I also think EVs tick a couple of boxes that manual gearboxes also do for enthusiasts, which slushbox autos didn't. Always being in a good powerband and engine braking are both features of EVs and manual gearbox ICE cars that I miss if I am in an auto ICE car.
If I have £15,000 in the bank, spending £8,000 on the manual vs. £9,500 on the automatic (Renault Clio, 5 years, both on motors.co.uk) is significant. I'd choose the cheaper car.
If I have £50,000 in the bank it's much easier to justify.
(And if I have only £8,000 or less I don't have a choice, but I might tell my friends I "prefer" not to put a lot of money in the car.)
Then, the tone dialer appears.
I was not interested in interacting with my telephone. I just wanted it to place calls.
A rotary phone could be novel. Yet it became tedious with common use, especially when compared to tone dialing.
It isn't fun as a daily driver.
In Britain, the area codes were originally allocated based on the letter corresponding to the number, except for London.
01_ London
021 Birmingham (B=2)
031 Edinburgh (E=3)
041 Glasgow (G=4)
051 Liverpool (L=5)
061 Manchester (M=6)
0532 Leeds (LE = 53)
0742 Sheffield (SH = 74)
...
When the area codes were made, AT&T already had usage data from operator connected long distance calling, so they chose the numbers to minimize dialing time.
Within area codes, the first three digits indicate the telephone exchange, those used to be named based on the first two digits ex 555 KLondike-5 or 736 PEnnsylvania 6 [1]; these exchange names historically tended to have geographic meaning on a local level, but that wasn't always practical and when customer dialing happened, exchange names mostly disappeared, only to be heard from in older media.
[1] you might know of this one from the Glenn Miller song, PEnnsylvania 6-5000, which was the number of a the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York; it's exchange was named for PEnn station, the area the exchange serves
I will leave the interpretation of this graph as an exercise for the reader.
Right now AWD EVs seem to get slightly lower range, and I would expect that to eventually to even out or reverse, even with the weight of extra equipment.
Like just look at any EV dyno curve, it is not "torque starts at top and immediately starts falling"
Transmission means extra losses and extra weight tho. It's not just "free" increase in efficiency.
It does make sense but in typical city/reasonable highway speed it's just not worth it
Even considering that, induction motors also have an efficiency curve which is the point I'm making. If you care about efficiency motors have a sweet spot. Sometimes you care a lot about that, sometimes not.
IPM-SynRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUb7Zy5Oio
They went into a lot of effort to optimize it over RPM range.
If you want to make a point use real motor curves at least. Your graph suggests it goes to sub 20% efficiencies at low speed which is completely false and would suggests way higher gains from gearbox than in reality. Hell, it would suggest ICE like performance, it's THAT bad.
Driving a manual is pretty much only for feel or technique at this point, there's no real argument otherwise.
I think a classic automatic transmission needs hydraulic pressure to engage the bands. And since the gear pump is on the input shaft side it doesn't run when the car is pushed or towed.
In this case, though, an automatic transmission is - for all intents and purposes - a transmission that does not require the driver to handle shifting at all. The DCT fits in this category.
AT is "the car changes gears".
Sometimes a distinction is made between AMT and others because AMT is kinda shit, but both DCT and torque are AT.
Also modern torque converters have lock-up clutches, meaning once they've switched gear they've got the same direct-coupling efficiency as a DCT. The ZF8 mentioned by Klonoar is a torque converter.
Ha, you're right! I don't have the energy to go edit my parent comment but hopefully it's clear (or at least, now) that I meant old school vs modern AT transmissions.
Thanks for the correction!
Paddle-shifters and CVTs, right?
Modern cars with the ZF-8 (which is like the number 1 automatic sold currently) are more efficient than their manual counterparts.
Extremely recent example in the USA: https://www.toyota.com/grsupra/2023/features/mpg/2385/2374
Toyota 3.0 Premium MT (6-speed Manual): 19/27/21 Toyota 3.0 Premium AT (8-speed Automatic): 23/31/26
And if you're like: Oh, the EPA's measurement sucks, here's the WLTP counterpart:
3.0 Petrol Twin-scroll turbocharger (335 BHP), 6-speed Manual: 32mpg / 198 g/km CO2 3.0 Petrol Twin-scroll turbocharger (335 BHP), 8-speed Automatic: 34.8mpg / 183 g/km CO2
Automatic has better mpg and less CO2 per distance travelled.
EPA is a standardised regime so cars can be compared. You can drive better than the EPA (or WLTP) test, especially if you're in better conditions.
In a manual I think you're much more likely to rev out the engine more, shift higher in the rev range, etc.
In an automatic unless you're in full "manual" mode and using the paddles/shifter to emulate that same style, then you're more likely to have the automatic's efficiency.
Historical higher mpg in a manual 5 and 6 speeds is due to driving style, 1st, the driver is more likely to drive based on what's ahead; 2nd (and related) the manual driver is likely more conservative in everyday driving.