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Comment by alrs | Hacker News Reader

As an American, every car I've ever owned was statistically included with an automatic transmission. Strangely, none of the cars I've owned have had an automatic transmission.

Subaru was making CVT automatic cars back then that were even worse than the awful CVT cars of today. That would be my pick if I wanted to do a 30-year-old self driving car.

https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/the-subaru-justy-pioneered-...

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In Europe, statistically nearly every car older than 10 years is manual. With the recent improvements in automatics they are finally catching on in Europe.

You may be able to find an old automatic or CVT car in Europe, but you would need to look for a while

Volvo made automatic versions of its cars from the late sixties onwards. A colleague had an automatic 244 in the early 1980s.

Here in Norway automatics are not finally catching on, they are ubiquitous and the driving instructors' association is campaigning to get the rules changed so that you can pass the driving test on an automatic and later simply do a conversion course to allow one to drive manual.

And of course it will all be moot quite soon because EV sales already outnumber ICE sales nearly nine to one here. Volkswagen and Hyundai no longer sell ICE cars in Norway. Volkswagen still sells ICE vans and pickups though.

That's because Europeans prefer small cars, in which automatics really sucked until maybe 15-20 years ago. They were inefficient and heavy, and the engines in those cars didn't have a ton of excess power.

It's a different story in large sedans/wagons.

Volvo is one of the exceptions though. I have friends whose parents are Volvo-people. Their cars have been automatic since the 80ies.

I take it you meant to write every car older than 10 years is a manual?

Thanks, I obviously need more coffee. Fixed above

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