Death knell for a century-old driving skill: The rapidly dying art electric cars will kill off entirely
A driving skill the majority of motorists perfected when taking their driving test is rapidly becoming a dying art - and one that will disappear entirely when electric cars become mainstream.
The act of changing gear is 'on its way out', with vehicle manufacturers already culling manual gearboxes, according to a market review.
It found that just 96 models in showrooms today are available with a manual transmission. In contrast, there are 404 new cars to buy that come exclusively with automatic gearboxes.
Our main car is a diesel automatic which we find easy to drive especially in heavy traffic where we don't miss having to change gear manually.
Yet when I drive the MX5, I enjoy changing gear, there is something satisfying about having to do more than steer and brake while tootling along the country roads of Derbyshire. I wouldn't go back to this though -
Lucas spoke of his own car, which lay beyond in the middle
of the side-street like a ship at anchor. He spoke in such a strain that Miss
Wheeler deigned to ask him to drive her home in it. The two young men went to
light the head-lights. George noticed the angry scowl on Everard’s face when
three matches had been blown out in the capricious breeze.
Arnold Bennett – The Roll-Call (1918)
20 comments:
I'm still driving manuals but when I got old I did find out I needed the hill start assist thingy. Of course, would not be an issue in Norfolk or Holland.
Way back in the early 1980s, I had to buy a car when I was desperate and impoverished. I went with a friend to look at an old Vauxhall Viva pick-up being offered cheap by a Westcountry farmer. It had apparently done sterling service on his farm and was painted in grey masonry paint. I'd never seen anything like it, and in fact only ever saw a couple of similar models on the road. But it gave me a couple of years use.
When buying it, the farmer spotted my friend and I exchanging a sceptical glance, bordering on the humorous. "She runs well", he offered. "Don't jump out of gear or nuffin'!..."
Come to think of it "double declutching" might be a useful skill for Two Tier.
A good few years ago when my job took me to Aus, I took the local engineers I was working with to lunch in my hired stick shift car. After the meal it was back to work. All three of them were audibly amazed when I stopped on a steep uphill entry to the main road and then smoothly pulled away and joined the main road. I explained that it was a driving test requirement ( I did not say in 1964) to complete a hill start without slipping back even an inch.
Now I have to trust that the car will do it for me.
I astonished an Aussie pal by doing a parallel parking manoeuvre. "You're just showing off" he said. I must say they are, on the whole, lousy drivers. It would be deplorably sexist and racist to elaborate on that latter remark. Sorry, genderist and ethnicist.
Double Declutching is something I taught myself early in my driving career, because Mum's MK1 Mini didn't have synchromesh on first gear. There's a noticeable slope on one of the roads leading up to a roundabout in my town, and without this skill you had to come to a complete stop then engage 1st to pull away. Subject to approaching traffic, and by double declutching down into 2nd, I could usually keep moving. I also perfected "Cadence Braking" long before ABS became standard - it's probably why I'm still alive to write this...
Always assuming electric cars stay with us of course.
Anon - we have the hill start assist thingy on the automatic, but I still stick with the old approach.
Sam - I bet you could see the road through a hole in the floor too. My cousin had a car like that which he eventually sold for 50p after a wheel fell off when going round a corner. Having been a passenger in it, I though 50p was expensive, although it didn't jump out of gear or nuffin.
dearieme - I don't know what he'd think double declutching means, a cool way to hold your Double Diamond perhaps.
Doonhamer - I don't trust the car to do it for me, even though it's supposed to. I do it myself.
dearieme - I've never been particularly good at the parallel parking manoeuvre. I do it, but not with confidence.
Dave - I've never had to learn double declutching, which makes me feel left out of old car tales. I've never tried cadence braking either, although I've known about it for decades ever since my cousin used it on the way back from the pub.
Tammly - yes, although I suppose they will be around in one form or another.
That's going to have interesting consequences for driving instructors choice of vehicles.
File under utterly predictable complete surprise to the public sector managerial class
Double declutching? Yes, did that a few times, eons ago. Cadence braking? What's that? Maybe it's something I did without knowing the name of it.
I have been driving since 1958 and in my time have driven every class of vehicle except tracked ones (an omission I regret) . The vast majority have been manual gearboxes and as a personal choice I dislike automatics. My first car when I moved to New Zealand was an automatic and I found it disliked the hills around here, either labouring up in a too high a gear or revving like mad when made to drop a ratio. My current and probably final car has a manual 6 speed gearbox which I love. My son has an electric car which is very impressive up hills ,but you can see the range dropping rapidly when the motor is having to work hard. When stopped in traffic the whole thing feels dead as there is nothing moving under the bonnet. Horrible.
Another thing that seems to have gone missing on modern cars is engine braking, I suppose they are now so efficient and fuel saving that they practically free-wheel going down hill.
Nessimmersion - the same thought occurred to me when thinking about our grandson having driving lessons.
James - I don't think you would do cadence braking without thinking about it. I'm sure I never have.
John - years ago I drove my father-in-law's automatic and thought it pretty feeble, but they must have improved since then because ours is good to drive and automatic gear selection is no problem. If your son's electric car feels dead when stopped in traffic, the idea that it might really be dead would cross my mind.
djc - our MX5 doesn't have much engine braking, I have to use the brakes on the long hill down into Matlock, although that may be a driving habit too.
Had to learn double-declutching pretty early as the car I learned on had worn-out syncromesh on every gear below 4th. That car - an Austin Cambridge bought new for about £500 (pre-decimal) went on for ages and ages and God knows how many miles. No electronics or fancy systems to go wrong, of course.
Related: is it just me, or are automatics always in the wrong gear for what you're trying to do? Is it because they can't anticipate? Or am I just an old fogey...
@ James - Cadence braking is where you release, then reapply pressure on the brake pedal, to stop the wheels from locking up. ABS does this on each wheel separately, which is obviously better than only being able to control all 4 wheels at the same time, but (trust me!) this is preferable to slamming into the car in front.
@ djc I suspect that most hybrids do shut the engine down in those circumstances, and use the motor as a generator to recover some energy. Pure petrol & diesels will do a similar job by controlling the alternator. The other thing to consider is that many cars are now turbocharged, and (diesels in particular) will usually have a somewhat lower compression ratio.
@ Peter MacFarlane "Is it because they can't anticipate? Or am I just an old fogey..."
Yes to the 1st, and No to the 2nd, because the likes of you and me are just "Older & Wiser". My father had both a Morris Oxford and the later (Farina styled) Austin Cambridge. I can still remember the registrations...
Peter and Dave - our automatic is pretty good at being in the right gear, or at least good enough for my driving. It can be slower at changing gear than I would be, but that's about all.
Once had to drive an automatic for work. Not only was it boring on long journeys, but one thing I learned was that, when wanting to overtake, you sometimes have to partially brake. This puts the engine into a lower gear, which then allows you to accelerate. Weird. Went back to manual cars as soon as I could.
Penseivat
Penseivat - I've found I get used to overtaking in the automatic, although I don't do much overtaking in day to day driving.
I can still remember the registrations of every car my father ever owned, as well as all of mine. Maybe I am on some sort of spectrum!
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