Kinda like I used to feel about Digital electronics vs manual tuners,I used to think I could tune a station better with a gang capacitor(no way)for the Walter Mitty gear rower,there are still multispeed roadranger equipped tractor and trailers(getting rarer) take a weak engine and and an incline and you can shift to your hearts content,but honestly most new rigs are powerful enough to do away with most shifting(especially the 3406 Cats and big cummins Diesels(I hear Paccar has a torque monster also)
Just wait ,when electrics get more prevelant,transmissions may go the way of the DoDo.
The OP might want to see if he fits into this category:
If rechargeable cars become more popular, perhaps we will have mulri-speed electric motors. There will be cars where the winding for the motor speed will be selected automatically, but perhaps there will be a car where the driver can select the motor winding-the equivalent of amanual transmission on today"s cars.
With modern controls electric motors can already work well over a wider range of speed than any IC engine.
Full torque from 100-10,000 rpm is not a great challenge.
Automatic transmissions in today’s trucks are essentially computer shifted manual transmissions, not torque converter based automatics. In the trucking industry, fuel economy and reliability are important, manuals, be it diy or automated, rules the road. In light of this, why are we discussing the merits of torque converter automatics used in most cars?
Electric motors don’t need multiple speeds. See circuitsmith’s post. Add a zero. Heck, I think my hand router operates at 25,000 rpm no load speed.
@missileman I remember those Chrysler “chewing gum” transmissions well. My parents had a 1952 Dodge ana1947 DeSoto that had those transmissions. There was a clutch pedal. There was a fluid coupling between the engine and the clutch fought(a fluid coupling does not multiply torque as a torque converter does.)_The shifter on the column had the traditional “H” pattern except that there was no bottom left position. The top left position was reverse. The top right was low range. The middle position was neutral. The bottom right position was high range. The clutch pedal was depressed to move the shift lever. For normal driving, high range was selected. The car was accelerated to 15 to 20_mph and then the driver let up on the accelerator. The transmission then shifted into top gear. If extra getaway power was needed one put the shifted in low range. The car was accelerated to 5-10 mph and the accelerator released. The car then shifted into an intermediate gear. My dad bought these cars used at good prices, but never really liked this transmission. His,next car was a manual shift Buick.
Chrysler offered this transmission on the Chrysler and DeSoto before WW II. Dodge began offering the transmission in 1949.
It’s hard to compare mpg’s, car to car, unless they both have identical 0-60 times. I’m not aware of any case where the same make/model/year has an identical 0-60 time, automatic vs manual, and the manual doesn’t have better mpg.
It’s no mystery how to improve mpg. Design a slower car.
Recent ATs have very similar performance to MTs, unlike in years past.
I remember advertisements back in the late 1950s for the B&W Hydrostick. As I remember, it was a beefed up GM Hydramatic transmission for use in drag racing. Apparently, it produced good results.
I imagine if I,drove a cab in city traffic, I would prefer an automatic. However, for pleasure driving I like the manual.
@VDCDriver: Adhering to the “KISS Principle” and considering that “the simplest design, that accomplishes the objective, is likely the best” is NOT “being a Luddite.” I’m sure there is a term for people who marginalize dissenting opinions through stigmatization, though, and I’m pretty sure it’s not complimentary.
The (obvious) advantage to the MT has nothing to do with a piddling +/- 1 MPG or so…it’s reduction of a “single-point failure.” In an AT, a failure anywhere in the starter system renders the car a brick. With a MT (and assuming you don’t live somewhere flat like FL or western TX) you have a redundant starter system–one less SPF! (BTW, in the engineering world, SPFs are BAD things.) Happened to me: my GF at the time flew in to Farmington NM to see me, and we took my MT coupe out to see Mesa Verde NP–which happens to be in the middle of nowhere. Naturally, my starter dies at 6PM on a Saturday. I merely pointed the car downhill and we were on our way! (With an AT–hmm–spotty cell service, nearest town Cortez CO…where they roll up the sidewalks promptly at 5PM, gee, I guess we better hope there’s a vacancy through Monday!)
Ever since then, I will NOT purchase a new car with an AT–automatic deal-breaker! (pun intended). When you buy a jalopy, you take what they got, but if I’m spending more than $5k or so, no slushbox for me!
Also, (since you brought up disliking things electronic, and because more and more ATs are electronically controlled)…a MT (or really anything mechanical) is going to have the edge in robustness, simply because digital stuff generally works fine–or not at all, whereas analog systems will still function, albeit poorly, with a lot of problems. (Compare and contrast DVD/VCR, or digital broadcast/analog: the former fails by not doing anything, whereas the latter will produce enough of a picture that you can more or less make out what’s happening.) As how this applies to a MT–if you lose your clutch hydraulics, you can still drive it well enough to get to a safe place to fix it–similarly-severe damage to an AT results in a brick. You can also lose a gear entirely in a MT, and elect to skip it in the sequence…most ATs won’t let you do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_point_of_failure
We used to roll start our old powerglide equipped 59 Chevy all the time.
In '59, automatic transmissions still had rear (output shaft driven) oil pumps along with front oil pumps driven by the engine. That feature was deemed unnecessary during the '60s and it made automatics un roll startable. Without oil pressure, your transmission is in neutral regardless of gear shift position.
While the ATs in high end cars match or beat the MT fuel economy, when you go to economy cars such as the Toyota Yaris, the manual version still wins. To keep the price down, they still use four speed automatics with a high gear that’s a little on the short side compared to the manual version’s fifth gear.
While I prefer a manual trans and I understand the SPF concept very well, the removal of electronics from my transmission is unlikely keep me running in the grand scheme. Everything else depends more completely on electronics to run. No ECU = no spark, no fuel injector pulse, no fuel pump signal, no crank in some cars!
These days, a modern car won’t even crank without live electronics. That “start” button isn’t even directly connected to a starter solenoid! You can’t bump-start a modern fuel injected manual trans car with a seriously dead battery anymore because the electrics need about 9 volts to bring it all up.
If (or when) we get another giant solar Carrington event like 1859, we may all be looking to our simpler 65 Fairlanes or walking until it all gets repaired!
I’ll keep my stick shift thank you. I’m skeptical of the claim that modern autos are just as fuel efficient. Even with the lockup converter, (which isn’t a factor in city driving.) modern automatics still have more internal friction and drag than sticks, and thus take more power to operate. Besides, I enjoy thinking for myself.
Even with the lockup converter, (which isn't a factor in city driving.)
Honda automatics (pre-CVT) started locking up in 2nd gear.
Shoot. Never had problems with images before. 
There we go!! 
May not seem like much to some, but when you drive as much as I do, it really adds up over the span of a year. It’s not chump change.
I own a 2014 Mazda6 with an automatic.
There’s probably a slight mpg advantage to manuals on average, for those with a MT. The point is that the OP’s blanket statement of the huge superiority of the MT is no longer true. And MTs are ever declining in availability, so it’s pretty much moot for most cars.
^That’s 1MPG difference, using figures rounded to the nearest MPG…there is no statistically significant difference between numbers when the whole difference is attributable to rounding errors! Also, you need to distinguish between “uses less gas” and “tests well on the EPA Combined Cycle.” As (ahem) we now know, there’s a big difference between acing the test and realizing any difference in the real world. I think that a MT gives more control to the driver…and a sufficiently dedicated eco-minded driver can “beat the book” more readily with a MT than with an AT.