What percentage of cars sold in the USA are automatic? It seems to me from watching American T.V. and movies that the majority of cars are automatic and being able to “drive stick” is quite rare (for the record I would consider semi-automatic and tiptronic boxes to be automatic).
In America is it stated on your driving license what transmission you used when you passed your test? In the U.K. if you pass your test in an automatic you are not allowed to drive a manual unless you retake the test in a manual car, is America the same?
Finally, and perhaps not a GQ question, why are automatic transmissions so much more popular in America than in other countries (such as the UK) where the vast majority of cars are manual?
This all means you can have bigger, more powerful cars than are desirable in Europe or the UK. Small, four cylinder automatics suck. When you climb a hill in a 1.3 litre auto with the air-conditioning on, you may as well get out and walk. Autos are more at home in a big, powerful car, where you won’t notice the performance loss, and the cheaper fuel means you won’t be burned in the hip pocket when you fill up. Once Americans got used to their automatics, the culture of things like drinking big mugs of coffee whilst driving took off, and cemented the love affair with the auto box.
Can’t stand the things personally, but they are popular in my country too, for much the same reasons as the US (though we tend not to do the coffee thing).
In every jurisdiction I’ve heard of in the US, a license is a license regardless of transmission type, which leads to much clutch-smashing amusement, especially when people come over here and rent a car*. Though bear in mind the legislation differs from state to state.
*Possibly apocryphal story: my dad used to work in a garage in London in the 1960s, and they rented out cars. One woman from the US rented a Mini from them, and complained that it kept stalling and used loads of gas. Turns out she had managed, without any knowledge of the clutch, to crash it into first gear, and had driven it all the way to Brighton and back that way. (Another driver - this time from the UK - also complained of bad performance in her hire car. They discovered that she didn’t know what the choke button was, and had pulled it out fully and was using it to hang her handbag off.)
People like automatics in America because its so much easier to talk on your cellphone, drink coffee, change cds, roll down the window, oh and something else…hmmm maybe not.
You’re certainly right in that most passenger cars in the US appear to be automatics.
There’s a Catch-22 in this as well.
I might like a stick, but if I get one, it’ll be harder to resell the car when it’s time to trade in.
Also, some categories of car simply can’t be had with a stick.
You can’t get a full-sized car with a stick.
Even in the mid-sized category, no stick in a Ford Taurus, Chevy Impala… the list goes on.
I could get a Toyota Camry with a stick, but that involves buying an import, which brings its own problems, and isn’t politically viable in some parts of the US, including a lot of places with a heavy manufacturing base.
Even when you can get a manual transmission, automakers selling them in the US tend to believe they should be bundled with stripped vehicles.
It seems like the cars with manual transmissions always have the base engines, cheap cloth upholstery, basic stereo systems, et cetera.
I find it odd that manual cars tend to have smaller engines given that manual is the transmission of choice for performance vehicles. I am surprised that someone who passed their test in an automatic would be allowed to drive a manual with no further training, surely it must cause a lot of accidents or do people always steer clear of manuals so it isn’t a problem?
From my experience, I would say that at least 1/2 of Americans know how to drive stick, although most of them own automatics. I never had trouble finding manuals to buy, but I was never in the market for a family sedan-type thing. I would think that at least 1/3 of the sports cars sold in the US are stick, but I may be wrong.
When we got over here we had a hell of a time finding stick shift cars–both my husband and I prefer them and weren’t willing to compromise on that. I would say that, at most, 1-3% of the cars sold here are stick. There are lots of fast sports cars–RX7s, Supras, Nissan Skylines, 300 ZXs–and they are almost all automatics. I have yet to see a standard Supra, having looked at at least 50 of them.
I got rid of my American-made 1995 Honda Civic due to frequent vandalism on GM parking lots back when I got started in the industry. But… it was a GM parking lot. Anywhere else isn’t really much of a problem, even in Michigan. Come to think of it, it was a five speed manual utterly and completely loaded with every single option. I’d gotten it as a poor soldier, and on a soldier’s pay, a Civic was decidedly a performance car.
One can get a fully loaded (less the V6) Fusion in a manual. Corvettes are no brainers, as are Mustangs, and most pickup trucks (although manufacturers recommend automatics if you’re going to do an appreciable amount of towing).
For big, comfy cars, automatics are what people want. They’re not performance cars, even when they’re able to perform. Consider the markets, and I have a perfect illustrative anecdote: for most of 2005 I had a Ford Modeo available to me. I considered it a cheap, tiny car that had severe performance limitations but got fantastic gasoline mileage. The V6 was slow and for some reason it had those stupid manual override gear selectors so you could pretend you had a manual. As I looked at reviews for the car in the UK, I was dumbfounded that it was considered a spacious family vehicle, and its most severe defect was that it “only” got 24 miles per gallon (and those are big, imperial gallons).
As has been mentioned, some models are not offered with an automatic.
One other factor is area of the country. When I was a line technician I did about one manual transmission overhaul a year on Volvo’s. Stick shift 240s &740 were about 1% of our sales in LA. Pretty damn rare in other words.
When I got the job as an instructor I went to teach in Denver. One day in class, I mentioned that the (then) new 850 had a Volvo designed manual transmission. I made the comment that I expected it to be as bullet proof as the existing rear wheel drive units and since we almost never had to rebuild those…
One of the students then told me he had overhauled 6 manuals that year, another had done 5 and two other guys also had 6. :eek:
I did not understand this, then I asked what percentage of sales sticks made up in Colorado. About 1/3 was the answer.
Mystery solved.
I’ll add one other thing to consider: even when the basic model of a car technically has a stick transmission as standard equipment, few dealers carry them. They do carry the more expensive (and more profitable to them) automatic transmissions, and are ready to deliver these to the customer within a couple of days.
A customer can, of course, order a car with a stick from a dealer, but delivery of such a car can take three or four months. Many people aren’t willing to wait this long, and will buy from the dealer’s existing stock of automatics.
I like a stick transmission, and I’ve encountered this twice when buying cars. The first time, I was willing to order a stick and wait four months while my car was built and shipped to the dealer. The second time, my wife and I wanted a stick, but we weren’t willing to wait. So we got the automatic that could be delivered in a few days.
This illustrates a key difference in how the driving tests are viewed. Here in the States, the focus is on knowledge of applicable laws and rules of the road. Technical proficiency operating the vehicle is not considered important beyond what’s necessary to do basic maneuvers in traffic and parking. If you can do the required operations in any legal vehicle, you qualify for the license. Those who do not know how to operate a manual transmission do indeed steer clear of them.
An additional endorsement is generally required to drive a motorcycle, and the test must be taken on a motorcycle. For certain classes of commercial trucks and buses, a specialized written test is administered and I’m sure the driving test must be in an applicable vehicle. But for driving a passenger car, if you can pass the test in any passenger car, your license allows you to drive all passenger cars.
Heh, I would agree with the review. In fact, I think of my Mum’s Rover as being “big” despite sharing a chassis with a Honda Civic/Domani, simply because of the bulge in the bonnet that I have to look over to see the tarmac. The bonnet on the Honda didn’t appear so much, so it felt smaller
Don’t tell me American’s aren’t the most spoiled country in the world when it comes to cars
My dad told me this story over 40 years ago, only it was an American car (back when they used to have chokes). I think this qualifies as an urban legend.
It’s been a sad but salutory experience to discover that about 50% of what my relatives told me when I was growing up was urban legend, and the other 60% was exaggerated.
I really don’t think the ability to drive a stick is that rare. I don’t think I know anyone that hasn’t had experience with a manual.
I think part of the reason we are seeing more automatics is that they make them in 5 and 6 speeds now. Used to be only 3. Now years ago, most manuals where also 3 speeds, but they started making them in 4 and 5 before the automatics caught up to them.
I’ve found I really don’t care. I’ve owned 3 automatics (as is my current vehicle) and 4 manuals. And I drive mountain passes every single day.
