Automated Manual Transmissions are increasingly popular on small cars, is it time to get rid of the clutchIJ
When maruti launched the Celerio with an Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) transmission they could not have imagined that this halfway house transmission between a full-fledged automatic and a manual would become a huge hit. So much so that Maruti has begun to offer AMt options on several other models including the Alto K10 and their new Ignis. Other manufacturers have been quick to follow suit - Tata was the first of the rest, Mahindra joined up the AMT revolution and in the six months or so have Renault and Hyundai.
These manufacturers are now trying to integrate AMT options across their model range and are launching all their new models equipped with AMT options because consumers are voting for these cars with their money. Take the rather successful Renault Kwid for example. According to Sumit Sawhney, Managing Director, Renault India an estimated 40 per cent of the 8-10 thousand Kwid’s sold every month are the AMT version. And that such sales do not always fit stereotypes of ‘automatic’ customers, “They are not all women or based in major metropolitan areas”, he told this columnist recently.
The success of AMT equipped cars seem to have taken automakers by surprise because automatics have never been popular in the past for small cars. But earlier automatics were three or four speed gearboxes that were expensive to purchase and consumed between 10-20 per cent more fuel than manual versions. Despite the unquestionable convenience of automatic cars, options were thin because Indian buyers saw no value. While more expensive luxury cars came with no options but automatics because as one carmaker’s chief executive told me, “automatic gearboxes will protect the engines from over-enthusiastic drivers.But that is another story.
AMT gearboxes are an affordable way of removing the clutch pedal and constant gear changes from the driving equation. Previous columns have explained how they work, but to repeat, an AMT car retains the same gearbox as the manual variant. It is only the way the gears are changed that is different. The clutch pedal might have been taken out of the equation, but the clutch is still there. But instead of of your left foot, it is operated by a mechanical servo. The car’s electronic control unit calculates how hard the engine is working and how much pressure your right foot is putting on the accelerator calculates when to change gear up, Braking is a bit simpler as determined more by the speed you are going at.
It is very similar to the way a traditional automatic gearbox works but because the heavy mechanism of a traditional automatic is dispensed with, the AMT is lighter and being less mechanically complicated, it is cheaper to boot. And while advanced automatic gearboxes now feature 10-forward gears like on the Ford F-150 ‘truck’, the regular manual transmissions give good fuel economy anyway. And fuel economy on cars is also a function of the driver, so the AMT variants could be a bit more thirsty than the most frugal drivers but on the whole, AMT cars pretty much give the same fuel economy.
BUt are they fun the driveIJ Well, there is a little ‘shift shock’ - the jerk that one gets when changing gears roughly, But this is barely palpable on petrol-engined AMT variants and engineers have been working to smoothen it out completely. The petrol AMT variant of the new Ignis for example is extremely smooth. But there is still some shift-shock on diesel AMT cars, but again there are far improved from early models. The diesel Ignis AMT, while not as smooth as the petrol gets the job done.
And the popularity of AMT cars will mean that engineers will get them better and better. And also the costs of AMT gearboxes could come down further. The problem with some AMT cars is that carmakers do not offer their top-specification on AMT cars. On the Ignis, if you want the full deal, including Apple CarPlay on the Alpha model, you have to buy the manual. Which is a bit of a bummer.
So, if you are considering picking up a new small car such as the Ignis or the Kwid anytime soon, should you look at buying the AMT variantIJ Honestly, it does make driving a lot easier. Particularly in the start-stop traffic of the city. So yes, you should. Just don’t forget how to drive ‘stick’, you never know when it will come in handy.