Ugh why are so few cars manual now

@ArishMell Getting fewer manuals in the UK now too - I think all hybrids and fully electrics are automatic spec only in the UK.

@gandalf1957 They are, but I think even with i.c.-engine cars automatic transmissions are becoming more popular.

Automatics used to be less efficient than their manul equivalents, but perhaps they have improved to the point of little difference.

Also, a lot of British motorists say they prefer the manual transmission for giving them a bit more control, and for needing a bit more skill to drive.

Bring back pre-synchromesh gearboxes and double-declutching! :-) (No I have never driven one like that.)

@ArishMellIn the 1960s and 70s automatics tended to be 3 speed forward and reverse so used far more fuel and arguably wore engines out sooner. Now autos are 6, 7, 8 speed forward gears, possibly more on a cross country vehicle such as a Land Rover.

Double declutching, yes I have my father had a car in the 1970s that only had synchro mesh on 3rrd and 4th not 1st and 2nd. That proved really useful experience when the clutch cable broke on a Renault and I was able to drive it 40 miles with no clutch and through stop start traffic to my dealer's garage.

@gandalf1957 Is the modern saloon-car labelled "Land Rover" or "Range Rover" capable of anything more difficult than car-park field for the village fete? They don't look it!

I once owned a Landrover Series Two. That had synchromesh on all gears, but I did have to complete one journey home with no clutch disengaging.

Luckily I had only a short distance to go, and that was gently downhill. I wangled it into low gear, crawled carefully home. Replaced the broken clutch-cable with an unused, left-over spare for a Commer van I had previously owned. Nowadays you'd probably need a part specific to the very VIN-number, a Degree in electro-hydraulics and a garage that would put Formula One facilities to shame.

@ArishMell I guess that depends what you mean by modern - i still have a 1999 Disco 2 TD5 that i have had since 2007 and it does what I need!

Yes and you probably need a lap top computer with Land Rover software plugged in to service a current model Land Rover / Range Rover whereas your series 2 a mechanic in thee Bush in Africa would have easily repaired. :-)

Have we really moved forward on all fronts as a civilisation?

@gandalf1957 "Modern" - yes I should have been clearer!

I mean the things they make now which appear to be rivals for the big German saloons-cars: over-large, over-thirsty family shopping-trip wagons bearing the names but useless for the original functional purposes and not serviceable except by specialists.

@gandalf1957 Yes, 4 or 5 speed manual transmissions were often more efficient than 3 speed automatics. But now that 6 & 8 speed automatics are common, they are more efficient than manual transmissions. There's also less for a driver to screw up with an automatic.

And, Toyota hybrids reach even higher levels of efficiency with their electromechanical continuously variable transmission. I think Ford is licensing the Toyota system for their Maverick and maybe other vehicles; I'm not sure who else is.

@ElwoodBlues Not the first to use a smoothly-variable transmission of course: that may have been the DAF "Variomatic" of the 1960s.

{For those not familiar with it, the heart of the "Variomatic" draive was a belt joining two pulleys of variable diameter so the transmission ratio would be varied by changing the pulleys' effective diameters. The same principle has also been used on machine-tools.}

@ArishMell Subaru currently uses a variable pulley technique in their continuously variable transmission.

But Toyota is very different. They use a system originally invented by TRW; planetary gears and two motor generators.


I've watched half this video; it's reasonably concise.
[media=https://youtu.be/jofycaXByTc]

@ElwoodBlues Interesting!

Thank you for that.

There is nothing new in any of the individual units, including the epicyclic gear-box, and of course, Diesel-electric railway locomotives go back to the 1950s; but what is new and very ingenious is how they are all combined in the TRW /Toyota system in a form suitable for hybrid cars.

.
My first car had a unit called the Siba 'Dynastart' tacked onto its modified 2-stroke motorcycle engine. It was a motor-generator that acted as conventional starter motor giving forwards or revers "gear" then with the engine running, as a dynamo for the battery-charging and lamps. A far cry from Toyota's development!

@ArishMell My first car was a Standard Ten with no synchomesh on first gear. It was actually quite fun learning to double-declutch into first 😀. Another thing about that car - very low first gear, took you up to 15mph!