Do you Americans/Canadians ever drive manual cars?

[AzzaNezz]

22 hours ago, Actual_Criminal said:

I am learning to drive in the UK where most people use manual cars. However, automatic-only licences are becoming more common because more and more people are just using automatic cars, like the States where I believe automatic is really popular.

 

My driving instructor even said there is no point going for manual these days and I should just go for automatic.

 

I am doing manual lessons because my new job soon will require driving around 10 hours or so per week and might be driving different cars.

 

Still, is my instructor right and is there really any point in doing manual lessons these days? 

You get automatic only licence and you can only drive that,you learn manual you can drive everything.

Imagine your buddy is drinking and he cant drive, so you as a responsible person  want to drive him home so he is safe but he has a manual..

Manual is easy asf,after 1 day of driving you will get hang of it.

If you are paying for something full price at least learn the full thing,not pay full price for half the thing.

[Imbadatnames]

18 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

thats been a myth, sure with early autos that didn't shift at the right time thats true but its hard for a 4-6 speed manual to compete with 8-10 speed auto
 

its on my list to learn but the house doesn't have one right now for me and my sister to learn on. At some point I'll also learn on tractors given theres a few in the family.

 

I won't start my rant on why just trying to move everyone to electric cars can't work.

they can have gears

How can electric cars have gears? They lose torque at high RPM much kinda ruins the point of gears and more importantly they don’t have a clutch. Fitting an EV with gears actively makes it worse and increases cost so no manufacturer is going to do it. 

[Ravendarat]

I am in Canada, we still have a number of manual passenger vehicles but that is dwindling every year. Many of the manufactures here dont even offer manual anymore (walk into VW and try to get one, gonna be a tough job). I install remote starters for a living and we dont even offer services on manual anymore and we saw NO decrease in business from a couple years ago. The whole thing about the gas mileage being better used to be true but now a days they all have dialed in their automatics so well that in real world situations the difference is almost nil. If you live in a city with stop and go traffic automatics are just objectively better to drive as its less to deal with as a driver. I loved having my manual trans vehicles and when I get my next project car it will be a manual as well. But my daily driver isnt gonna go back to being a manual anymore. With all of that said I still think its valuable to still have the ability to drive manuals

[rikitikitavi]

35 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

How can electric cars have gears? They lose torque at high RPM much kinda ruins the point of gears and more importantly they don’t have a clutch. Fitting an EV with gears actively makes it worse and increases cost so no manufacturer is going to do it. 

Gears are needed for efficiency/effectiveness even in EVs, but not as crucial as it is for a 'conventional' engine, so majority of EVs might have only one gear.

 

Edit: The whole point of having extra gears is to be at the peak/needed torque for longer.

[Imbadatnames]

41 minutes ago, rikitikitavi said:

Gears are needed for efficiency/effectiveness even in EVs, but not as crucial as it is for a 'conventional' engine, so majority of EVs might have only one gear.

 

Edit: The whole point of having extra gears is to be at the peak/needed torque for longer.

But EVs have the most torque at low RPM, having gears would decrease the torque instead of having it straight out of the motor 

[rikitikitavi]

55 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

But EVs have the most torque at low RPM, having gears would decrease the torque instead of having it straight out of the motor 

No. You said it yourself, that the torque goes down, as the RPM go up. Therefore to sustain/increase the torque at higher RPM you have to add a gear for higher speed.

 

Edit: I suggest you check out Engineering Explained channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClqhvGmHcvWL9w3R48t9QXQ).

He has good educational mechanical engineering videos specifically catered to cars.

[SolarNova]

22 hours ago, Actual_Criminal said:

Oh really?

 

I might have fucked up then because I have only tried 2 instructors so far (the best in my area) and the first one was a lot more strict and less forgiving when I made mistakes lol, so I told him I didn't need anymore lessons... The other one is much more calm when I make mistakes and let's me do what I want haha; he is more experienced though and uses a petrol car which feels much easier to drive than a diesel which the strict instructor had.

The harder the instructor is on you, the more likely ull end up a good driver and pass the exam 1st time. But dont settle for an abusive instructor ..especially if it makes u nervous.

 

And be honest with urself, if u get comfortable doing the lessons but know u hate doing something, like for example parallel parking or hill starts ..speak up and ask for practice till ur fine with it.

 

Also since ur in the UK, u should VERY much consider 'pass plus' ..this will get u practice on motorways and dual-carriage ways ..and all weather driving (try to do this during winter)

 

 

[dragonfly43]

On slippery road, clutching/de-clutching is much easier than shifting from D to N then back.

[Cool Dude 101]

When I learn how to drive, I want to learn to drive manual

[Guest]

I'm too old to say I don't know how to drive a manual trans. I'm also in the trucking industry as a diesel technician. So driving stick is pretty much daily. My personal cars are all automatic. Traction control, ABS, Economy mode, Stabilitrack systems, yaw control systems.... 

 

Manual trans in automotive is a thing of the past in the US. 

[jones177]

I learned how to drive manual in the UK at the end of the 70s.  After moving back to the US I stuck with manuals. Mainly Toyota's, Honda's and Subaru's.

 

Back then manual cars were much safer since my automatic cars could idle at 30mph and brakes were drums. I have rented modern automatic cars but I still don't like them so I buy manuals.

 

My latest one is a 2022 model and I don't expect it to be my last.

[rrats]

As a European, I have never seen an Automatic

[airborne spoon]

Until I bought my Tesla a few years ago every car I'd owned since high school was a manual transmission if tesla's had a transmission at all I would put a manual in it but there is NO transmission at all so I just roll with it. So 8 cars and a motorcycle later, manuals are 10x better than an automatic, better fuel economy, less wear on the brakes transmission is super easy to repair thus cheaper repairs, and they are more fun to drive. Sometimes its hard to find one though.

 

Like when I moved to Alaska I wanted to sell my car and buy a truck, but I wanted a V8 with a manual but all the V8's were auto and all the manuals were V6. Finally after a few months of searching I found one on eBay and it worked like a dream until I sold it 4 years later when I left AK for California.

[Imbadatnames]

21 hours ago, rikitikitavi said:

No. You said it yourself, that the torque goes down, as the RPM go up. Therefore to sustain/increase the torque at higher RPM you have to add a gear for higher speed.

 

Edit: I suggest you check out Engineering Explained channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClqhvGmHcvWL9w3R48t9QXQ).

He has good educational mechanical engineering videos specifically catered to cars.

But then you’d need a gear larger than the wheel. 

[Bitter]

13 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

But then you’d need a gear larger than the wheel. 

No, because there's two or more gears creating that gear ratio as well as the final drive.

[Imbadatnames]

6 minutes ago, Bitter said:

No, because there's two or more gears creating that gear ratio as well as the final drive.

You would because having gears in general wastes energy and because EVs lose torque at High RPM any gearing system would just drop your torque. The most efficient system would be having a motor for each wheel directly attached to the wheel with no gearing at all. 
 

Motors aren’t engines they’re really not that complicated. 

[zachthetree]

I mean- there isnt really a point to learn manual in america but you know- theyre still fun to drive but hard to find in good condition.

[Bitter]

17 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

You would because having gears in general wastes energy and because EVs lose torque at High RPM any gearing system would just drop your torque. The most efficient system would be having a motor for each wheel directly attached to the wheel with no gearing at all. 
 

Motors aren’t engines they’re really not that complicated. 

I thought you were talking about engines not motors, my bad. Direct drive is best but takes up space and makes cooling and power delivery more complex. Having a motor per axle is a good compromise, you would still need to have a drive shaft if you have 4 motors because that would be an enormous amount of mass to change direction on if you had the motor spinning attached to the wheel/suspension when the wheel moves up and down over the terrain, the dampers and springs needed would be crazy. Keeping unsprung and spinning mass low is best.

[GDRRiley]

On 12/5/2021 at 11:43 AM, Imbadatnames said:

But EVs have the most torque at low RPM, having gears would decrease the torque instead of having it straight out of the motor 

there are uses for gears. It results in you needing to spin the motor slower at high speeds. there really wouldn't be much point to making a low gear but I won't be surprised when we see more EVs with 2-3 speed autos.
 

and almost every electric motor in use has a fixed gear ratio taking the output drive and changing it to be more useful. 10k rpm on a tire does little good

[Heliian]

My sister in law has a 2016 mazda3 manual trans. (Canada). 

 

Electric motors make full torque at all speeds.  

 

An actual gear to change might get the car cruising slightly more economically but the trade offs/cost isn't worth it, hence no gears being designed into electric road vehicles. 

[SiRcivic27]

Been driving a manual since I got my license 20 years ago. Was great as in HS and college no one could borrow my car!  I still drive stick, '18 VW Golf R. I also taught my wife to drive stick after we got engaged.

[Bramimond]

8 hours ago, rrats said:

As a European, I have never seen an Automatic

Me neither. I also wouldn't want to. That would just take all the fun out of driving.

At that point, cars should just be fully autonomous and drive by themselves, so I can do something else.

[Jaesop]

My very first car was a standard, though most I looked at were not. Since then, it's been all automatics and I'd really have to go out of my way to find a manual. They're fun, though.

[Montana One-Six]

9 hours ago, rrats said:

As a European, I have never seen an Automatic

33 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

Me neither.

How?

 

There are tons of them, at least in Germany.

 

33 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

I also wouldn't want to. That would just take all the fun out of driving.

At that point, cars should just be fully autonomous and drive by themselves, so I can do something else.

As someone who drives both (with overall more experience in manual cars) I don't agree one bit. Sure you have to do less in an automatic but driving in city traffic or during a traffic jam automatic cars are just a lot more chill. I thought the same when I just started driving and never had the experience with automatic cars but now after driving both for quiet some time I honestly rather take the automatic than the manual car.

[Donut417]

On 12/4/2021 at 6:09 AM, Actual_Criminal said:

Still, is my instructor right and is there really any point in doing manual lessons these days? 

While I understand kinda how to drive a stick shift. In reality I couldn't make it very far. The only time you really need to know is if you have a CDL because not all Semi Trucks are going to be automatic. 

 

On 12/4/2021 at 12:05 PM, whm1974 said:

I doubt that Electric will be able to power Tractor Trailers for some time yet.

Ive heard electric semi's are a non issue. They work just fine as any electric vehicle. Actually due to their size, they can hold quite a bit more battery power. Electric motors have a lot of torque I have read and thats something semi's need.