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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?

#621

Post by rayiner »

kasey_junk wrote: post #587
Retric wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess, you don’t live next to farmers or a lot of snow.

Pickup trucks are horrendous for snowy conditions. You literally have to put extra material in them to make them manageable. The farmers in my family do have pickup trucks. 40 year old ones with standard cabs and no frills. There is virtually no good function for a modern leather appointed king cab other than signaling your group. Which is fine! Half of car ownership is that but do t pretend that even half of trucks…

I don’t think that’s quite accurate. I live in an area where even people with tiny houses have a boat, and they don’t bring it out just once or twice in a summer. And once you need that pickup truck instead of a Prius, the King cab and leather is just a luxury upgrade like anything else. I see plenty of contractors, etc., around here with big shiny pickup trucks.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#622

Post by rayiner »

raverbashing wrote: post #590
Retric wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess, you don’t live next to farmers or a lot of snow.

Given the % of urban vs rural population of the US, yes (as expected) Doesn't justify the urbanites buying SUVs though

Don’t forget that the Census Bureau counts every town of 2,500 in the middle of farm country as an “urban area.” I’m in an “urban area” and I can drive to horse farms in 5 minutes.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#623

Post by kuhewa »

FabHK wrote: post #513
kuhewa wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crocs were very much a fashion trend in 2021.

The I hate Crocs blog was most active in 2007/2008. http://ihatecrocsblog.blogspot.com

I'm probably missing your point, but I don't mean in the sense of them being a common type of footwear, I mean they were on runways, worn by celebrities, etc. https://www.whowhatwear.co.uk/crocs-shoes/slide4

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#624

Post by amarant »

ubermonkey wrote: post #620

This is a really US-focused take, right? Manuals are MUCH MUCH more common in other countries. I was just in the UK, and (because I'm curious) I peaked in cars in every lot we parked in. Manuals were the dominant mode there, in my unscientific sampling.

Same here in Sweden. Automatics are almost a curiosity, some silly crutch used in strange countries where people don't know how to drive or something.

But in a sense manual transmission is still dying. EV's don't have a transmission in the same sense, and from a user's perspective they're similar to automatic transmission. Well, "dying" might be a bit premature, but declining anyways!

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#625

Post by dumpsterlid »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #525
boppo1 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahaha I was thinking of passengers. Hence "how do they get eaten?" But even so, were old car shapes really worse than modern car shapes? Seems like you get hit, you're gonna have a bad time no matter what.

Even for people in the car, some older car designs put the drivers legs under the engine block. In a head on collision at speed, the legs were the crumple zone (meanwhile the steering column was being pushed through your torso). edit: also recently people noticed that high 'trucks' would simply miss the crumple zones in the car they were crashing into > Another problem is "impact incompatibility" where the "hard poin…

"Even for people in the car, some older car designs put the drivers legs under the engine block. In a head on collision at speed, the legs were the crumple zone (meanwhile the steering column was being pushed through your torso)."

Anytime anyone waxes nostalgic about how "they dont make cars like they used" I think about this video. They sure as hell don't make cars like they used too, you can get out and walk away from a crash in your ugly newer car that would brutally end your life in one of those beautiful classic cars.

For anyone that is curious the key thing to pay attention to in survivability here (besides yah know... the airbag) is.. does the interior cab of the car change shape? The cab of the old car violently changes shape in a way that would destroy parts of your body whereas the newer car's cab doesnt seem to be affected at all. Even if getting crushed between the seats and dashboard didnt kill you immediately in the bel air, I struggle to imagine how emergency first responders would even get you out of that.

https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#626

Post by rasz »

withinboredom wrote: post #341
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the Europeans are too ignorant and lazy to update to new stuff like AC (and auto transmission). ;p

I have an AC in the Netherlands. It’s in the guest room for when our American friends visit and we occasionally all pile in there for the two (non-consecutive) days to weeks of the year it is ridiculously hot.

todays 32C is not ridiculously hot?

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#628

Post by amarant »

pjmlp wrote: post #520
wil421 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m doubting the person in Italy has a need for ice and snow driving. Where I am it might snow or ice once a year. However I do own an SUV that has a snow mode. It starts in second to avoid spinning the wheels and will let you manually cycle through the 8 speeds if you want.

North Italy has enough ice and snow driving, including compulsory wheel chains, at least while we keep having European Winters.

GP did mention Rome though.. There's snow and ice in the Italian Alps for sure, but in Rome? Hardly likely.

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#629

Post by dwater »

woodruffw wrote: post #582
tomohawk wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The technocrats thought they'd be clever, and they basically outlawed reasonably sized cars for very small marginal efficiency gains. People bought light truck instead. People don't want to drive around in dinky death traps. The CAFE standards for cars are too restrictive. The fleet averages look great, but the percentage of cars as vehicles on the road is low. Cars such as station wagons don't exist any mor…

I don't understand this comment. SUVs are classified as passenger vehicles. They're also getting larger (and more dangerous for pedestrians), but to nowhere near the same degree that pickup trucks have. The danger posed by pickup trucks is chiefly a function of the absence of regulation: the US has decided that you can role-play as a farmer and get treated as one for safety purposes, without actually demonstrating a…

It's complicated because the SUV label is arbitrarily used by manufacturers and consumers, but many/most SUVs are classified as light trucks for safety and emissions purposes.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-726-may-7-2012-suv...

Re: The end of the manual transmission is near?

#630

Post by [deleted] »

wobbleblob wrote: post #595
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…

Automatic transmission is very rare in Europe.

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