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I wonder if that's part of it. We're just accustomed to a certain number of gears. I've been driving since 2007. It's basically been 5 speed or 6 speed. My dad's car is a clutch (05 TL) and it has 6. I can't imagine getting too many more gears than that with a clutch. Seems like too many to run through just to get to 60.
I'd be willing to bet about 75% of automatic passenger vehicles on the roads today are 5-Speed or less.
I'm not a big fan of the cvt transmission but I'd rather have that than a 9 speed auto that's CONSTANTLY shifting.
Friend of mine has a 2014 Infiniti q50. Great car but very sensitive and finicky tranny. Its a 7-speed auto, but under normal driving conditions the tranny shifts under the slightest touch of the gas pedal. Its constant up and down shifting. Wasnt fond of it.
There is so much demand for the 8 and 9 speed automatic transmissions ZF cannot keep up with the demand. They are continually expanding their Graycourt North Carolina facility and expect to be producing 1 million transmissions a year before long. Clearly there is something more to these transmissions than just a gimmick or novelty.
I'm not a big fan of the cvt transmission but I'd rather have that than a 9 speed auto that's CONSTANTLY shifting.
Friend of mine has a 2014 Infiniti q50. Great car but very sensitive and finicky tranny. Its a 7-speed auto, but under normal driving conditions the tranny shifts under the slightest touch of the gas pedal. Its constant up and down shifting. Wasnt fond of it.
The issue here isn't so much the number of gears but how the transmission is programmed. I enjoy reading car reviews and after reading multiple reviews on the same vehicle you start to get an idea that some 7+ speed transmissions are programmed better than others, specifically with regard to hunting for gears, etc. I think within a few years these kinds of problems will get ironed out for most vehicles.
Except 13 and 18 speed transmissions in semis are not in the majority. Most fleets run ten speeds, and some run 9C transmissions (which can be converted to 13 speeds to increase the vehicle's resale value when they're sold). Entry-level carriers especially aren't keen on running the 13s, 15s, and 18s, which use an additional auxiliary box to compound the transmission, as a driver who doesn't know what they're doing with it can very easily tear it up.
Fortunately, 18's are not too easy to tear up. I had occasion to drive a brand new 600hp full setup log truck to a show. I was most interested in what the dash computer displayed as mileage and it took me about 60 miles to realize i missed top gears. Hauling heavy is where these gears become necessary. With that much hp mt it could drive like a 4sp. Many years ago I was driving a tanker up a steep grade w very little power an a limited dual range tranny. I dropped the driveshaft when almost rolling backwards downshifting to low range.
6 gears in car seems like enough but I look forward to what engineering progress the future brings.
Put a highway driver in a brush driving job, and you'd be surprised at the ease they manage to accomplish this. Two entirely different - and non-compatible - styles of driving there.
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