A lot of automatic transmissions plain aren't that smart; I can think of several I've driven that were too conservative about changing down on a hill which made the cars much less responsive than they should have been. Also there's the old chestnut about autos being less fuel efficient / less powerful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_transmission#Benefits

Either way, I don't think the prevalence of manuals in Europe is entirely (maybe not even mostly) about not giving up control to the machine.

Clearly that's not universally true, otherwise racing drivers would use automatic gearboxes. It may be true for everyday driving, but I'd need to see some citations for this claim.

Frankly, I'm a little dubious of automatic transmission. Perhaps I've just been driving the wrong cars, but I haven't found an automatic gearbox that can match a human being. For instance, if I'm descending a steep hill, I'll stick the car in a lower gear, but an automatic always chooses the higher gear.

Automatic transmissions avoid engine braking. If you want it, you need to choose it manually.

And personally I never do for the simple reason that brakes are a lot cheaper than transmissions. And I rarely descend a hill long enough and steep enough that brake heating is a serious problem. (And when I do I usually just slow down, and stay slow.)

I downshift on hills because that keeps more of my stopping power ready to use. Brakes heat up when you use them continuously, reducing their effectiveness.

>Clearly that's not universally true, otherwise racing drivers would use automatic gearboxes.

F1 drivers did until it got banned. In fact, if I'm not mistaken I believe our more advanced automatic transmissions came from F1.

Unless you create a transmission that reads my mind, or can see the road and surrounding traffic it will not shift "better". Faster? yes. More smoothly? yes. Better? No.

Well, these folks at Google have been working on something along those lines...

I would appreciate counterpoint instead of (or in addition to) the downvotes...

You can't beat this with a manual gearbox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmiss...

They're an option on the more expensive Audis and a few other manufacturers have them.

This is technology that looks very promising but is not, from my research, mature.

What do you mean not mature? This has been on the market in cars since the sixties. Audi has had it in their top models for over a decade. It's just expensive

Since you mentioned Audi:

A quick search for "CVT reliability" produces pages of horror stories related to the Audi (and other) CVTs.

The CVT is only available on the A4 and A6 (not the A3, A5, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, et al). Also, the CVT is only available with the smaller engine options. Finally, the CVT cars are front wheel drive only, no quattro available.

That is what I mean by "not mature".

It's also difficult to drag the car with automatic gearbox (you have to do it very slowly or put it on a trailer) and you can't start the car by pulling it if battery gets flat.

Don't you think automatic gearboxes have just a bit of an image problem - they certainly used to in the UK.