Applications and Popularity
Sports cars are also often equipped with manual transmissions because they offer more direct driver involvement and better performance. Off-road vehicles and trucks often feature manual transmissions because they allow direct gear selection and are often more rugged than their automatic counterparts.
Conversely, manual transmissions are no longer popular in many classes of cars sold in North America, Australia and some parts of Asia, although they remain dominant in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Nearly all cars are available with an automatic transmission option, and family cars and large trucks sold in the US are predominantly fitted with automatics, however in some cases if a buyer wishes he/she can have the car fitted with a manual transmission at the factory. In Europe most cars are sold with manual transmissions. Most luxury cars are only available with an automatic transmission. In most cases where both transmissions are available for a given car, automatics are an at cost option, but in some cases the reverse is true. Some cars, such as rental cars and taxis, are nearly universally equipped with automatic transmissions in countries such as the US, but the opposite is true in Europe. As of 2008, 75.2% of vehicles made in Western Europe were equipped with manual transmission, versus 16.1% with automatic and 8.7% with other.
In some places (for example New Zealand (for the second-phase Restricted licence, but not the final Full licence), Belgium, China, Estonia, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, U.A.E and the UK), when a driver takes the licensing road test using an automatic transmission, the resulting license is restricted to the use of automatic transmissions. This treatment of the manual transmission skill seems to maintain the widespread use of the manual transmission. As many new drivers worry that their restricted licence will become an obstacle for them where most cars have manual transmissions, they make the effort to learn with manual transmissions and obtain full licences. Some other countries (such as Greece, Georgia, India, Pakistan, Portugal, Malaysia, Serbia, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine and Denmark) go even further, whereby the licence is granted only when a test is passed on a manual transmission. In Denmark and Brazil drivers are allowed to take the test on an automatic if they are handicapped, but with such a licence they will not be allowed to drive a car with a manual transmission.
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