On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 12:06:48 PM UTC+2, sms wrote:
On 6/25/2019 9:34 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 20:54:43 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 6/25/2019 8:44 PM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

A lot of kids are capable driving a clutch but see it as a throw-back.. They would rather drive an automatic and not sweat shifting. I don't blame them. Inner-city driving with a clutch -- and a cup of coffee, iPhone and hair comb is hard.

True. How can you shave, brush your hair, put on make-up, eat oatmeal,
text, and drink coffee if you have to keep using one hand to shift.

Still, if they ever want to rent a vehicle in Europe or Asia they should
know how to drive a stick, or be prepared to pay a big premium for an
automatic.

In Thailand I doubt that there is a auto dealer even offering hand
shift automobile any more. In fact I can't remember seeing a hand
shift in a privately owned auto in the last 20 years, or so.

In fact you can even buy a pickup truck with an automatic
transmission.

I was just in Europe and automatics were rare. A few Priuses, and a
handful of other cars but other than that all manuals.


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.

Lou