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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?

#381

Post by euroderf »

lisper wrote: post #352
eric4smith wrote: post #113

Manual transmissions are dead. I grew up learning to drive a manual transmission car. Awesome. I loved the feeling of driving and shifting gears up the hilly, mountainous, twisty horrible roads in Jamaica. Exhilarating! But cars got better. I got older, and now automatic transmissions are so much more efficient than manual transmissions * for ordinary people *. We're not talking about people who love driving here. We…

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.

And don't forget leaving from a stop uphill.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#382

Post by euroderf »

rightbyte wrote: post #376
sacrosancty wrote: post #195

> Higher gears require fewer revs on the highway, leading to improved gas mileage. He seems to be suffering from the common misunderstanding that higher revs = higher fuel consumption. Those extra gears aren't at the top end to reduce torque at high speed (what?), they're spread more uniformly to keep the engine operating in an efficient or powerful region.

> misunderstanding that higher revs = higher fuel consumption That is a good approximation. Each revolution has to do a somewhat fixed amount of work due to resistance. However too low revs will mess up milage too due to bad combustion.

A question tho. A manual transmission makes engine braking possible. But I never quite understood whether engine braking actually does suck a lot more gas thru the carb. In other words, when your foot is off the gas but there is high airflow thru the carb, does it draw gas ?

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#383

Post by gorgoiler »

ciconia wrote: post #351
eric4smith wrote: post #113

Manual transmissions are dead. I grew up learning to drive a manual transmission car. Awesome. I loved the feeling of driving and shifting gears up the hilly, mountainous, twisty horrible roads in Jamaica. Exhilarating! But cars got better. I got older, and now automatic transmissions are so much more efficient than manual transmissions * for ordinary people *. We're not talking about people who love driving here. We…

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

Automatics traditionally had a single clutch and a viscous coupling to convert smooth the torque between gear shifts. Switching gears was slow and the transmission as a whole was less fuel efficient.

Modern automatic gearboxes have dual clutches and two separate sets of gears for even and odd numbers. You alternate between them as you shift up and down. Shifting is faster and smoother.

(The system isn’t perfect. If you switch to manual selection of gears the transmission computer sometimes guessing wrong — while you’re in 3rd and accelerating it’ll get 4th ready for on the even-numbers clutch, so if you suddenly brake and shift down there is a longer delay while the transmission shifts to 2nd instead.)

Here’s Audi’s marketing material on their version: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_as29ym51M

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#384

Post by tomashubelbauer »

distortedsignal wrote: post #379
namdnay wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ explosive charges that will deform the hood to better catch a pedestrian. I’ve seen one go off when somebody drove into a bollard

Could you point me to the car manufacturer that puts explosive charges in their cars? Asking for a friend... who is myself.

Don't all airbags deploy using electronically set-off explosives?

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#385

Post by splitbrain »

distortedsignal wrote: post #379
namdnay wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ explosive charges that will deform the hood to better catch a pedestrian. I’ve seen one go off when somebody drove into a bollard

Could you point me to the car manufacturer that puts explosive charges in their cars? Asking for a friend... who is myself.

All of them. It's called an airbag.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#387

Post by adhesive_wombat »

distortedsignal wrote: post #379
namdnay wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ explosive charges that will deform the hood to better catch a pedestrian. I’ve seen one go off when somebody drove into a bollard

Could you point me to the car manufacturer that puts explosive charges in their cars? Asking for a friend... who is myself.

Airbags and seatbelt pre-tensioners have "explosives" in them (they convert very rapidly into gas, but I'm not sure all of them always meet the usual standards of explosives).

The defective Tanaka airbags used ammonium nitrate, of Oklahoma City Bombing and Beirut port fame.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#389

Post by masklinn »

originalvichy wrote: post #330
masklinn wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Saying they aren’t manual can be misleading. F1 and rally cars have automatic clutching but they certainly gear up and down manually.

There’s nothing misleading about it. Shift paddles are pretty standard on cars with automatic gearboxes. The only difference is that outside of sports cars “consumer” gearboxes will usually restrict the range they’ll let you use with semi-automatic shifting and will override that if you redline or bottom out.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#390

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

euroderf wrote: post #381
lisper wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And don't forget leaving from a stop uphill.

There are many techniques to start uphill.

In Italy the driving test is on manual transmission and many people use manual.

I trained in Rome, parking on the left side downhill (so backward is uphill), it was tough, but learned a lot of tricks in the process to prevent stalling. You also become very attuned to the clutch

I do love manual transmission, but the purpose is to have fun, not for daily usage.

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