I have a confession to make; I just don’t get it! I have tried to understand, I have test-driven the vehicles and, for the life of me, I can see no advantage to manually shifting an automatic transmission. I was enraged by salesmen frothing on about how some transmission can be worked in “manual mode”. Why? Who cares? Not me. I can use a manual and there is a huge difference between changing gears yourself and waiting for the car to respond to your request for a gear change.
All this is about to change, however, and I may soon get the convenience of driving an automatic transmission with the effectiveness of a traditional manual gearbox. There are two reasons for this. The first is the development of new generation automatic transmissions and the second is the application of motorcycle technology to automobiles. Follow me after the jump.