Why have manual transmissions become replaced by paddle shifters and such? What are the benefits in terms of performance?
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Three things have transitioned most manuals out of the market the past 15 years: efficiency, speed, programming.
Manual transmissions had two things going for them from the 80’s through the 00’s that kept them in the running. They transmitted more energy to the wheels, and you could get through the gears faster.
Automatics had fewer gears than manuals and could only lock up the torque converter in overdrive gears. Both of these contributed to the auto transmission’s typical consumption of 20-25% of the engine’s power, vs 12-15% for a manual. If you wanted the most economical vehicle, you wanted a manual transmission.
As they had few gears (typically 4), there was a sizeable rpm difference between each gear. To prevent the transmission from ‘punching’ the vehicle forward during an upshift, you design the transmission to easily engage the torque converter, which takes time. Both of these issues meant the automatics would take longer to accelerate though a gear and longer to shift to the next gear, vs a manual.
Since the 00’s, engineers have added more gears to automatics, given them multiple modes so they can shift fast or comfortably, given them the ability to lock up the torque converter in any gear, and much more. The result is that automatics now are almost as efficient and shift faster than manual transmissions.
As fewer and fewer manual transmissions are being produced. (costs more to produce more transmission designs), paddle shifters were developed to bring finer transmission control back to some vehicles. I don’t have paddles, I have switches on the side of my gear selector, but even that gives me a lot of control over my truck. Ex. sometimes when towing, even tow mode doesn’t put the truck in the gear I want, or it’s changing gears often due to rolling terrain. I’ll put it in manual mode, which lets me apply all the throttle I want without downshifting. That way l can use the throttle to maintain momentum in rolling terrain rather than the truck shifting every 30 seconds (which generates a lot of heat, the enemy of all transmissions).
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