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Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

latimes.com

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Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#481

Post by torrent-of-ions »

crispyambulance wrote: post #455
torrent-of-ions wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nor is drivers education a requirement This is it really. Americans aren't very good at driving. In the UK we are taught that it's one of the most dangerous things you'll do in your life, which it is. In America it's just like learning to walk. You have to do it and it doesn't matter how you learn. Check out the road safety stats. USA is pretty much an outlier amongst first world countries by most metrics.

The key figure, I think, is number of fatalities per billion vehicle Kilometers. For the USA that is 7.1. Unfortunately, Americans drive A LOT MORE than most other countries, so raw annual fatality count is very high (~34K). By comparison UK has 3.6 fatalities/billion KM and fatality count of 1.8K. Population ratio is ~6:1 US:UK. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... ) There are other coun…

It seems that the fatalities per billion vehicle kilometres will be skewed simply by the average trip length being longer in the US. Fatalities per number of trips is probably a better metric since longer trips tend to use safer roads like motorways. It's just not possible to rack up that many "safe" miles somewhere like the UK, while the number of more high risk miles, ie. towns and country roads, is probably more similar. As suspected, that metric is the one the US does the best on in the article linked.

The best metric is probably fatalities per capita. It's not fair to take into account only the number vehicles because the whole population is at risk when it comes to cars. And it's not fair to take into account number of miles travelled due to the difference in trip lengths.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#482

Post by JoeAltmaier »

All of mine are manual. Live on a gravel road - can't properly drive on loose gravel with an automatic. Then you have to creep along at 10mph. I can do 55 in my Subaru.

Another downside of auto - they have all sorts of 'traction control features' that take over the accelerator. What that really means is, when driving on loose gravel they start to vibrate like one of those old vibrating-football-game toys and the car then drifts uncontrollably in a random direction. Totally dangerous.

With a manual I can do a controlled four-wheel drift onto a snow-covered road and end up aligned in any desired lane. Try to do that in an automatic.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#483

Post by salex89 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #395
sshanky wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In modern cars, disengaging the clutch (or using neutral) when coasting (toward a stop or down a hill) is less efficient than staying in gear. This is because it takes some fuel to keep the engine idling, where staying in gear allows the computer to completely cut fuel flow, as long as the forward motion is keeping the engine turning.

Oh so that's what was happening... Two days ago my friend and I were driving a rented car and we've noticed that when coasting, the computer said the fuel consumption is 0, but when the friend disengaged the clutch, the fuel consumption actually went up (!) to some value. We've been wondering what's going on, and we actually suspected a software bug in the fuel consumption indicator. Thanks!

Sure, but it will cause increased wear on the clutch plates. However, idling, keeping the clutch disengaged in neutral for longer periods of time increases wear on the dual-mass flywheel. So, whatever you do, you are damaging something :) . Personally I try to balance it out, but on longer down-hill slopes or when slowly coming to a traffic light I try to keep it in gear. It takes a bit of effort to train, but I really think that you can come close to hybrid economy figures (your mileage may vary :)) ) with thinking while driving. Remember Clarkson from Top Gear driving a 4.0 liter Audi for more than 1200 kilometers with one tank (which is around 82-85 liters) but with a lot of "work" behind the wheel. He got around 6.5 l/100km which is around 36-37 US MPG (or whatever freakin' unit you guys over the pond are using :) ).

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#484

Post by nommm-nommm »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #295
ehnto wrote: post #135

Holy crap, I didn't realise it was quite like that. I knew it was rare for people to know manual transmissions but why such a preference for automatic? In Australia pretty much everyone I know can drive manual, most cars come with the option and most cheaper cars are manual. It was somewhat of a masculinity thing too, and still is according to my younger siblings. To be honest I'm surprised the most that America does…

> I knew it was rare for people to know manual transmissions, but why such a preference for automatic? I think this is twofold. First off, most drivers education doesn't teach a manual transmission anymore, nor is drivers education a requirement. While my parents learned on a simulator in school, I learned it from experience (and so happy I did) - my first car was a manual. But the second part of this is that there t…

>nor is drivers education a requirement

This was probably the case when you learned to drive (it was when I did) but many (most?) US States are starting to crack down on this and require formal driver's ed in some cases. There's also a lot more restrictions on young drivers than there was when I was a young driver.

For the non-Americans, in the US each State licenses their drivers and they all have different requirements.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#485

Post by Annatar »

Reason077 wrote: post #223
edoloughlin wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, it's more convoluted to use. You have to engage the clutch, put the shifter in neutral, and release the clutch again This is how you should drive if you know you're going to be stopped for more than a few seconds. 'Convoluted' doesn't come into it - it's the default.

I've driven manuals most of my life. Before stop/start came along, I was in the habit of just holding the clutch pedal down while stopped at intersections or in traffic. Anecdotally, I think most drivers do the same. Now, when driving stop/start equipped vehicles, I always try to use it. But in a manual, it does takes more thinking and effort and I wonder how many casual drivers actually bother. The thing is, most of…

Before stop/start came along, I was in the habit of just holding the clutch pedal down while stopped at intersections or in traffic. Anecdotally, I think most drivers do the same.

I usually keep my foot to the side, as I was explicitly taught in driving school by a professional instructor to do. And if the master cylinder ever starts to malfunction, since the plate spacing is really tight, keeping the clutch pedal depressed while stopped could prematurely burn up the clutch and the torque plate.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#486

Post by smileysteve »

Animats wrote: post #52

Well, of course. You need the other hand to hold the cell phone.

I'd love to see research on this. I know that if I'm not in the highway, cell phone conversations (or text based applications) receive low priority - such that, my phone has been thrown to the passenger side when I've needed to shift or I regularly have to tell people I'm talking to to wait a minute.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#488

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Annatar wrote: post #485
Reason077 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've driven manuals most of my life. Before stop/start came along, I was in the habit of just holding the clutch pedal down while stopped at intersections or in traffic. Anecdotally, I think most drivers do the same. Now, when driving stop/start equipped vehicles, I always try to use it. But in a manual, it does takes more thinking and effort and I wonder how many casual drivers actually bother. The thing is, most of…

Before stop/start came along, I was in the habit of just holding the clutch pedal down while stopped at intersections or in traffic. Anecdotally, I think most drivers do the same. I usually keep my foot to the side, as I was explicitly taught in driving school by a professional instructor to do. And if the master cylinder ever starts to malfunction, since the plate spacing is really tight, keeping the clutch pedal de…

Its called 'riding the clutch'. But all you have to do to avoid the wear is keep it fully depressed. End of moralizing.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#489

Post by jessaustin »

csydas wrote: post #451
kitd wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For clarity, did cruise control produce better or worse mpg figures?

Ah, yeah, I see how what I wrote was not clear. Cruise control was significantly worse than driving it normally, at least when I was at the wheel. The route is a very hilly one, so I somewhat suspect it's that the cruise control was not very good at knowing when to accelerate and when to coast.

I find that the cruise control on a 2015 Hyundai (automatic transmission) always gets better mileage than I can without, even on hilly trips. (Where I live all trips are hilly.) I do help it out by shifting to neutral when on long downhill stretches.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#490

Post by smileysteve »

esturk wrote: post #25

Another issue with manual transmission that others have not mentioned is the annoyance as a passenger. I can understand the joy for the driver but as a passenger, I always find it quite annoying in older cars. In fact, I would probably cancel my Lyft/Uber ride if I knew the coming car is a manual.

I do hate when a passenger will have their knee next to the shifter and it disrupts my hand.
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