On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 06:13:32 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 6/26/2019 2:26 PM, wrote:

snip

Huh? We are catching up. For audi's, bmw and mercedes automatic transmission is the norm now. I made the switch 5 years ago after 35 years driving cars with a manual transmission. Driving a manual transmission now seems something from the stone age compared to my current 7 speed automatic transmission with extra flappy paddles for manual shifting (rarely use them) and you can change the settings while driving. I see no reason today for manual shifting except for sentimental reasons and that it is cheaper (2000 -3000 euro's). Modern automatic transmission outperform manual shifting in every way, at least the one I'm driving now.

I was just over in Germany two weeks ago (Berlin) and I made a point of
looking for AT cars, peering in the windows. There were a few luxury
cars with automatics, but the vast majority of vehicles (VW, Skoda,
Toyota, Opel, Ford, etc.) were manual.

I guess Honda has little presence in Germany and Austria, I saw only one
Honda, in a small town in Austria.

Interesting. In Thailand the largest selling personal motor vehicle is
the Toyota Hilux and the Isuzu D-max. Both are 4-door pickup trucks.
These two out sell every other type of 4 wheel personal vehicles and
run neck and neck in monthly/yearly sales.

The most popular sedan type vehicle seems to be the Toyota Vios which
has sales of about 1/2 the numbers of Toyotas Hilux pickup, and the
Honda City with sales slightly lower than the Vios.

Due to the tax structure in Thailand a pickup truck has historically
been cheaper than a sedan. And even today Isuzu D-max is TB 518,000
(US$16,807), on the road price, and the Honda City is TB 550,000. (US$
$17,845). Note the "on the road" price includes the purchase cost and
all charges including the registration fee, taxes, both sales and
registration, and usually insurance for the first year.
--
cheers,

John B.