Or, to rephrase: designed to be able to get through narrow streets and alleys in old towns and cities, to be able to park in less than half the parking space an American juggernaut needs and to use less than 5 liters of fuel/100km. We have two cars: A smallish Toyota and a large-ish (by European standards) crossover SUV. I know which one I prefer when I drive to town.
Why are the cars socialist? The countries, I have heard that from USians, but the cars? A lot of companies are private, and Japanese cars are selling well, too.
And penalty box - isn’t that where the bullies sit in ice hockey? What’s that got to do with cars? You don’t have to be penalized to drive a European car, you’re allowed as long as you have a license, you know.
It’s bleedin’ obvious, ain’t it? They’re European, not American. By not being real, honest-to-God, apple-pie-lovin’ 'mericans, they just gotta be socialist. Duh.
I’ll betcha those cars even would vote for public health care!
I know that at one point Subaru used a different style of all wheel drive on the automatic versions vs. manual versions of some cars. As a result my car (manual) is most of the time 4WD, while the same year’s automatic is most of the time FWD. At the time, this gave them pretty much equal numbers for mileage. I wouldn’t be surprised if the newer models beat the manual even with the same AWD controls.
It’s not difficult to drive a manual efficiently, and it certainly doesn’t take a lot of skill. A car’s manual (book) gives you a guideline of what speeds you should shift at. You then modify slightly for the road conditions. If I’m accelerating up a hill I’ll hold the car in a lower gear for longer, and if I’m on a level road or going slightly downhill I can shift into 5th a bit earlier. It’s not critical to choose the perfect point to shift.
Most manual transmissions are more efficient than automatics (planetary gearset) or CVTs because less energy is lost transferring the engine’s power to the wheels. Automatics can match manuals for mileage when cruising at constant speeds due to lock-up, or sometimes better them if they have more appropriate gear ratios, but are less efficient when accelerating.
Globally, most cars have manual gearboxes, and this isn’t going to change any time soon. It’s a cheap and efficient solution to the problem. Personally, I’d gain no benefit in switching to an automatic.
The gap has narrowed, but it’s still the case that for the vast majority of cars on the market the manual has significantly better performance figures than the auto. In a drag race you might see little difference, as the manual driver could easily fluff up the gear changes, but the manual will have better in-gear acceleration.
What car is it? Sounds like you are describing a manual transmission with a computer controlled clutch. It matches the performance figures of a manual transmission because it doesn’t have the power loss of an auto or CVT, while giving better performance in the real world by eliminating driver error. However, it’s a very expensive system, which is why you only see it in performance cars.
Interesting. I have the same issue with my 2006 manual Scion Xa. At 80mph its pulling 4,000 rpm’s. It really does kill my highway fuel economy to a degree, and it concerns me about the life of the engine running that hard a lot of the time. I spend a lot of my city driving in 5th gear whenever I get at 40 mph or above. In 5th gear at 45 mph the car is pulling about 2,500 rpm, slightly more than the rpm’s my Grand Caravan pulls at 80 mph with it’s automatic transmission.
If you need to go up a steep incline in an automatic you can downshift the transmission by advancing the selector past “D” or “Drive” to lower gears, usually labeled “1” and “2”. This will keep the transmission in a lower gear.
As for snow… I’ve been driving on snow for 30 years with an automatic. It’s not an issue. A major key is to go slow on slick stuff, and that applies to both automatic and manual transmissions. I fail to see why this is a problem for people, but judging by the number of slide-offs I drive by each winter apparently it is.
While in theory a manual will give you superior performance I question if most of the people driving manuals on the road actually are skilled enough to do that.
Just a note - computer controlled dual clutch transmissions have come down a lot on price. The Ford Fiesta and the 2012 Ford Focus both have dual-clutch transmissions. I wouldn’t call either of those performance cars, to say the least.
Often when using the cruise control, the car will decelerate, add throttle, downshift, accelerate back to target speed, reduce throttle, and then repeat this cycle until cresting the hill. Moving the PRNDL selector to a lower gear forces the transmission to stay in that lower gear, eliminating all of that back-and-forth shifting.
On difficult terrain an automatic will almost always provide better roadholding. Simply because they tend to be gentler, and less jerks mean less chance of breaking adhesion. You will find that the very capable off road vehicles all use automatics. Modern ones link the automatic into the engine management and suspension control and provide integrated modes to handle slippery terrain.
The new breed of cars with common rail diesels and new tech automatics ( i.e DSG automatics in a VW Golf) are just remarkable. There is no human that can shift as fast as the gearbox, and the performance and efficiency simply a generation jump.
One problem with driving a manual is that despite the idea that a skilfully driven manual can get you optimal economy, nobody drives it like that. A manual rewards the driver with control enough to get enjoyable performance. They beg to be driven harder. Most people simply don’t have the mental stamina to stay in their mental economy program, and will quietly switch to the performance program. Some cars have a switch on the dashboard for this, and you know that you have switched, by our brains don’t have such a switch.
I find the US centric idea of European cars curiously amusing. (I assume it really was intended as a joke.) Given that the single most popular car model in Britain is the BMW 3 series, there is some sort of perception gap. Indeed on visits to the US my perception is rather the opposite. Old, low tech, horrid, cheap and nasty. With styling that only a mother could love. Compared to Europe where the cars are generally newer, higher tech, stylish, and freeway speeds that would have you jailed if done on a US road. However the biggest differentiator between cars in the US and Europe, and the one that forces the technology difference is simple. Fuel prices are at least double that of the US across Europe. 2.5 times in the UK.
It can be a problem if your auto decides to change down when it shouldn’t. My driving instructor was caught out this way when driving his wife’s car. He was crawling around a bend when it changed to 1st, the increase of torque caused the front wheels to break traction, and he slid into a hedge. Like you said above, to prevent this you can either select 1 or 2, or some cars have an L setting which prevents downshifts.
Yes and no. It’s not easy to launch a manual perfectly or shift quickly when revving the engine close to it’s red-line. However, in-gear acceleration will be better in a manual, as less engine power is lost. I’ve driven small engined automatic cars, and the difference in real-world performance and fuel economy can be considerable.
That’s interesting. There have been previous attempts to sell this technology on mainstream cars, but they haven’t been very successful at all.
Well, yes, I was assuming drivers who know how to operate a gearshift! The standard complaint at the Irschenberg is about Hollanders holding up the queue because as flatlanders* they don’t understand that in order to get up a steep incline, you need to shift properly.
But for people who do know what they are doing**, a manual is better than automatic in mountains and on snow because of anticipation: you can see that it’s going to be steep, so you put the right gear in half a minute before. The automatic can only react once it detects that the terrain is steep now - and that half a minute while shifting could be critical.
Not the book about Math and politics, but as people coming from a very flat country
** In Germany, and several other European countries, driving lessons at a school are required before getting your license
As for fuel efficiency/ economic driving on straight highways - I’ve always heard that manuals were better than automatics at that, until some time ago, where I read an article (the ADAC motorwelt? I’m not sure) that with the new generation, automatics did actually save a bit of gas. Two techniques at play: first, computer chips to optimize fuel usage and gears; and secondly, new gears - belts instead of discs, which allow for shifting in many gradual steps over manual.
“Know how to operate” as in “the average manual-transmission-trained European driver holding a driver’s license” or as in “a person who really knows how to get the most out of the car”?
Because, IME there’s no guarantee that even the average non-flatlander European with a manual transmission car understands simple stuff like “get your foot off the accelerator if your car is standing still and the wheels are turning”. And I live in a country with significantly more uphills than flats, covered in ice, snow and slush some 3-5 months of the year and with predominantly manual transmission-equipped cars.
I don’t have much confidence in the “average driver”'s driving skills. I’ve been blocked by, or helped get out of a ditch, too many of my fellow drivers to retain that belief.
As I said, I’ve been driving on snow with an automatic for 30 years or so. That has never happened to me. Is that luck or technique? I have no way to know.
You are correct about the settings. It is also advisable to read the manual on your vehicle for tips and guidelines for handling in adverse conditions but I’m the only person I know who actually does that.
Again - can be. I do know some people who are excellent at extracting maximum performance (either as normally thought of or extreme economy) from their manuals but most people I know who drive manuals are pretty clueless.
Okay, so I am not saying that the global market is going to be hit by magic fairy dust and >poof< now everyone has an advanced tech automatic.
I am saying ‘it’s over’ for manual trans. They have been toppled technologically.
In a drag race, the manual wins on paper every time… or, at the hands of someone of extreme high proficiency, they can make multiple attempts and post a launch that is ultimately faster than the auto’s best. I’ve been driving manual trans sports cars my whole life, and I don’t like my odds if I am driving my G35 coupe with a 6-speed stick vs the 7-speed automatic. Try driving daily against all the higher tech autos out there. They’re 1-2-3 shift pace is ridiculous even in just spirited driving.
The point I’m making is that much of the performance and economy difference does not depend on driving skill, but is simply an effect of higher efficiency. Nor is it particularly difficult to drive a manual efficiently as some posters have suggested. My car has a trip computer, so I can see how my driving affects my mileage. Anecdotally, most people I know do know how to drive for economy.
If you use 1 or 2 as appropriate you can avoid this problem, like you say checking the car manual is always a good idea. It only causes a problem if the car is close to the limit of traction and it downshifts when cornering. In the example with my driving instructor, he was doing probably 10MPH around a very sharp bend. If he’d slowed down before the corner or locked it in gear he’d have been fine.
Of course, the problem with driving a manual in ice or snow is it’s very easy to snatch the clutch a little and spin the wheels.
Of course not. The difference is that computer controls can somewhat compensate for the inadequacy of a driver in a way that a purely mechanical device cannot. This will enable Clueless Driver to get better mileage from an automatic than a manual. But let’s be honest, an intelligent and informed and skilled driver will probably get better milegae yet, whether using an auto or a manual.
We reckon automatics are for cripples and people who can’t drive properly.
Another factor governing choice, here at any rate, may be that if you pass the driving test in an auto transmission your licence will only cover you to operate autos, which can rather limit your lifestyle if somebody offers to lend you a car or you go to hire one. Hence most people learn to drive on a stick shift, which covers you for both types.