Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

Re:Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions a... by AmericanChopper on Saturday May 01, 2021 @11:35PM (#27012167)

> Look at the European market: manual gears everywhere. Look at the UK, South African and Autraslian market: the car is inversed, with the wheel on the right.

These aren’t really great examples of marketing to a niche. Automatic transmissions cost more money, so manuals are more popular than they are in the US in every country that has less disposable income than the US. The primary reason it’s so easy to get a left hand drive car in Australia is because the UK and Japan drive on the left.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions a... by fomine3 on Sunday May 02, 2021 @04:35AM (#27013390)

> in every country that has less disposable income than the US

So you argue almost all country prefer manuals? It's not true at least in Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions a... by AmericanChopper on Sunday May 02, 2021 @04:59AM (#27013520)

I’m saying it’s quite strongly correlated. From memory the difference in price was a few thousand dollars between manual and automatic. For some consumers that price difference is enough to override other preferences. Some markets have more of those consumers than others, to the extent that an automatic car would be a somewhat uncommon luxury item in a lot of places.

[ Parent | on HN ]