Why dont the British drive automatic cars?
Three main reasons and several lesser reasons. Automatics cost significantly more than manual gearboxes for the same car. Sometimes it can add 12% or more to the price of a car. Automatics use more fuel than a properly driven manual (that is, not a tyre burning brake and throttle driver). This is simple physics, the gearbox and torque convertor uses energy to detect the road speed, engine speed and load and to actuate the gear changes. Modern ones are more efficient than those of even 10 years ago but they still use up to 10% more fuel. The price of petrol and diesel in the UK is about 5 times of that in the USA so this is a big consideration. We have a law that means if you pass your driving test on an automatic then you are not allowed to drive a vehicle with a manual gearbox. Therefore 99.999% of people learn to drive and take their test on manuals so that is what they’re used to driving and are quite happy with them. A slightly lesser reason is that automatics have lower accelerati
