Why are most cars in North America automatic and most cars in Europe manual?
In: Engineering
There are a few other reasons that haven’t been mentioned:
– Automatic transmissions were invented in America, and European manufacturers didn’t catch up with American automatic transmission technology until the 80s. It wasn’t uncommon for European luxury cars to use American-sourced automatic transmissions.
– Automatics were introduced in the late 40s-early 50s at the same time overhead valve V8s were being introduced. This meant the power losses from an automatic were masked by the huge jump in power compared to pre-war flat head engines.
– They also lost some of their performance stigma when drag racing became popular in the 60s. Automatics can be built to work better for this type of racing than manual transmissions.
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