Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions
Just got back from another trip to Europe where I encountered the slightly odd European preference for manuals. I can kind of see why, the car culture is quite different from the States -- where most cars are two or three generations beyond the kind of automatics most Europeans associate with the transmission type. The inverse is that most European diesels are two or three generations beyond what most Americans associate with the type.<p>The cars in Europe seem to be sharply divided between small, efficient feeling manual hatchbacks and powerful autobahn chewing rear wheel drive German luxury&#x2F;sport sedans that will pass you on the inside lane like you&#x27;re standing still when you&#x27;re already going 140kph.<p>I think because Europeans simply don&#x27;t see most advanced American, Japanese and Korean cars they simply have no idea what we&#x27;re getting on about and they have virtually no experience with the state of the art in modern transmissions. Having just spent a few weeks driving around in a manual again, it felt pretty absurd and old timey to be honest.<p>For example, the absurdly tiny golfcart&#x2F;hatchback I was touring around in claimed around 17km&#x2F;l fuel efficiency, I don&#x27;t think I ever quite hit that, I was more in the 15-16 km&#x2F;l range. It was so small, I couldn&#x27;t fit both my luggage and my friends in it, and it struggled to maintain speed on hills with the aircon on.<p>Coming back home, my very modern, full sized Japanese sedan hits around 19km&#x2F;l on most daily drives. Plus I can actually put both people and luggage in it at the same time, and it hits highway speeds with absolutely no drama. Most new full-sized cars in the U.S. are getting somewhere around that fuel efficiency, and the cars are closer in size to the autobahn chewers than the econohatches.<p>I couldn&#x27;t really find any particular advantage to driving a manual, and I drove it for about 3,000km just on this trip. But there were tons of disadvantages. When I asked my friends why the preference, all I got back where vague statements about &quot;being more in touch with the car&quot; and a bunch of outdated old-wives tales about fuel efficiency.