And where are you from? And how old? Not “do you” but just if you know how.

I’m in the US, mid 30s and can (and do) drive a manual transmission.

  • coyotino [he/him]@beehaw.orgEnglish
    22·
    10 months ago

    honestly i don’t understand what makes them better for racing. can the auto not be tuned differently to prioritize speed and acceleration over fuel efficiency?

    • TheWeirdestCunt@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      Automatic gearboxes can’t predict the road ahead, they can only react to the current RPM and speed.

      Edit: just realised this posted on a completely different comment to the one I was replying to

    • Pixel of Life@lemm.ee
      1·
      10 months ago

      It’s not just about speed and acceleration. It’s also about control. Racing drivers face an infinite number of different conditions out on the track and it would be impossible to tune the transmission in such a way that it does exactly what the driver wants 100% of the time. And it really has to be perfect. 99.9% isn’t good enough because the other 0.1% can wreck the car if it does something unexpected while driving at the limit.

      • Pixel of Life@lemm.ee
        5·
        10 months ago

        Modern, high end race cars are automatics.

        No, they’re sequential manuals*. Unless you’re talking about drag racing, where automatics are common.

        *Edit: Or they can also be sequential semi-automatics if you want to be extra pedantic. But personally I’d classify a transmission based on whether the driver has to select the desired gear, or if the computer selects the appropriate gear without driver input, because that’s the thing that matters in the end.