A manual transmission is from what I understand just a set of gears on these two lil lines that connect and disconnect from eachother with the clutch, whereas an automatic transmission has a whole different thing with planetary and sun gears and stuff. My question is, why? Can’t the ECU just take a normal manual transmission gear mechanism and shift it as if a person were doing it; why do automatic cars utilize this whole new gear system?
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>Can’t the ECU just take a normal manual transmission gear mechanism and shift it as if a person were doing it
Yes, it can. This type of automated manual is somewhat common in subcompacts, and it used to be relatively common in high performance cars. It’s a more efficient setup than a traditional automatic, but its major drawback is that it’s not very comfortable to drive. Gear changes are either abrupt and jerky or slow, with a long pause where the car isn’t accelerating.
Traditional automatics with planetary gears have the advantage that they can sort of be in two gears at the same time. You can slur the gear changes and make them quite hard to detect, especially since there’s no interruption to the acceleration.
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