> but in regular drive, the lack of hard shift is really pleasant.
I sometimes drive an US-designed car with, I assume, an US-designed automatic transmission (traditional planetary sets + torque converter) and I was actually surprised it doesn't shift very smoothly, worse than a good driver on a manual and much worse than dual-clutch transmissions. With the latter it's pretty much impossible to tell when it is shifting if you cannot hear the motor rev.
(When you switch that car to 4L... oh dear, every shift feels like a learner driver learning to shift with the entire car jerking around. Everyone nods in approval!)
> I sometimes drive an US-designed car with, I assume, an US-designed automatic transmission
regular Automatic transmissions (not CVT) have been commoditized and are usually subcontracted out to dedicated vendors that make transmissions and sell them to auto manufacturers all around the world, so the nationality of the car vendor isn't going to tell much about transmission quality.
For example, the largest market share of car automatic transmissions belongs to (Japan based) Aisin, which sells transmissions to Ford, Toyota, BMW, Skoda, Chevrolet, Suzuki, Volvo, Hyundai, and many others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Aisin_transmissions
A lot of the bus and truck transmissions are made by (US-based) Allison and they are sold all over the world and have the largest share in duty engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Transmission
There is large variability in perceived transmission quality, depending on everything from how the software controls it to form factor (real wheel or front wheel) to issues of reliability and build quality, but there are excellent US transmission vendors as well.
It still has a manual mode, even paddle shifters, but in regular drive, the lack of hard shift is really pleasant.