Originally posted by ThorSanchez Over 90% of vehicles sold in the US have some type of automatic transmission.
I don't know the exact figure, but in Europe, 90% of people prefer to use manual gear shifting, the overall consumption is less and it is quicker to adapt depending on terrain (mountains etc). There is a parallel with camera, I was hiking for 4 days in the Alps with the Pentax K1 on one battery that still had a one bar charge indicator after taking 300 exposures. If I had a mirrorless camera, I'd need to recharge it every day or bring four batteries.
I've driven car with manual and automatic transmission. It was a matter of getting used to each kind of transmission. I shift gears manually without thinking about it. It's just that over a week of driving on vacation with an automatic gear shifting car I spend 50 Euros more refueling.
There is a parallel between Eye AF, car auto-transmission and GPS, mobile phones, they all appeal to laziness, and when you use them you can't seem to be able to do without anymore because you lose skills. It's like buying frozen fish and meat at the supermarket, it is so easy that people don't even know how it can there, and if there was an electricity blackout for 6 months, most people in the cities would be incapable of feeding themselves...
People nowadays are like greenhouse plants.