Why are Automatic Cars Better than Manual?

If you ask any confessed ‘piston-head’ car enthusiast what their opinions are on the ‘manual vs. automatic’, you will likely hear some strong words in favour of the former. Manual-drive vehicles were the norm for decades, and allow intuitive fine control over your driving and fuel economy. But, as automotive technology continues to develop and shift, the manual gearbox could soon be left for dust.

For the average driver, the general love for manual gearboxes might not make much sense. There are many reasons why automatic might be preferable, particularly for newer drivers, which we will examine shortly. But with a sea change away from fossil fuels, there is another golden reason to adopt automatic now…

The Race to Electric

The major reason why new drivers might want to focus their efforts on learning automatic is the direction of the automotive industry at large. As the deleterious impacts of fossil fuels on the environment are rendered ever-clearer, by dangerous weather events and the loss of crucial natural ecosystems, public pressure on businesses to ‘go green’ is higher than ever.

Simultaneously, key strides have been made in the electric vehicle (EV) industry, where commercially available EVs are now direct competitors to their gas-guzzling counterparts. With the sale of new fossil-fuelled cars set to be banned by 2030, EVs are due to be the new norm – and, crucially, do not use manual transmissions. As such, automatic vehicles will, eventually, outweigh manual vehicles on the road.

Economy and Affordability

EVs aside, automatic vehicles can also be extremely economical in comparison to their manual counterparts. Driving a manual is something of an art, and failure to master that art can make for costly driving. The less efficient a manual driver you are, the more fuel you burn unnecessarily. With automatics, the on-board computer deals with those decisions, and improves your fuel economy accordingly.

Automatic vehicles can also be, on balance, cheaper than manual vehicles. Small automatic hatchbacks are ten a penny and extremely easy to find in local showrooms; a week of trialling different hatchbacks under a short-term car insurance plan would allow you to find exactly the right one for your needs and driving preferences.

Accessibility

Speaking of driving preferences, there is an extremely important additional factor to bear in mind when discussing automatic vehicles in general: accessibility. It is very easy for car enthusiasts to remain enthusiastic about manual transmissions, but this argument can be reductive – especially when it effectively erases a large portion of the driving population.

Disabilities are common and often invisible and can have profound impacts in terms of agency and independence. Someone with a musculoskeletal disorder, someone with a limb difference, someone who is experiencing issues with motor control, or someone experiencing any number of life-limiting invisible conditions, might not be able to control a manual car at all, let alone with ease. Here, the automatic vehicle allows ease of control to the user and can be a godsend as a result.