[datsundude91]

Originally Posted by AJI

This hits on a pretty good point, though it does also apply more to say, the US and the Far East than it does to Europe, where manuals are still more popular.

I suspect that the vast majority of the public would get better fuel consumption with an automatic simply because the auto box would be much better at choosing the most efficient gear than the driver would. So many drivers are consistantly in the wrong gear.

You can tell just from the way they drive - cars at low speeds and high revs going through town who should have changed up one or even two gears more, taxi drivers labouring around with the engine stuttering in top gear because they think it saves more fuel than using the correct gear, people dithering at junctions because they've not had the foresight and observation to select the right gear for joining the traffic - all those examples and more.

With an auto? Not a bother. If you accelerate it changes down to help you, if you lift off it changes up and saves fuel. Of course, more skilled drivers do this themselves, but you can't count on Joe Public to be as skilled.

It's a view I've held for quite a while - a significant proportion of people would be better off with an auto, both to make up for their lack of skill, and to save fuel at the same time.

In the real world: A car with lower official fuel figures as an auto might actually be more fuel efficient than the manual when you give it to an unskilled driver.

not to mention the cost of more frequent clutch replacements that an unskilled driver would unevitably have to pay.