Will the manual gearbox & Internal Combustion engine be gone in our lifetime?

[CLSMark]

I'm 38, and if I think back to cars when I was growing up, all cars had were a steering wheel and a fm stereo.

The progression since then is huge. Will the next 30 years see the Petrol/Diesel engine gone, along with manual transmission, and if so, will you miss it?



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[JohnRutter]

Not in my lifetime.

Also consider that the gadgets and trickery become commonplace on premium cars but there is a huge volume of 'basic' cars to be sold and run across the world.

 

[MarkACLS]

Yes. And faster than we think, especially in rich western countries.

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[CLSMark]

Yes. And faster than we think, especially in rich western countries.

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I have found myself eyeing up Teslas. And anyone who drives/owns one loves them


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[Lennox]

I have found myself eyeing up Teslas. And anyone who drives/owns one loves them


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My mate has one and another on order, I drive all but the P100D and they are awesome. I just don't like the interior. The new sport seats are better but I far prefer the German interiors, fit and finish.


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[Meldrew2]

I'm 55. The mono radio was MW only.

 

[markjay]

We used to change cars every 5 or 10 years because the design and mechanical advances were gradual and slow.

These days the design and mechanical advances are still gradual and slow... but the electronics and technology are progressing in giant leaps.

Especially so when it comes to the cabin, instrument cluster and driving aids.

If we want to stay at the cutting edge, we'll need to start replacing our cars every year or two, in the same way that some people change their iPhones, laptops, and TVs.

The new hi-tech cars drive better due to some cleaver designs e.g. computerised suspension etc, they are also safer due to a variety of driver aids etc, BUT this is incidental to this discussion - the real underlying reason for all this is that car manufacturers discovered that the desirability factor that drives much of the IT market can be applied to the car market, bringing about much shorter ownership cycles and of course more sales.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with my 2006 W203, but my 2013 W204 has a much more clever looking dash with a brilliant built-in LCD display plus some other toys. So yes I am very happy that I replaced the car - but in reality the overall comfort, ride, handling, and performance are very much the same.

 

[whitenemesis]

It's reflected in the car adverts we see now. It's all bluetooth this, internet that, audio streaming, hot spots etc. etc...

Don't get me wrong I love the gizmos in my new car but the bottom line for me is the drive and the comfort. The electronic wizardry that give the various drive modes has me hooked but again it's the driving that has me smiling.

All the driving aids makes one lazy, I wonder how well today's youngsters would cope driving a 60's or 70's car?

 

[219]

I'm 38, and if I think back to cars when I was growing up, all cars had were a steering wheel and a fm stereo.

The progression since then is huge. Will the next 30 years see the Petrol/Diesel engine gone, along with manual transmission, and if so, will you miss it?



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The earliest family cars I remember from my childhood ( Ford Consul , Rover 90 & 105 , Jaguar MK II , W110 , Series 1 Land Rover , VW Beetle ) generally had AM radio , if any , no seat belts ( so I could stand up in the gap between the front seats of my dad's MK II Jaguar and , on sighting another car ahead , would urge my dad ' pass him , dad , pass him ' , which sometimes he would do ) ; the Beetles had heater controls down on the tunnel akin to aircraft throttles , which I loved to play with and was rewarded with the searing heat from the sill vents which would scorch your ankles ; the Land Rover had a hand throttle and these Lucas wiper motors on the screen which could be turned on and off individually , and levers which opened the scuttle vents ; many of the cars had column change gears , which I learned to drive with , and one of the Rovers had a free wheel which made my mother car sick for some reason . Some of the cars had sumptuous and fragrant wood and leather interiors , while others made do with plastic seating and painted metal surfaces . Oh , and all cars had nice substantial and tactile controls , made of metal and maybe infilled with Bakerlite, which were a pleasure to use , unlike the flimsy and rubbery offerings on modern cars , and all cars had proper horns , sounded by a lovely chrome horn ring , which left the recipient in no doubt they were being addressed , unlike the insipid and impotent little pipsqueaks modern cars have for fear of startling or offending old ladies of nervous dispositions .

AM radio brings back memories of late night fishing trips and listening to Kid Jensen on Radio Luxembourg or , later , Brian McKenzie on Radio North Sea International .

 

[219]

It's reflected in the car adverts we see now. It's all bluetooth this, internet that, audio streaming, hot spots etc. etc...

Don't get me wrong I love the gizmos in my new car but the bottom line for me is the drive and the comfort. The electronic wizardry that give the various drive modes has me hooked but again it's the driving that has me smiling.

All the driving aids makes one lazy, I wonder how well today's youngsters would cope driving a 60's or 70's car?

I tend to look at adverts promoting all that rubbish and think it is because the cars themselves have absolutely nothing to commend them in terms of engineering , performance or driving enjoyment .

I also detest modern cars with needless gadgetry , thick pillars which create huge blind spots at junctions , numbing rubbery controls and boredom inducing blandness throughout . Not to mention that many seem to dumb down the process of driving by deciding for you when to put the lights on , or the wipers , parking themselves , or just plain refusing to do things - like relinquishing control to you in icy conditions .

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

1979 to 2059

So, when you were born, cars were pretty basic boxes that just about reached 70 mph, down hill.

By the time you snuff it in 2059, they'll be quite a bit more fancy, with extra tech, and some will certainly be self driving.

Electric may be common, but who's to say there won't be a new fuel?

And who's to say that we might continue our habit of driving fewer miles every year, so that we're only doing less than 2,000 miles a year by then?

But the internal combustion engine will still be around - it just won't have unreliable carburettors, and spark plugs that need replacing every couple of years any more, as it did in '79.

50cc quad turbo, anyone?

 

[MarkACLS]

Cars as we know it will be legislated out of existence. No insurer will insure you if you want to drive. No government with green house gas emissions targets will want combustion engines on the roads. No safety campaigners want pedestrian and passenger deaths. No councils want cars clogging up roads looking for parking spaces. Few young people are that interested in cars now (which is why they are rarely sold on driving pleasure and much more on gadgets and features) and fewer still wish to own one. We enthusiasts are a dieing breed and what we know and love about the car will change. Likely the only chance in the future where we would be allowed to drive our V8s (etc) will be at a track for recreation and nostalgia. And I think all of this will happen inside of 30 years. The technology is now too mature and the adoption curve has started. Legislation is following close behind - it won't be up to the car makers and advancement never was so far.

 

[markjay]

...Don't get me wrong I love the gizmos in my new car but the bottom line for me is the drive and the comfort. The electronic wizardry that give the various drive modes has me hooked but again it's the driving that has me smiling...

I agree, but in a few years time when you tell this to your grandchildren, they will look at you like you would today at an elderly gentleman who says his trusy old Nokia 6210 can make and receive calls - and the battery life is better than any new 'smartphone'... in short, we are dinosaurs

 

[219]

I still have a drawer full of old Nokia phones , including the 6210 , 6310 and their predecessors , also a couple of their advanced handsfree kits which worked so well .

They actually were great phones , and for just making calls , a lot easier to use than iPhones and the like , with a different assignable one button push for your speed dials.

 

[markjay]

I still have a drawer full of old Nokia phones , including the 6210 , 6310 and their predecessors , also a couple of their advanced handsfree kits which worked so well .

They actually were great phones , and for just making calls , a lot easier to use than iPhones and the like , with a different assignable one button push for your speed dials.

Well come to the club - you have just past the test

 

[Tuercas viejas]

The earliest family cars I remember from my childhood ( Ford Consul , Rover 90 & 105 , Jaguar MK II , W110 , Series 1 Land Rover , VW Beetle ) generally had AM radio , if any , no seat belts ( so I could stand up in the gap between the front seats of my dad's MK II Jaguar and , on sighting another car ahead , would urge my dad ' pass him , dad , pass him ' , which sometimes he would do ) ; the Beetles had heater controls down on the tunnel akin to aircraft throttles , which I loved to play with and was rewarded with the searing heat from the sill vents which would scorch your ankles ; the Land Rover had a hand throttle and these Lucas wiper motors on the screen which could be turned on and off individually , and levers which opened the scuttle vents ; many of the cars had column change gears , which I learned to drive with , and one of the Rovers had a free wheel which made my mother car sick for some reason . Some of the cars had sumptuous and fragrant wood and leather interiors , while others made do with plastic seating and painted metal surfaces . Oh , and all cars had nice substantial and tactile controls , made of metal and maybe infilled with Bakerlite, which were a pleasure to use , unlike the flimsy and rubbery offerings on modern cars , and all cars had proper horns , sounded by a lovely chrome horn ring , which left the recipient in no doubt they were being addressed , unlike the insipid and impotent little pipsqueaks modern cars have for fear of startling or offending old ladies of nervous dispositions .

AM radio brings back memories of late night fishing trips and listening to Kid Jensen on Radio Luxembourg or , later , Brian McKenzie on Radio North Sea International .

Derek
This is an interesting topic running back down memory lane.
I was fortunate I suppose because my dad (an ex paratrooper) had a small repair shop in Gloucester. Of course it was called a garage then under some cheap and cheerful railway arches, and where as a kid of around 9 years of age I fixed the Bendix rod brakes on a customer's 1946 Hillman .
Yes they were very basic in them thar days!
Far cry of course of today when you look at a Prius hybrid for example!
Growing up I had this fondest for Rolls Royces ever since I was taken home in a two door Phantom looking back probably a pre war V12.

Once becoming an apprentice in 1963 i got to work on those types of cars and of course the magnificent Hispano Suiza! Rebuilding the engine including making the missing parts for the valve gear with the aid of a old bloke in the college called Jim Hawkings. Ex mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps on the Wolseley Viper engine which was an Hispano based engine!

I suppose the fun of it all was fast forward to around 1999 and I was back in England after many years running a bus repair shop in Caracas. With my brother who also still has a shop in South Gloucester, we took off on some BMW bikes down to Spain.
Somewhere south of Burgos we stopped for fuel, and as the attendant was pumping fuel I could see a gaggle of Spaniards huddled over a car in their shop!
The attendant said
"Oh its one of your countryman who is broken down"!
Is it a jalopy (coche pichocha o Carcacha!!) I asked?
No Senor! es caro Rollsaroyseh !!

With curiosity I wandered ove!. Yes two Brits, husband and wife, top drawer types with a late 1930's V12 Phantom--old money i could tell!
I suddenly bursting into English with me Gluwster accent--what's wrong with your cahrr? I got "It just starting cutting out & now it won't run!
The wife said Gussy has simply become a fiend! We are trying to get to Portugal !

Well me dear lets see if we can get you thur then! .

Under the bonnet! Yes a V12, it took me a while to reacquaint myself after all those years. But I dived into the ignition and found the problem. Some quick contact breaker adjustment and it fired into life!

I got Oh Rolls Royce Mechanic??
No! Venezuelan diesel bus mechanic --poor guy looked perplexed!
But you know Rolls Royce --Yes I was trained to fix them in me yunger yers!
Oh what are your favourite cars then?
Oh Hispano Suiza ,Jaguar, Landrover, and of course Mercedes!
Oh Mercedes!!! Slumming it a bit aren't we!
No! I like the precision, nice cars!
Well i won't hold that against you, how much do i owe you?
Nothing I replied !
Well can i stand you a drink then?
Yes why not!
That drink gents was a mini bottle of Dom for each of us from the cooler in the boot!
Now that is civilized!
Brit classic civilization.
Can't beat it !
Tuercas Viejas .

 

[219]

Hispanos were amazing machines - I remember there being several in the Doune motor museum . I wonder what became of them after the place closed down ...

I suppose the most impressive thing about the top end pre war cars is just the scale of them and the over engineering almost befitting steam locomotives . Bentleys , Royces , Hispanos and others were just HUGE ; the old lady I bought my Ponton from had a pre-war Packard , also her late husbands , which was the same , like something out of a gangster movie .

The exception , it seemed , were Bugattis - running around Edinburgh in the late 70's there was this type 35 that this guy still used daily , it lay out in all weathers ( usually around Royal Circus ) without as much as a tonneau cover , and was just parked in the street , always in a different space each time I saw it - it was a lovely light , delicate and nimble looking thing .

 

[Lotiman]

I'm not too sure I will see the total demise of the ICE in my life although my son probably will. Electric vehicles will, I think, see enormous development in future years, particularly so in the areas of battery and fast charging. Graphene batteries and super capacitors, for example, look particularly promising.

The more than 50 years in which I've been driving have seen internal combustion engines developed probably almost as far as they can go. Any further efficiency improvements will be minuscule, although probably the biggest will come from the cam free engine as developed by Koenigsegg and British company DSD. Improvements in efficiency of up to 10% are being suggested. Beyond that though, I can't see where other big improvements can come from.

Provided engineers can finally solve the double conundrum of range and charge time, then electric has got to be the future, always assuming we have sufficient generating capacity in the first place, of course!

 

[grober]

I'm 38, and if I think back to cars when I was growing up, all cars had were a steering wheel and a fm stereo.

The progression since then is huge. Will the next 30 years see the Petrol/Diesel engine gone, along with manual transmission, and if so, will you miss it?
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Good question but its couched in present day terms----
Petrol ?diesel? engine ?transmisssion? --- what are they ?---- oh you mean the "propulsive energy unit" that's housed in the black box at the front/underfloor/rear of the car only accessible by the dealer with special tools to open it. No-- I have no idea what's inside it-- I 've never bothered to ask ---- No there's nothing about it on the owners online" immersive experience " brochure- the "technical section" disappeared years ago. All I know is I have the Electro Triple Plus model cos it says so on the alternative rear supplementary [ A_R_S] luggage facility portal. Now please excuse me, I'll have to terminate this conversation--- my car inhouse Control Telecommunications control centre is telling me I have a 5 way communication conference scheduled two minutes away- what do you mean you will see them all at the office in ten minutes. Central London's been a car free zone for the last 20 years. I do most of my work from the car now like most of my colleagues. We all drive around the new M2500 10 lane London Orbital We don't actually go anywhere- it just gets us out of the house. Laters.

 

[grober]