I don't believe this guys credentials first of all. It sounds more like a 13 year old posing as Bob then a real engineer. Just something sounds wrong here.

But some of the points are entirely dumb. For example he says that fleet cars have autos to save on repair costs. That is BS, they do it so they can hire anyone and to save the drivers the effort of shifting. Have you noticed that semi trucks still use manuals? With no syncros no less. It is because that is the only setup that can handle that kind of abuse. I'd like to see an auto do that.

And he simply ignores a lot of good points for no reason. Also, pretty much all real race drivers hate mass produced autos no matter how fancy they are. A good driver needs that kind of control. He also says how most cars sold today are autos and says are they all dumb? Well, yes a lot of them are. Particularly the ones that have a CEL come on and go "Thats weird, the engine is still here.". Now sure, lots of people are just lazy, even I like an auto some of the time.

I agree that we all shouldn't switch to non syncro manuals. But we all should drive one in a safe environment at least once. If we all had to drive a car without any gizmos on a real track with real world obstacles to pass our drivers test, then there would be a lot less bad drivers on the road.

 

That having been said . . . nobody is taking away my third pedal dammit!!!!