The screen doesn't have to be obnoxious like this, though. A Chevy van has a small screen embedded in the rear view mirror, which is impossible to see when not in reverse.
Oh really? My current car is over 20 years old so I'm way out of the loop. I guess I'll hope for options with smaller screens that control fewer of the functions.
My next daily will likely be something with approximately the same level of technology.
There are about ten buttons on the dashboard, of which the only ones I care about is the rotary knob that turns on the headlights and the button that switches the heater from "normal" to "EVERYTHING UP FULL ALL ON RIGHT NOW FULL BORE MAXIMUM EVERYTHING WE ARE GOING TO AIR FRY A POLAR BEAR ON THE BACK SEAT".
There's an LCD screen. It's the size of my thumb, and tells me how many miles it's done (only 190,000 - it's my low mileage one, my other has done 270 and there's a guy on my forum who's rapidly closing in on 600,000 miles in his), what gear it thinks it's probably in, and occasionally it uses this LCD to lie about the gearbox overheating because water got into the plug for the sensor when I drove through a river and it came over the bonnet.
It's not very fast or very efficient, but it does everything I need a car to do, and I have a full factory service manual for it and easy access to spares.
You could still buy some rad cars into the '10s but you generally had to go looking.
The fiesta st is a decent example. An economy car, so very simple, but with a sports package. The only "smart" features, like traction control, can be turned off.
100% manuals are the way to go if you want to feel like a driver, not a passenger. I love my manual Jetta
Thing is, people are lazy. US market is automatics only. Can't make people understand what the clutch is or why slushbox is bad for fuel efficiency. No one cares. Gas guzzlers are the national idea
My kid learned to drive a manual in 15 minutes. Too much effort for US drivers!
Automatics have been more efficient than manuals for decades. And the computer can shift a DCT faster than you can. These days a manual tranny is right up there with hand-crank starting your car: if you enjoy it, great, but don’t get smug because people don’t want to manually adjust the spark advance.
>Automatics have been more efficient than manuals for decades.
No, they haven't. At least, not ones the average consumer could actually buy.
While it's true that modern 8 or 10 speed automatic transmissions do now compete favorably with 6 speed manuals, the former didn't meaningfully exist in passenger cars or trucks until around 2017. Neither did DCTs outside of high-end brands- sure, they're starting to do that now that "torque converter loss" means they don't pass emissions, but that was an option that commanded a premium back in the mid-00s when they were introduced (and still not actually more efficient than a manual outside of shift speed).
An automatic with 4 gears is less efficient than a manual with 5, much less 6 (this was the standard until about 2010 or so); one with 6 gears is likely on par with the 5-speed manual (and loses to a 6-speed, obviously).
So no, "decades" is bullshit. It's a very recent advancement.
Only because they cheap out and don't put in manual with optimal gear ratios. Otherwise the manual is better because you can use high throttle with low rpms - try that in an auto and you get high rpms which is bad for efficiency - but great for acceleration.
When you have a small fuel efficient engine, you can tell and feel the difference. With a V6 under your hood, you probably don't care. US is mostly big engines
You will still care that you're wasting a bunch of your engine's potential, even with a V8.
Autos (not DCTs) don't generally let you rev the engine as high as manuals do, they don't really let you take advantage of engine braking, and they may ignore your command to manually shift them into a lower gear at will (DCTs can do that too).
> You will still care that you're wasting a bunch of your engine's potential, even with a V8.
You're not really, especially on a long run. If you're doing motorway speeds there is no difference in economy and performance. An auto will be a bit worse in slow driving, when it's using the torque converter which is quite lossy.
> Autos (not DCTs) don't generally let you rev the engine as high as manuals do, they don't really let you take advantage of engine braking, and they may ignore your command to manually shift them into a lower gear at will (DCTs can do that too).
They will let you rev the engine as high as you like and will engine-brake just fine if you select a lower gear. They might not shift into a lower gear if you've got a gearbox that's smart enough to stop you money-shifting the engine.
Not really, although I guess the least powerful automatic I've ever driven was a 1.7 litre naturally-aspirated diesel Citroën Xantia. It was very economical on long runs but acceleration was really something for very patient people.
Most Xantias had a 1.9 petrol making roughly 50% more power, although with appreciably less torque.
