While much older cars had noisy and slow-witted auto boxes, new cars are so advanced that they can actually change gears quicker than a human can. Most automatic cars these days have a manual mode, which allows you to change gears on demand instead of waiting for the gearbox to do its own thing. Paddle shifters are the latest advance in the life of the automatic gearbox, and are found on most new automatic cars on sale today. In Manuals we normally shift the stick gear to drop to a lower or higher gear. It allows convenient driver … On an open road, a manual is a joy to use. It is a fashionable lever (or two) that is situated behind the rim of the steering wheel and allows manual up and down shifting of the transmission. Check it out! The advantages of manual transmissions are evident since it allows the user full control of the transmission’s behavior. These can be one of the most fun ways to drive a car, but also have a number of benefits too. When I first heard about paddle shifters it sounded too good to be true: Little metal tabs on either side of the steering wheel that let you shift through the car’s gears as you drive, giving you the best of both worlds: An automatic transmission that you can drive like a manual when you want to. Mounted on the steering column or the back of the steering wheel, they typically offer downshifts by tapping or pulling the … A semi-automatic transmission (also known as an automated manual, clutchless manual, auto-manual, semi-manual, trigger shift, flappy-paddle or paddle-shift gearbox) is an automobile transmission that combines manual transmission and automatic transmission. Two short stalks, one on either side of the wheel, control the gears with the left paddle taking the gears down and the right paddle nudging the gears up. Vehicles with paddle shifters are fully automatic -- they'll shift on their own if you leave the paddles alone. A semi-automatic transmission (also known as clutchless manual transmission, automated manual transmission,flappy-paddle gearbox, or paddle shift gearbox) is a system which uses electronic sensors, processors and actuators to execute gear shifts … If you want to shift your own gears, it’s only right to do it with a manual. While the paddle shifters in performance cars are probably pretty good, in a regular car there is usually a .5-1 second delay and the shifts just feel uncomfortable and fake. The skinny on this performance feature that gives an automatic transmission the feel of a manual. It’s not just something that looks cool on rally cars, it is these days a more and more popular way to control the engine power in a car.