I thought this was going to be an American joke about automatics, but then realised that this is like when I explained to younger colleagues that I just drove my car home ‘crash gearbox style’ when the clutch failed, some were amazed that it was even possible. (Match the revs and feel the gear mesh) Edited to add: when I first tried linux on a pc with CRT monitor, to get a gui going I had to roll my own modeline. Bzzt, oh not that value, ctrl-c try another one. Such funsies

Wow. I think the big changeover here will be the electric vehicle. By default they’re auto and will determine the future of transmission type as they become more common. We also have a culture of passing the driving test in a manual, so that you can drive both. An automatic driving license does not allow us to drive manual vehicles.

Is that really not common? I’m in the U.K., and <30% of cars might be auto, when I look at used car sales these days.