual transmission vehicles because they're rare and likely to appreciate in value more, not because they're better in any sense. They get worse gas mileage, are slower, and less capable. Dual-clutch gearboxes can shift fast enough that the limitation in them is the rotational inertia of the engine, to the point that there's little or no interruption in delivered torque, thus enabling shifts without upsetting the balance of the car. No manual transmission car can be up/down shifted during track in / cornering / trackout without upsetting the car's balance; dual-clutch gearbox cars can be. And lastly, they can have more gears.
Early gearboxes had longevity issues (clutches) but that's largely been sorted out and is no worse than manual transmission cars.
Speak for yourself, but I don't really have much of an issue shifting while going hot through a corner.
> And lastly, they can have more gears.
Why is this better? Fuel efficiency, sure, but are we going for a Fast and the Furious race scene shifting thing?
Don't take my word for it. Just look at the size of a manual drivetrain vs an automatic. The increase in steel is directly proportional to the engineering required/number of moving parts.
>Manual transmission vehicles get significantly worse mileage
While it's true that CVTs have finally surpassed manuals for fuel efficiency, I think you are largely overstating the difference. We are taking about 1 to 2 MPG difference.
Dual clutches are certainly faster, but again they are huge and complex things. And not more efficient. Among car enthusiasts, they are becoming about as popular as devices that chew your food for you - technically superior, but who cares?
>Early gearboxes had longevity issues (clutches) but that's largely been sorted out and is no worse than manual transmission cars.
I don't know how someone can take this seriously. A Nissan CVT is not even serviceable - you literally have to swap the entire unit when it goes bad. Which costs more than a used Nissan! Meanwhile a comparable manual will run as long as it's engine.
Again, there's fundamentally half as many moving parts in the drive train. You can't escape the laws of thermodynamics.
I bought mine because it was more fun and engaging than the alternative.
That auto-rev matching feature is used in DCT cars for smooth down shifting: almost every manual transmission sports car out there has this exact same technology.
Are there studies on the frequencies of accidents based on manual vs. automatic?
I thought it was the opposite. Has that changed?
Now that I'm getting up there in age, despite swearing otherwise, I'm starting to feel like grandpa. I'm just not the target market anymore, for anything. New cars are boring identical bars of soap with dumb-dumb transmissions. New homes are ugly and made of cheap materials. Computers keep getting more and more locked down and are losing peripheral ports. Everything from appliances to clothing wears out after a few years. Media is made for 5 minute attention spans. Everyone leases and streams things instead of owning them. You can't even buy a lot of software anymore, you have to pay every month. Everything seems to be just getting worse, and only my age cohort seems to notice it. We're turning into those stereotypical cranky old people that we used to ridicule.
The boomers before me were a huge market, and for a long, long time, industry could profitably make things for their taste. Now everything is made for 18-38 year olds who are also a ginormous generation with similar taste. My generation was tiny, and no marketer really ended up caring what we like. I got skipped over, and indeed it's starting to feel like nobody makes anything for me anymore!
Excuse me Sir, do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour, the Framework laptop?
https://frame.work/
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That certainly seems like the way of things.
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Also grouping dual clutch transmissions like the PDK with regular old torque converter automatics is extremely silly.
To be fair, plenty of internal combustion cars prior to this rising electric era have embraced sound issues and overcompensated. Like the Mustang engine sound passthrough to entertainment system speakers, and the GT-86 / FRS / BRZ engine sound tube passing through the firewall.
After living in the US for a few years, I'd never go back to a manual car. I view driving as a chore more than a pleasure and I can't wait for them to be fully self driving.
It definitely seems to be more luxury cars over here that are automatic, and the cars for the everyman seem to still be manual.
[1]: https://www.wearemarmalade.co.uk/driver-hub/news/is-learning... [2]: https://www.gov.uk/driving-licence-categories#category-b-aut...
It's true that it takes less effort to drive. Easier to drive by just using one leg and easier to use one arm. But the loss of control is real, at least for me.
One example is moving from zero to non-zero. If I just release the break while standing still, the car slowly accelerates, too slowly. If I gently press the accelerator pedal, same problem. If I press is slightly more, the car accelerates too much. There doesn't seem to be a sweet-spot anywhere for a smooth but fast "takeoff", which is easy to achieve with my manual car.
Another example is highway driving and wanting to accelerate to pass someone. Sometimes the car decides that when I press the accelerator (while driving in 120km/h already), to shift down a gear to be able to speed up faster, but it's completely unnecessary, just go faster instead.
Last pet peeve is reversing. Instead of pressing the accelerator to go backwards, you release the brake pedal. But this again is hard to find a sweetspot and I end up doing stop-slow-stop-slow-stop... and so on, instead of just smoothly backwards without stopping, while being to adjust the speed.
Overall, I can't wait to get back to my car with manual transmission, so I can have a smooth driving experience again.
This is the number one problem I have with automatics!
Even in 'eco' mode, most tend to shift down. It seems completely wrong. It should just be in 'sports' mode that it always kicks down.
And I'm pretty sure I've driven an automatic car that had paddles to drive in manual mode but it STILL shifted down.
Except that I drove an auto for all but my first 3 years and last 3 years of driving.
Now I drive a Tesla and the janky auto transmissions and lag in an ICE for the engine to rev is so maddening I actively cringe just trying to drive a rental.
UK roads can be very undulating and windy, for the couple of times I drove someone else's automatic car it always felt like I was waiting for it to figure out the correct gear - some of this is probably historically inferior designs, but the other element is anticipation...
I can see the steep hill suddenly rearing up around the tight bend, I know to drop down in advance to keep the revs high if i don't want to start rolling backwards (or more realistically in todays cars, resulting in just slogging up it) - an automatic transmission can't do that, it has to wait to feel the load just before it's too late, I can also see the top of a hill quickly drop back down so i know exactly the right moment to shift up again - In short, I don't have to guess like the gear box because I can see and know when I'm going to need more or less torque.
You actually see the same problem in new drivers, they don't anticipate or select the right gear so they crawl up hills and their cars speed tends to match the angle of the road, it's a bit like automatics are newbie drivers, they will eventually select the right gear but not before they've lost all their momentum and revs.
I'd guess that the opposite is true for the US (which by comparison looks to be as flat as a pancake) for the very same reason, you don't need to anticipate gears when the terrain ahead is unchanging, once the box can infer you want to go faster and how much faster, making perfect timing for good acceleration is probably better than a human.
I think a lot of it does have to do with historically bad automatics as well, and the fact that doing your test in an automatic locks you into driving them forever.
Regarding hills, I normally drive with cruise control on so if I'm going 50mph, the car will automatically downshift to maintain that speed. You'd be surprised how many people slow down by default when going up hill because they don't try to maintain the speed and you end up zipping past.
> Most of my sense of accomplishment came from navigating the steep curve of learning how to drive a stick shift with my dad at my side—it’s not something you master overnight.
I've noticed, in general, when people have invested significant effort into developing a skill they are reluctant to let it go. This happens a lot in programming too.
Automatic cars were expensive, only posh audis, Mercs and top end "british" cars had them, all the way up till the mid 2000s. they still feel expensive to buy (even though electric cars are all autos now) and there is a fear that they are unreliable and expensive to fix (not sure if that's still the case)
Here in the UK if you only plan to use automatic, you can take an automatic driving license, but you can't drive manuals. So its a bit pointless really. Although one of my mates did it.
Unless I'm going to do track driving, I don't really want a manual (actually if its track I'd rather semi auto)
However, when driving automatic car, I still get the panic "ARGHH CLUTCH OTHERWISE YOU'LL STALL" reflex when I am coming to a halt.
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Not just for themselves, but for others - automatics have had better fuel efficiency (less pollution) for years now.
We could even go further and say that needlessly polluting to improve the "feel" of driving is immoral.
This kind of line always confuses me. I mean, I remember my first driving lesson in the UK. Guy arrived in a BMW 116, manual. He said to me: what is there to explain, you get in and drive. So I got in and drove. Did my first hour, took 5 minutes to get comfortable with the clutch and shifting. Why do the people in the US make it such a big ordeal? Is it like a badge of honour?
From rest (with a gear selected and clutch depressed), you have to unlatch the handbrake, whilst at the same time gradually engage the clutch and deploy power via the throttle pedal. You have to ensure you don't go backwards on a hill nor stall the engine and quite a few other factors. You also have to be aware of what is around you and deal with weather etc. That's the simple description with only a few complications. At home we reverse hill start onto a narrow gravel track that runs at 90 degrees from the concrete parking stand - it is quite tricky! More so in a long wheel base Transit.
I drive two manuals - a car and a large van, and one auto - car, at the moment but I've driven most vehicles from 7.5t down, with or without auto.
An auto feels torque from the engine/wheels/conditions and your fuel input. You can floor the pedal to get going and then reduce power gradually as speed is picked up and eventually you know when the auto changes gear and can influence that accordingly - hard to describe.
In a manual you can see what is ahead and take action accordingly. You don't feel the actual torque but you can tell (with experience) from the engine noise and the feeling of acceleration.
It's all about using your array of sensors - eyes, hands, bum etc. and a shed load of experience. You do not learn that in five minutes and autos are not simply stop/start either.
On the other hand, it comes easier to some people. I taught my best friend, and he was better than I within about a minute. I gave him the general instructions on how it works and he stalled twice and then he was fine.
I think that the ease of use curve is entirely dependent on the thing between the shifter and the seat.
Like many things if you understand it at a high level then getting the basics down quickly is easy. It's the details that require practice and experience, like starting on a hill.
And to your question, the answer is actually yes. Because fewer folks in the US drive manual cars, the ones that do are often proud of having the skill.
I had similar experiences. I am British also, so, also learned in and mostly drive manuals. My instructor's car would stall if you looked at it funny. A secondhand car I drove after I passed my test would almost never stall at all. I don't remember the makes - I enjoy driving but I'm definitely not into cars that much, sorry. But there's definitely quite a bit of variation in how cars handle and even someone like me who doesn't care that much for the internal details realises they'll need to “figure out" a new manual car when they first drive it.
100% this. My 5-speed Jetta TDi was actually hard to stall w/ all its torque (even at idle). I learned on a 3-cyl. Geo Metro, though, and it was laughably easy to stall.
If you really want to geek out, do a NASCAR Racing Experience. Those clutches and transmissions are awful in comparison (they’re not supposed to be optimized for feel). They’re mushy, the clutch throw is long and very stiff, and the shifter takes forever to move into gear. The base model economy car stick shift I learned in (‘91 Mazda derived Ford Escort) feels like a luxurious precision instrument in comparison.
As of 2022 they have the fancy five speed sequential stuff and the clutch is not always necessary.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/do-the-nascar-next-gen-cars-hav...
The most difficult part of driving is not even the machine itself but traffic.
There are some cars that have very touchy clutches, but most are just fine.
Well, at least that's the story that youtube clips of car guys tell, seeing how they operate the selector.
Being swung back and forth like that by the engine must feel intimidating.