Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The end of the manual transmission is near?

popularmechanics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 875 posts

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#151

Post by layla5alive »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #92
legitster wrote: post #42

I wouldn't jump to this conclusion just yet! 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 c…

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 wors…

Apparently you've never heard about rev matching? Or heel and toe? Most of what you've said is just wrong.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#152

Post by iamevn »

I love driving manuals, learned on an 5 speed New Beetle and mostly drive a 2012 Mazda 6 now. My partner has a newer automatic Mazda 3 and it just feels wrong to have the car guess what I want lagging behind me rather than me just telling the car directly ahead of when I need it.

The only argument that's swayed me away from being entirely on the side of manual cars is that if I'm out hiking with friends who I've driven to the trail and who can't drive my car and I get hurt in a way that prevents me from driving then we could end up stranded. The next car I buy will likely be electric so it ends up not mattering anyways.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#153

Post by metadat »

boppo1 wrote: post #146
hinkley wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, instea…

>because the front of the car eats people. Swallows them, chews them up, and spits them out. How so? Could we just use modern crumple materials in the same shape?

Materials that crumple when they impact a soft, squishy human? What?

Edit: yep, @Buttons840 nailed it..

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#154

Post by hinkley »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #91
dang wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, we've put a question mark in the title above—a nice device for indicating that the community finds a title, er, questionable.

But then the answer is “no” by Betteridge’s law :) “ Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

"Can Any Headline Ending In a Question Mark Be Answered By the Word 'No'?"

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#155

Post by bergenty »

idatum wrote: post #97
legitster wrote: post #42

I wouldn't jump to this conclusion just yet! 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 c…

My VW GTI with 6 gear manual is such a joy. And what I fail to convey to my GenZ kids is the simplicity of it. Once I started the engine on a hill by engaging clutch. Kids were puzzled, but not so impressed. Oh well.

It’s like showing them an etch a sketch when they’re used to iPads.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#156

Post by scythe »

rjzzleep wrote: post #73
santoshalper wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's actually a startup, TexPower, that is working on a cobalt-free lithium-nickel battery:

https://innovation.uh.edu/companies/texpower

The founder, Arumugam Manthiram, published several papers on the topic, introducing promising new chemistries:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adma.2020027... (nickel-manganese-aluminium)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/aenm.2... (nickel-aluminium-titanium-magnesium)

https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/313056/1-s2.0-S240582972... (review)

Seems promising. The lead candidate previously for matching cobalt without the cobalt was lithium-vanadium-phosphate, but it has a variable voltage output that makes it difficult to work with.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#157

Post by bsagdiyev »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #92
legitster wrote: post #42

I wouldn't jump to this conclusion just yet! 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 c…

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 wors…

> 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?

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#158

Post by bergenty »

emp wrote: post #49

If I could afford a Porsche I would still get a manual option. Changing gears cleanly, heel-toe blipping the throttle when gearing down, getting the right gear at the right time - simple pleasures. It seems the more refined cars become the less character they have. Even the equivalent cars to my old dependable friend feel like lesser cars. Annoy CVTs, electric power steering, and finishes that feel cheap. And windows…

Feels like a bunch of extra work for a shittier experience. If I wanted an experience I would ride a horse.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#159

Post by calvinmorrison »

hinkley wrote: post #123
recursivedoubts wrote: post #7

I reiterate my compromise proposal: 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…

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, instea…

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.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#160

Post by bergenty »

progman32 wrote: post #10
lapcat wrote: post #9

There's nothing worse than getting stuck in traffic going up a slick hill in a Midwest winter with a manual transmission. Your car goes backward!

In an old manual transmission, that's true. Modern cars have anti roll back systems. But also, use the hand brake.

Modern cars have automatic transmission where we don’t have to deal with archaic problems.
Post reply on HN