In terms of fuel economy, isn't it just a matter of time before automatics become as economical (then probably more economical) than manuals? Even without anticipating future events? Driving efficiently feels like something a computer could optimise for and that a human has no natural advantage doing.
My go to example is the insanity of junction 15 of the m8, that loop onto the west bound motorway is a 270 degree corkscrew rising 30 feet with a diameter of 55 yards onto a 5 lane motorway where I need to go from the left hand lane to the right hand lane (as there are entrance and exit lanes on both the inside and outside of the motorway at that point). A current automatic engine wouldn't know what was the right thing to do in that situation ( https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.8672951,-4.2358853,374m/da... )
To determine all of that you'd basically be at the level of self-driving car. Which would be awesome.
Latest Rolls-Royce Wraith does exactly that - it uses the GPS map data to change gears in advance as it is approaching a turn in the road. I am sure that this technology will be available in ordinary cars soon enough.
Manuals have better fuel usage then automatics is a myth for recent cars, no fancy self driving needed.
Now in a high-end car with a sequential gearbox this is different, but for a small town car when you'll be doing a lot of starts and stops you'll see the losses on the hydraulic coupling.
To preempt the "but you have to own a porsche for that!" responses, I'm not saying this is cheap, I'm just saying it is not limited by the available technology, just cost.
Waze-style technology + GIS + networking with other vehicles + weather data (if you look, there is already tons of small weather monitoring stations all over major). thoroughfares).
I mean many vehicles within the last handful of years have automatic traction control that can react faster to a real time change in road conditions than any human could ever hope too. A lot of the stuff I mentioned above is just extending that foresight out further so as to not be so jarring.
Bear in mind I drive a 6 year old 1.3L diesel Fiat van converted to a people carrier which is as aerodynamic as a shed. It also has 3 children, a buggy and a pile of crap in it.
Perhaps a computer could optimise this better but I doubt it. The computer and automatic box just goes when you push the pedal down. The driver isn't connected to it and feeling what it's doing and understanding the power curves.
You sure about that? Because I easily get about 70 mpg on my Prius (C class) when I'm supermiling in the city. Granted it's not as efficient on the highway, and unfortunately I do have to do a lot of highway travel. I can sustain a good a 55mpg average at the end of the month though. I plan to start borrowing my wife's whenever I'm on the highway, I think this way I can average mpg in the 70s overall when I do this.
The number for a Prius-hybrid you'd really care to look at would be the city driving numbers as that's where you get all the advantages of regenerative breaking. Running a Prius at 100+ km/h it just turns back into a standard petrol fueled vehicle carrying drained batteries.
I've found diesel engines and vehicles to be considerably more reliable and therefore less expensive. Fuel is between 5-7% more expensive here in the UK so things are good there.
The city driving numbers are about the same I found. I regularly drive right into London's congestion charging zone - at least 1-2 times a week.
51 is the expected MPG in city driving scenarios. I can achieve that with no particular effort in London traffic. I don't drive like a crazy person and hang back regularly - that is all.
My vehicle doesn't have piles of expensive electronics, batteries and things to go wrong either (look at recent threads about Toyota stack overflows for example).
The most expensive thing on a Diesel that can go wrong is the particulate filter, EGR valves and timing chains and these are cheaply regenerated and replaced respectively.
And this is why electrics are eventually going to win. A motor optimized for a single RPM speed driving a generator doesn't need a transmission. Even if the rest of the drive chain was as efficient, the loss of weight would drive the change over time.
Is this really a good argument against automatics though? The worst example of anything is usually going to be pretty bad.
As a matter of current economics, yes, if you have a very tight budget and want a good driving experience, manual is going to be better. But automatics are as fast and as efficient as manuals a little higher up the market. And it will trickle down soon enough.
Maybe in another 10 years the automatic experience at my price range will be better but at that point we're 25 years on from coldtea's period where European cargo-cult bullshit started.
Apparently.
"second worst driving experience" has nothing quantifiable.
I would think my number 1 complaint about the driving experience was the occasional (but not predictable) incredible lag between pressing the accelerator and the car going faster and the ridiculous over-revving when I presume the car got confused about what gear it thought I should be in.
I've never seen the lag (much less "incredible") in any model I've known.
I've indeed seen the over-revving sometimes. That said, how is the over-revving any issue compared to the whole not having to even worry about manual gear shifting benefit?
It's like going to the US on a boat, because airplane food is bad. Yes, it might be, but it misses the whole point of getting there faster, easier, safer and with less concerns.
Check out a Smart fortwo on car2go sometime and be amazed :)
It feels somewhat counter-intuitive as normally you press the pedal to speed up, but when going uphill you sometimes have to really step on it just to maintain speed.
You end up paying a lot more attention to everything, vs being largely on autopilot with automatic transmission. Or at least having the option of being a lot more on auto pilot with auto transmission.
Of course this varies driver to driver, but having driven both types for about 10 years, I personally find mysel way more engaged with the manual vehicles.
Really, and you need control of what and for what?
Anything quantifiable?
I have one in my VW Golf!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_converter#Lock-up_torque...
That's because automatic transmission is the worst and invented by the devil.
More seriously, using an automatic transmission results in trade-offs, for instance fuel usage was the historical number 1 sticking point with automatics guzzling up the petrol compared to manuals. Modern engineering has closed that gap but there are still issues related to control - ironically a move to fully autonomous cars would solve most of them (principally in non-autonomous cars drivers in manual transmission cars can use knowledge of future road conditions to make gear selection decisions that an automatic transmission cannot make as they have only a limited input set)