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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

#531

Post by 3poundkilograms »

speeder wrote: post #450
3poundkilograms wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, engine braking to the red light would have been more efficient. :) But indeed, automatic cars are less efficient. They do not know what you will do next, so they often make erroneous gear shifts that waste fuel and time. They don't know when to coast or when to engine brake (For older transmissions, the overdrive gear had permanent coasting, and could not engine brake at all), often have lossy pumps, etc. Dual…

I am from Brazil, here the population hates "hydramatic" cars as they call automatic cars. I saw one accident that the cause was lack of transmission knowing the future: road crossing, bad road signs didn't made clear who had priority, so both drivers went forward. Both cars tried then to stop, but the automatic car instead had just shifted up, then as the driver tried to stop, it lurched forward and hit the other ca…

Automatic transmissions back then were quite the hydraulic maze, as they operated entirely on hydraulics. These days, they're electronically controlled. I don't think the failure rate has changed.

In a manual, you can of course clutch out as long as your clutch cable (or hose for hydraulic clutched cars) doesn't fail, which is not an option you have for automatics. These kinds of failures do occur today, though. See the famous Toyota "unintentional acceleration" scandal, where a software error read "0% throttle" as "100% THROTTLE GO GO GO GO", causing death in a few cases. There's also a case of a person that was stuck in a car that could not stop, driving at constantly increasing speed on the highways of France, IIRC. He couldn't turn the car off or get it out of gear. You can disengage a manual if you're quick with an intact clutch cable, but you're a bit lost in an automatic, especially if it's too powerful to hold on the brake.

Up here, manuals are normal (with automatics slowly getting more and more popular), mostly because everyone knows just fine how to drive them, and automatics are much more expensive. I, personally, can't decide which I prefer. I'd much rather drive fully manual than a "retrofitted" automatic like the one in a Lupo 3L, and I still have to try a dual clutch transmission, for which I might end up having similar opinions. They always seem to change wrong, the changes are rough and slow, and the clutch engagement is very binary, leading to odd engage/disengage.

I like conventional automatics in cars that haul heavy loads (pushing a 4 metric tonne trailer over a curb in reverse at low speeds without the possibility of gaining some speed first make you worry a lot about your clutch in a manual), and our busses and trucks are generally fully automatic, with more gears than you would bother counting.

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

#532

Post by JBReefer »

emodendroket wrote: post #507
zippergz wrote: post #35

I'm a car enthusiast, and I was a manual transmission purist for many, many years. But then I had to be honest with myself, and admit that the VAST majority of my driving is commuting in traffic. And that driving is much less annoying with an automatic. My leisure driving is maybe 5% less fun without a manual, but that's far outweighed by how much better my daily commute is. At this point, I'd only buy a manual for a…

I always hear people say this but going from auto to manual I haven't really found commute driving any worse (granted, it's not fun in either case).

This is why I take the bus or train, even in towns where most people drive(when possible).

I used to commute from Downtown Hartford to the Airport. 20 minute drive, 40 minute bus ride. I showed up happy and refreshed and having had time to read, my coworkers showed up stressed out and miserable. I mean, I guess you save 20 minutes, but....

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

#533

Post by lmm »

72deluxe wrote: post #361
mbrookes wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coasting in neutral or with the clutch disengaged is both more dangerous and less efficient then engine braking. In the UK you will fail your driving test if you coast, and in some countries / states it is illegal - with good reason. Just google it - not a single article supporting your argument.

But if you're coasting down a hill and not braking, your engine is idling and you're making use of gravity. The engine will be turning over at ~1000rpm instead of 2000rpm in my diesel. Understandably it is dangerous as you are not in control of the transmission and therefore the wheels, hence the failure in the UK. But I got through some incredibly scarce times by coasting a bit on the commute to work... With automat…

> The engine will be turning over at ~1000rpm instead of 2000rpm in my diesel.

Right, but when you're coasting you're burning fuel to turn over, unless you have a perpetual motion engine. Whereas engine braking (on a car with an ECU i.e. one made since 1996 or so) you could be doing 2000rpm but burning no fuel (gravity is turning the wheels which are turning the engine).

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

#534

Post by hash-set »

salex89 wrote: post #483
TeMPOraL wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 real…

It can't be much wear since I have driven several manual cars hundreds of thousands of miles and never changed a clutch once.

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

#535

Post by johngalt »

henrikschroder wrote: post #46

I got my driver's license in Sweden, and the official driving handbook completely worships manual transmissions, and makes several untrue claims about how much better they are than automatics. You can choose to do your road test in an automatic, but that'll earn you a restriction on your license, barring you from driving a manual. It's probably fair, but almost everyone (myself included) chooses to practice in manual…

Governments standards change slower than technology. Automatics used to be slush boxes that robbed power while shifting at inappropriate times. Now they aren't.

I love manuals, but I have to acknowledge modern automatic transmissions are very well executed.

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

#536

Post by ygra »

dep_b wrote: post #371
doener wrote: post #341

In Germany more than 80% still buy cars with manual transmissions: https://presse.adac.de/meldungen/technik/maenner-fahren-auto...

In Germany you are even required to drive fast on the Autobahn while taking your drivers' test I heard. I can't find the hard numbers to back it up but probably up to 160 or 180Km/H. This is very different from the sedated "keep your lane", slow speeds and wide roads everywhere traffic in the US.

You have to exhibit the ability to drive at speeds that are expected of you. That means around 110–130 on the Autobahn, otherwise the examiner might consider you to be too scared to drive up to the speed limit. I did my driving test in a place where the next Autobahn is about 15–20 minutes away and the speed limit on the roads I had to take was at most 120 km/h. It's definitely not a requirement to drive up to 160 km/h, but going 80 on the Autobahn, or 60 on regional roads (without traffic dictating so) will raise an eyebrow behind you.

On the other hand, your instructor may very well encourage you to try out driving fast once, because having done that is much easier with someone next to you who can help or recover from dangerous situations.

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

#537

Post by problems »

ecopoesis wrote: post #469
vmarsy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when automatic transmissions are consistently outperforming humans at fuel efficiency Do you have data to back this up? Unless you're driving a dual clutch "dry" transmission or a CVT, because of Physics, an automatic transmission will always be less efficient. The Automatic transmission Torque converter [1] will waste some of the energy provided by the engine, especially with city driving. Also, most automatic cars…

Automatics and manuals have basically the same efficiency. All numbers from fueleconomy.gov 2016 Ford Fiesta FWD 4 cyl, 1.6 L - Auto: 27/36, Manual: 27/35 2016 Ford Focus FWD FFV 4 cyl, 2.0 L - Auto: 26/37, Manual: 26/36 2016 Volkswagen Golf 4 cyl, 1.8 L - Auto: 25/35, Manual: 25/36

These can be pretty inaccurate in my experience. It's annecdata, but my brother's Corolla is rated at 6.7 L/100km on highway for the manual, but he had no problem getting 5.6 L/100km in reality. 16% less than claimed on a 10 hour drive.

I think they may be vastly underestimating manual drivers ability to optimize this.

EDIT: Actually on the US site the Auto is rated for 6.9 L/100km, 7.1 L/100km on the manual. The Canadian NRCAN rated it 6.7 L/100km.

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

#538

Post by dgacmu »

Annatar wrote: post #477
userbinator wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only "automatic" part of that transmission is the clutch. The driver still has to select the gear, and I think that's what the whole discussion here about manual vs. automatic is focusing on.

If there is no dry clutch and no clutch pedal, I consider that to be an automatic. And in such a system, I'm only allowed to signal gear selection: if I make a mistake or request a gear someone else thought I shouldn't request, the software won't comply. This implies that someone is assuming they know better than me how to drive, and enforce this assumption. This notion infuriates me. It's one thing to operate within…

I suggest handling TCP packet retransmission yourself as well. Nothing beats having precise control over reliable data delivery.

Grin. But seriously, at some point, it simply becomes a question of low level control vs improved high level functioning. I love manuals, and drive one, but the writing is clearly on the wall for good reasons. Fortunately, buying a hybrid forces the issue anyway, as others have noted.

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

#539

Post by kampsduac »

ferongr wrote: post #45
sliken wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly subaru simulates gears with their CVT. By default you get 6 "gears", but in sport you get 8.

And that's completely missing a point of a CVT where you can keep the engine at a its most efficient speed and vary the transmission ratio to accelerate or decelerate in response to throttle input.

But if you drive in the mountains, wouldn't gear simulation in a CVT help to save brakes while going downhill?

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

#540

Post by pix64 »

smileysteve wrote: post #468
Steuard wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every automatic car I've ever seen has had the ability to downshift to engage engine braking. (Even the CVT in cars like the Prius has an engine braking mode.) I've seen advocates of manual transmissions cite a lack of engine braking as a reason to switch in multiple conversations, so I've gotten the impression that a lot of people just aren't taught how to drive an automatic properly. (Do they not talk about this in…

Very few drivers in the U.S. know when to turn overdrive off or use a selective gear.

I would argue even being able to drive a manual doesn't make you know what is best either
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