So, if I understand correctly, there basically never was any transition. When cars began to be commonplace, they already were for the most part automatic?
And the question should then be : why American companies originally choose to mostly produce cars with automatic transmission, and European companies cars with manual transmission? Or why the American public didn’t want manual from the beginning while the European public didn’t want automatic from the beginning? Or am I mistaken?
On one hand, I’m willing to admit that yes, I like manuals better simply because THEY ARE MORE FUN (though I currently drive an auto)…
On the other, whilst I agree the fuel economy/performance argument of many manual lovers is getting thinner by the year, the figures are, I suspect, that of cutting edge models, rather than what Joe Toyota drives. More efficient automatics exist now, but are they in suburban dealerships?
And an automatic (no matter how frugal and “smart)” of this generation, still can’t anticipate a corner. An auto still has that weird, houseboat -like, capsizing “over we go” feeling in a corner, whereas you can make a manual squat into it and hug the road.
I’ve owned 3 automatics (my current SUV is an auto) and 4 manual trans vehicles.
City driving, mountain driving, off road, whatever. The transmission type really doesn’t matter to me one bit.
I drive and live in the mountains now. A manual may be a bit better for this (and ice driving) but it’s not that big of a deal. You just adjust a little bit, and the automatic does just fine (especially if you know your vehicle).
Well, for starters, 51% of the potential drivers aren’t manly at all and the ladies would probably be insulted if you implied they should be!
I suspect the increase in women driving had an impact here in the US, as automatics were perceived as easier for the little woman of the house and, of course, she wasn’t worried about appearing manly.
I also suspect that wasn’t the only factor, just one of many.
Well, speaking of Toyotas… mine is an automatic and routinely gets 40+ mpg. That beats most manual cars, yes?
Then again, the manner in which I drive is pretty fuel efficient - it is quite possible my mileage might be even better with an manual, but then my husband wouldn’t be able to drive the car at all (his disability makes operating a clutch pretty much impossible) so we have other reasons for choosing an auto.
I don’t understand this. I have never had a “capsizing” feeling in a vehicle I’m driving when going around a corner in normal conditions. Nor do I have an urge to make my car “squat”. It adheres to the road quite well, in fact. I suspect that has more to do with the driver and speed used to corner than with the transmission.
I am amused at the lengths people here will go to in praising their preferred something; it’s not enough just to say that you like it, you must also denigrate those who don’t, or propose ridiculous measures against those who prefer what you don’t.
I only recently learned to drive, on an automatic. So far it’s a lot more fun than I had thought it would be. Driving manual might be even more fun, but I am not likely to have an opportunity to learn any time soon.
I’ve never felt this either. Just how do you make a manual ‘squat’?
I find this slightly odd - admittedly I don’t have wide-ranging experience of driving in the USA, but it seems to me that here in England we have much more crowded and narrow streets and more stop-start traffic, while in the vast open spaces of the USA there are highways where you can cruise for days at a time (away from the big cities, obviously). So you’d think that it would be us Brits on our crowded little island that would feel more need for automatics, when in fact it’s the other way round.
(FWIW I’ve only ever driven an automatic once, when I hired one in California. I didn’t like the way it would drive itself forward without me pressing the accelerator, unless I kept my foot on the brake - what’s that all about? Also, it seemed a bit of a waste driving the Pacific Coast Highway with a slushbox between my foot and the wheels, but I guess you get used to it…)
I suspect he means the way you can anticipate a corner and downshift into it, so that you can then power through and out of the corner, without the auto transmission suddenly deciding it wants to downshift part-way through the bend, causing a nasty lurching sensation.
I just want to throw it out there that I don’t believe heavy traffic makes driving a clutch any less fun. If you’re a good stick-driver, you barely even notice the clutch…
I’ve only ever driven an automatic and have no interest in learning to drive a manual. Why would you want to make driving harder than it already is, unless you had some performance-based reason for it (like with super-zippy-fast expensive sports cars)? I truly don’t understand, and it seems to me like one of those “things were better in my day, by gum! Soda cost a nickel, and we walked uphill both ways to school! Now get off my lawn!” things. I would love to have my ignorance fought on this.
Yup. That’s the direction I went. I learned to drive simultaneously on manuals and automatics ( my family had both, a diesel Peugeot and an old Volvo ) and my first two cars ( 10 years of ownership between them ) were manuals. But it simply became wayyyy too tedious in Bay Area traffic. At my third car I went automatic and I won’t be switching back unless at some point I move to a more congenial region for driving or else decide I can afford to support a second “weekend getaway” car, neither of which is likely.
Well, at least I’m in the clear here :D. My understanding is that most ( or possibly all ) SF driving schools specifically disallow training new drivers on sticks in the city. Too much potential liability.
Allow me to throw out that you’re insane ( I say that with all due respect 
). Maybe I just drove cars with stiff clutches, but an hour and half in a never-ending traffic jam = sore leg, for me. Tedious in the extreme.
I think I picked up from NPR the other day that we’ve gone from 700 million hours of lost time due to traffic in 1982, to 3.7 billion hours today. It’s only going to get worse in urban areas, at least in my lifetime. Manuals will not be making a comeback. They’re at the point that they’re more a hobbyist’s fetish now - I don’t think they’ll disappear anytime soon if at all, but I agree that they’ll probably continue to decline to an even lower plateau.
Well, I won’t deny that I am insane 
But I simply don’t understand the “sore leg” phenom. Do you ride the clutch and/or not use neutral? Your foot shouldn’t have to depress the clutch that much, or that often, and when you do, it’s a quick painless motion.
It’s called “idling” and is normal in automatics. I can understand that if you aren’t used to it, it would be odd or disturbing.
WTF?
That has never happened to me - “nasty lurching sensation”? That’s a driver problem, not a transmission problem.
Stop and go for milesssss, especially on that hideous bitch-goddess, the Nimitz freeway.
Lots o’ depressing of the clutch. Enage gears, drive 20’, disengage gears, sit 45 seconds, engage gears, drive 32’, disengage gears, sit 19 seconds, engage gears, drive 8.2’, disengage gears, sit for 4 minutes, engage gears, drive a glorious 82’, disengage gears, sit for 9 minutes, engage gears, drive 2.6’, disengage gears, sit for 11 seconds, etc. until the end of the world ( or so it seemed ). Or just the thrill of being stuck halfway up the hill on the old ( now shuttered ) Fell Street ramp during rush hour, which was common when I lived in SF in the early 90’s - it certainly kept you alert when driving a stick ;).
Frankly I’ve been working a much better driving schedule the last several years and have become positively allergic to driving during rush hours, so I’d likely avoid the worst of it these days. But all it takes is one bad experience to bring it rushing back. Automatics are just way easier and really for me, given that I drive mid-range sedans ( currently a Maxima ) for practical reasons, sticks just aren’t that much more fun to be worth it.
And thankfully since I do know how to drive a stick in a pinch, I feel plenty secure in my manhood :).
I drove the Nimitz for close to 10 years in a manual car, and never actually paid attention to the fact I was being forced to shift constantly. Didn’t bother me at all.
Only place I ever had a problem was when I was living in SF and had to parallel park between two cars on a steep incline almost daily. Drove me crazy… Moved to the East Bay soon after, and got myself a driveway of my own - problem solved!
OK, that makes sense for professional drivers, but what about the concern about snow banks, where going very slowly and exactly how you want it controlled is an issue. Ice and snow and getting your car out of snowdrifts is a huge part of life in New England, and I suspect in most of the northern US.
Actually, you can have a performance-based reason for driving a stick in your bottom-end cars - my little Corolla is much peppier in the manual version I drive than it is in the automatic version. When you have smaller engines, manual versions do feel a lot livelier than automatic transmissions. As for making driving harder, when I learned to drive stick, it was harder only for a short time. I consider driving stick funner now, not harder. 
My SWAG on this: factor a strong economy, industrial expertise, nouveau riche hubris and a burgeoning middle class with the less than one generation shift from an agrarian backbone to one of manufacturing, with generous saltings of de Tocqueville, and you have a people with a fascination for the newest gizmo and a taste for leisure and luxury.
Or simply put, automatics elevated the motor car above the farm tractor and humble beginnings.The super-zippy-fast expensive sports car probably does not have a clutch. Lamborghini anyone?
Whenever this argument comes up the clutch defenders start talking about “control”, “slushboxes” and they will hint that it is less “manly” to drive a car without a clutch. Yet, if you infer that somehow their need to have a clutch is somehow tied to their sexuality (sort of like the gun nuts) they get apoplectic.
It’s 2008, not 1958. There are no 2 speed “slushboxes” out there. There are 5 and 6 speed computer controlled automatics. If you need to keep it in a high torque, low speed mode you just set it there. It ain’t so difficult.
Do the clutch defender still shop for a car with handles to roll down the windows? You have much more “control” over the window when you a pulling up to the toll booth if you are rolling it down rather than pushing a button.
Do they insist on a car with levers to control the temperature. You have much more “control” if you don’t have automatic climate control. What about those nasty power seats? Real cars have carburetors, not fuel injectors. Do they rip out the fuel injector so that they can have that “control” of adjusting the carburetor?
It gets to be a lot of silliness. Bury the clutches in some huge automotive graveyard along with the crank starters.
Driving an automatic is just so nice… Like tea at Grandma’s, or sitting quietly in church listening to a choir…
Why are people so against people driving manual cars? Driving stick is just fun for a lot of us.