Say goodbye to manual.. say goodbye also to crash/hill/jumpstarts without batteries or having to charge up batteries.
Also say goodbye to an extra skill required to understand more about cars, for now we'll have more idiots on the road as a result.
People who think they can drive a car when all they have driven are cars with automatic gearboxes have lots of say about their own attitudes with cars.
The problem with a lot of idiots driving cars with automatic gearboxes is that their brains are on automatic too.
riiiiiiiiight. because no idiot drives a car with manual transmission. no person thinks he's a race car driver because he can shift gears. nope, none.
also, knowing how to drive manual doesn't automatically make some some type of car guru.
man, you guys are quite dramatic.
Just as you are dramatic with thinking race car drivers would drive only with manual gearbox. You basically extrapolated what I said and magnified my response to be some anti-automatic driver basher.
Driving manual is more than just shifting gears, driving manual is more than making one think they are automagically some sort of car guru (when they aren't necessarily the case). What driving manual about is knowing how well one can perform driving a car based on various circumstances rather than solely depending on technologies to do what they do best in. For instance, it would be appallingly ludicrous to see an 18 wheeler with automatic gearbox hauling some heavy item (and the said item is slightly more than what the vehicle itself is capable of hauling). I would love to see one going up on a hill, the truck in this case would struggle to climb because the automatic gearbox would probably not kick to a lower gear early enough.
The same could be said likewise for steep hills on a car that does necessarily seem to have enough torque to climb it combined with a gearbox that is geared with fairly low ratios.
There are also countries whom have specific driving laws. For instance passing a test with a car that was equipped with automatic gearbox restricts one to drive cars with only automatic gearbox, whereas those passing a test with a car that was equipped with a manual gearbox are allowed to drive either a car with a manual gearbox or automatic gearbox.
Driving a car with a manual gearbox may require more brain stimulus than automatic gearbox. You imagine half the time people answering their mobile phones whilst driving a car for instance maybe are caused by the fact that they may not have been focusing much on the roads but instead on their mobile phones. Try answering a mobile phone with a car that has manual gearbox for the first time, then tell me how much involvement does it require for one to be able to multitask both. Also no, I don't condone driving whilst answering mobile phones but it goes to show that it is possible such technologies may have paved way for people to be less focused with the task on hand.
Last but not least, there are some rewards given to those who drive cars with manual gearbox. Once one learns to shift properly with clutch at virtually all the time, they can basically try and attempt clutchless shifts. It'll prevent excessive wear and tear on clutches along with engine and other running gears. Automatic gearboxes doesn't necessarily give you that same benefit with a torque converter in place of clutch and you have to more or less keep automatic gearboxes in good condition or otherwise you can pray and hope the hydraulics will do their bid despite being treated poorly. There are lesser parts in manual transmissions than automatic, therefore less complications.
I also want to add that not all race car drivers would necessarily be driving only manual gearboxes, there are professional drag racers that would swear by automatic transmissions.
