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The end of the manual transmission is near?

popularmechanics.com

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Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#221

Post by StanislavPetrov »

tenpies wrote: post #30
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…

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.

> A car that doesn't phone home.

One of many reasons I will never buy a new car and will always buy classic cars no matter how much they cost.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#222

Post by theluketaylor »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #148
PheonixPharts wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

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.

And the EV Macan due out in 2024 will be even more screen. I'm sure it will have the same 3 screen setup as Taycan, with the curved instrument cluster, landscape main dash screen, and portrait lower screen for HVAC and charging controls.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#223

Post by 29athrowaway »

insightcheck wrote: post #191
29athrowaway wrote: post #185

Read the story of how actor Anton Yelchin died.

Yelchin's case looks like a consequence of an unconventional user design for the gearstick, rather than a consequence of manual cars in general. From The Washington Post [0]: "The parents of Anton Yelchin, the “Star Trek” actor who died in 2016 when his SUV rolled down his driveway and trapped him against a security gate, have reached a settlement with the makers of Jeep Grand Cherokee. "[..] [In 2015], [the National…

It was an automatic transmission not a manual transmission car. Manual = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, R}

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#224

Post by StanislavPetrov »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #147
tenpies wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On newer cars most every component from your tires to your rear window defroster phones home about your activity.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#225

Post by sbaiddn »

foobarian wrote: post #170
mrcartmeneses wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. And the car is just second guessing you in general. I can blip the throttle in my automatic and the car acts like nothing happened at all. Or I’ll put my foot to the floor, nothing happens, then a few seconds later it downshifts and jerks forward. But it’s easy on long journeys and the road is not a racetrack so I can’t complain.

I drove an AT rental with a "manual" mode. The AT kept wanting to sit in high gears, which require a lot of torque at low RPMs, which ended up hitting this funny resonant spot in the car and cause an annoying rumble. I ended up running it in manual mode and lower gears.

Rental fleets are so bad now, the first thing I do is figure out how to manually operate the tranny. Then Ill downshift 15 seconds before needing the power.

I recently had a car with "10" speeds (it was actually a CVT) and to get any passing power on the highway I had to drop it into 3rd.

Shift shift shift shift shift shift shift and then pathetic engine would scream like nothing Ive heard before.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#226

Post by reneherse »

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?

Unfortunately you're being down voted, but the reality is there are crumple zones built into some hoods (bonnets) that help protect the pedestrian from immediately impacting the solid parts of the engine. So the concept isn't completely unexplored.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#227

Post by waste_monk »

Judgmentality wrote: post #105
voldacar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has made it all but illegal to make a car that isn't ugly

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.

I wonder if you could somehow selectively lens the windshield glass near the edges to provide a "fisheye" effect for greater visibility around the pillars... like bifocals or something, not an entirely fisheyed windshield, just a small zone on each side.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#228

Post by sbaiddn »

pier25 wrote: post #164

> 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…

You haven't driven much in Spain recently, Id gather. The industry is going towards 10 speed autos for heavier cars and CVTs for light ones.

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

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#230

Post by spindle »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #130
Judgmentality wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep. I’m constantly leaning around in my Yaris trying to see what is in front of me. Great car to drive though!

I rented a Toyota recently. The A-pillars were so huge that I thought I'd better drive around near the rental company for a while to get used to it. So I did that, concentrating on driving safely instead of concentrating on navigating. I ended up on a hospital campus, in a lane intended only for ambulances. There was no visibility for cars shorter than ambulances, and I crashed on the way out. (At about 10 km/h, so no-one was hurt - sorry for the anticlimax.)
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