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Not with lockup torque converters that physically lock the inside and outside of the converter together for a locked up direct drive connection that is the same as an engaged clutch. Automatic cars have had those for many, many years now. Hell, the 2004R that I have in a '79 Chevy pickup has one.
Can you point to a dyno that shows an automatic putting down more power than the manual in the same car/engine? Pretty certain that does not exist.
I learned to drive manual on a 59 Chevy pickup with 3 on the tree. Also had a manual choke and floor starter. LOL It was a good experience and the Drivers Ed class had a manual Ford Galaxy. So, while it there was a learning curve, I finally got it. After that, I had a standard Vega ( POS) , Volvo, and 2 Accords with manual. I loved shifting them . I always felt that the smaller 4 cyl just worked better with a manual. I am driving a deVille now and sometimes wish for a manual. If I had room in the garage for another car, I would get a Mini or a Miata just for fun. I dread the day that "central planning" will be driving our cars. I love to drive!! :-)
I prefer a manual from a reliability standpoint. It's not uncommon for manuals to be functioning perfectly at 250,000 miles, although pretty much any manual with that mileage will have needed one or maybe even two clutch replacements. It's very uncommon for an auto to make it that far without an expensive rebuild, even if you are still changing ATF fluid with high quality synthetic every 25-30K miles. You generally only need to change manual trans gear oil every 50K miles. Clutch replacements can run $700 or so on average, but that's way cheaper than an average $2.5K auto trans rebuild.
I think you are wrong about this. I'll bet most automatics go that far without a rebuild.
It will be incremental of course, but the technology is already here and only 5-10 years away from being fully polished and implemented on a massive scale.
In the beginning it will be used like cruise control on the open highway... at first a luxury option and fairly soon expected as standard equipment (also like cruise control). After that (probably the second half of the 2020's) you'll see dedicated "auto drive only" lanes popping up in cities all over the country.
Many American cities are already facing buildout and suffer from really lousy traffic, but are also anticipated to double in population over the next 30-40 years. There will be no room for more roads and public transportation just cannot match the convenience of small vehicles ... the solution will be auto drive cars under central computer control, doubling the capacity of every road. By the mid to late 2030's people will be asking for it and eventually it will be made law... conveniently after almost all cars have been selling with the capability already built in for 15+ years. You may have noticed that most cars drive/perform very similar despite coming from different companies... yet another requirement for the "conspiracy" that has been weaseled into the auto world for the last 20 years.
You may not believe it now, but remember, people at the turn of the century could hardly imagine city streets without horses either. It only took 20 years to completely change over to automobiles with no horses in sight and after 50 years it seemed crazy to even think horses the primary way of getting around in the first place.
And like horses, classic (manual drive) cars will stop being useful for day-to-day activities and be relegated to hobby status. Remember, you heard it first here!
OK, that's great, but "EVERYONE on the road in a self-driving car under centralized control..." won't happen in ten years. Self-driving cars? I'm sure they'll be fairly common in ten years. But you'll still be free to drive a "normal" car for quite some time.
In my experience, manual transmissions get better mileage than automatics. I don't really care what the sticker mileage is; I beat the highway estimates by 10 to 20 percent all the time in manual cars, but automatic cars always seem to be just at or slightly below the highway figure. If you actually know how to drive a stick, you will be able to get better mileage than the automatic equivalent just from being able to read the road ahead of you.
As for power... it seems like they're deliberately programming newer automatic cars to be gutless. My old '93 Dodge Caravan had a three-speed automatic. Some newer five and six speed automatics are just as reluctant to downshift when needed as that three-speed Caravan was. At least the Caravan had the excuse of only having three gears. It almost feels like they're trying to lug the engines to save fuel.
Anyway I'll concede that fuel economy depends a lot on the driver. Probably some of the sportier automatics aren't as gutless as the ones I've experienced. But there are several areas that a manual definitely has an advantage.
You still cannot push-start an automatic. If your starter is dead in an automatic, better be ready to pay the tow truck. If it is dead in a manual car, you simply need to get someone to give you a push, turn the key to the run position, put it in first, pop the clutch, and give it a little gas when the engine tries to start.
A manual wins in the winter. Have you ever gotten stuck and had to rock the car to get it out? It is much easier to do this in a standard shift vehicle. You definitely have more control over that car, and if you start to skid, it is easy to hit the clutch and remove all power from the drive wheels while you regain control.
I'd take a manual for towing any day; there's no need for expensive add-ons to keep the transmission from blowing up.
My first four cars were all manual tranny. I do miss it. Of course they were all sporty cars and now I drive a 12 year old Hyundai Santa Fe and a new Corolla, so not exactly exciting. Autocrossing my manual WRX was some of the most fun I've had in my life, though.
I currently have an old Honda 2 dr with stick and it's time for a new car. I know when Kia introduced the Forte Koup in 09, the majority had stick. Now I can't find a 15 with stick. I looked for a Honda Civic EX coupe with stick. They don't exist. I took a test drive in one with their CVT rubber band transmission. If that's an example of the new automatic transmission, I'll look for a Scion TC with stick.
These companies keep the manual as standard, but not available to purchase so they can charge the extra $1000 for auto trans.
The Forte Koup and hatchback both can be had with the manual even in the top trim which is near unheard of these days especially at their price point. Just may need to expand your search radius if your local dealer won't order one.
You can really tell who's driven "modern" automatics in this thread and who hasn't.
The fact of the matter is, if you have more gears, than you'll get better acceleration AND better gas mileage. In the past (basically up until about 2000 or so) most automatics were 4 speed, and the occasional 5 speed auto. Manuals have been primarily 6 speed since the early/mid 90's.
But, now that automatics are 6, 7, 8, and even 9 speeds... They accelerate faster AND offer better fuel economy than a 6 spd or even 7 spd manual.
I've had a stick shift car for over 20 years. Most of the time, it was for performance reasons. But the numbers don't lie... modern automatics are much faster than their stick shift counterparts. Take the latest 911 turbo. Can run 0-60 in 2.6 seconds, all day every day. Even though my 6 spd turbo has more horsepower, I can't equal those 0-60 times. It's impossible. The best I can hope for is a low/mid 3 second time. My quarter mile time is also slower, even though I have a higher trap speed. I just can't make up that time differential in a quarter mile, and I certainly don't shift as fast as the computer can do it.
It's nice to shift a car, but choosing a stick for performance is a thing of the past. The only advantage a manual has now would be greater simplicity in fixing it, but when you see videos of car mags doing 50+ consecutive 0-60 runs in a performance car with no problems... I'm not sure manuals have the advantage there either, if the auto can take all that with no problems.
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