Automatic choice for motorists

New figures show that the number of new vehicles being sold with automatic transmission in Ireland has almost doubled in the past five years, with the ration in 2020 now down to 2:1 between manual and automatic transmission.

The figures from Cartell.ie show that the purchase of new cars in Ireland with automatic transmission has jumped from 18,831 in 2015 to 36,286 in 2019, and the ratio of manual to automatic transmission vehicles so far in 2020 now comes in at less than 2:1 – 25,474 manuals compared with 14,166 automatics.

For imports the manual is more popular: 319,951 of all imports (cars only) into Ireland are manual transmission while 104,323 are automatics. The whole fleet currently shows 2,624,504 manuals as against 489,414 automatics.