{"id":23450,"date":"2017-03-28T10:30:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T08:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nladre-horikuchi.savviihq.com\/?p=23450"},"modified":"2025-10-14T11:29:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:29:38","slug":"should-i-choose-an-automatic-or-manual-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/blog\/moet-ik-een-automaat-of-handgeschakelde-auto-kiezen\/","title":{"rendered":"Should I choose an automatic or manual car?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In the Netherlands, everyone basically learns to drive a manual car. That is simply the norm in Europe. But if you go to America or Japan, there's a very high chance you'll be given an automatic. In those countries, they embraced the automatic en masse years ago.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>Why does everyone in America drive an automatic?<\/h2>\n<p>That originated decades ago. As soon as the <strong>machine<\/strong> When it was introduced, Americans immediately took to it. Which isn't surprising, of course, if you consider the road network they have. It's very common there to drive long distances daily on straight highways. Without too many bends or other obstacles along the way. An automatic transmission is ideal for that.<\/p>\n<p>For years <strong>Consumption<\/strong> one of the disadvantages of an automatic transmission. The engine simply used more than a manual gearbox. That was also a good reason for many Europeans to opt for a <strong>Manual car<\/strong> to choose. In America, petrol prices were (and still are, for that matter) a lot lower than here, so that wasn't a problem for them. Nowadays, the fuel consumption of an automatic is hugely improved, by the way. Thanks to modern technology.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-35509 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ali-moharami-8Z57k-SCqIE-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"American automatic car\" width=\"640\" height=\"421\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The advantages of driving an automatic<\/h2>\n<p>No matter how you look at it, riding in a <a href=\"\/en\/cheap-hire\/car-hire\/ba-machine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">machine<\/a> still has a bit of a <strong>Tersely evocative<\/strong>. This is mainly due to <strong>Dafjes with a Variomatic<\/strong>, a gearstick that you pushed forward to drive forwards and pulled back to drive backwards. The car did the rest itself. And because of that, the car received a <strong>\u2018old women stamp<\/strong>. Nowadays, you often still have to justify yourself when you choose an automatic gearbox.<\/p>\n<p>However, more and more Europeans are slowly but surely seeing the benefits of driving an automatic. Firstly, you can <strong>much more relaxed while driving<\/strong>. This also happens to be the biggest advantage. You only use one foot, you don't have to operate a gear stick and you can keep both hands on the steering wheel. In other words, you have to perform far fewer actions to achieve the same goal. You can therefore also focus your attention entirely on the traffic, which means <strong>a vending machine is also safer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>When you <strong>many files are travelling<\/strong> (and who doesn't do that in the Netherlands?), an automatic is ideal. You only need to accelerate and brake, changing gears happens automatically. It makes driving in traffic a lot more pleasant because you're not constantly fiddling with your gearbox. And the car can't stall either, which is nice.<\/p>\n<h2>The advantages of a manual car<\/h2>\n<p>For the <strong>Sporty drivers<\/strong> among us who like <strong>Control<\/strong> When it comes to owning a car, there's nothing quite like a <strong>gearbox<\/strong>. You can simply pull away a little longer at traffic lights or when you need a bit more power to overtake a lorry on the motorway. In the past, a manual car had a more powerful engine. Nowadays, technology has improved so much that this is no longer entirely true. The power is almost the same.<\/p>\n<p>We Europeans do feel that manual gearboxes have their merits. <strong>charm<\/strong> that you only feel like you're \u2018really\u2019 driving then.<\/p>\n<h2>Automatic or manual?<\/h2>\n<p>It now seems that driving an automatic has many more advantages than driving a manual. Objectively speaking, that may well be the case. But ultimately, you always decide for yourself what you find most pleasant. 20, 30 years ago the choice would have been easier. An automatic was uneconomical and dowdy at the time. Nowadays <strong>an automatic transmission is even more economical than a manual gearbox<\/strong>, because an automatic gearbox has more gears and therefore always drives at the optimal engine speed. And as soon as younger people also start driving automatics, the frumpy image will disappear by itself.<\/p>\n<p>You can always go for the <strong>golden mean<\/strong> choose. Many brands have a <strong>dual-clutch <\/strong>or provide a <strong>semi-automatic<\/strong>, such as the Fiat 500. This allows you to drive with an automatic transmission, but if you drive a lot in the mountains or on winding roads, you can also change gears manually. Or if you're just feeling sporty. <strong>The best of both worlds then!<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Automatic driving with Adrem<\/h2>\n<p>The majority of cars available for hire from us are still manual. However, our fleet is also changing. The hybrid cars (cars that run on both unleaded petrol and electricity) are all automatic. This also makes these cars more economical. So, if you choose an automatic with Adrem, you're not only choosing a more relaxed drive but also an economical one.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>What kind of car do you prefer to drive? Manual or automatic? Let us know in a comment below! Automatic or manual <a href=\"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/overige-paginas\/auto-huren-sittard\/\">Car hire in the Sittard region<\/a>This is possible at Adrem!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the Netherlands, everyone basically learns to drive a manual car. That is simply the norm in Europe. But if you go to America or Japan, there's a very high chance you'll be given an automatic. In those countries, they embraced the automatic en masse years ago.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":41444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wagenpark-adrem"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23450"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41445,"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23450\/revisions\/41445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremlimburg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}