If EV is the way it's going why are Automatic driving lessons still more expensive?

[Mr Gus]

I don't think its fair to simply say "if they can rinse a further £5 per hour out of you they will"

I do understand most jobs will as per 40+ year standard ask for a full driving license, but that's a bit daft nowadays, auto / soft tip shift are very commonplace these days, ...& there is no manual geared EV right?

Looking for lessons for daughter (hens teeth as is) cannot fgure out why in this day & age, especially with less wear to the gearbox lessons are so much pricier, its a bit like saying "you baint from round here, you be a furriner, that'll be an extra fiver an hour"

We can teach her manual after she's got her confidence up, but as she will be driving an EV sooner rather than later, why the feck would we want her to go through the extra hoops of learning a manual car likely never to use it again.

NB all our hire cars for the past decade have been Automatic too, not requested, just given.
So what gives, seems incredibly backward & out of step considering it is never easy finding driving school slots.

[Stinsy]

I assume most people want to learn in a manual even if they'll probably drive an automatic most of the time. The airport rental, or work van, etc., an automatic licence mens you can never drive a manual.

Automatic lessons are probably more expensive because very few people want to learn in an automatic so instructors find it harder to fill lessons.

It will be interesting to see how this changes to reflect a world where manual cars are rarer.

[Mr Gus]

Never been offered an airport rental that ISN'T automatic these last 10 years, and of that only one was petrol ( hired 2 x per year from Geneva airport)
All hire vehicles in Canada were automatic too, unless you opted for a coal roller type pick up.

Are we saying then we HAVE to revert to an archaic technology, high emissivity manual ice engine in order to hire a fan 1x every 10 years or so? ...look at how heavy a ladle of the "dumb sauce" that sounds ..getting away from manual is a way of getting away from ICE ...which also encourages reluctant manufacturers to make change & head towards various govt targets of mass EV adoption & uptake,so why is it not used as leverage?


Incentives to put up workplace car chargers, the common knowledge of lower per mile fleet cost, ..The fact that we are tuning out ICE sales, none of that reflected in how we adapt to the hole in the market for ice vehicles that is happening here & now where current 2021 & future DVLA licensing use is going it seems.

[Stinsy]

Never been offered an airport rental that ISN'T automatic

Really? Up until a few years ago I was travelling a lot on business. Hiring c. 20x cars a year all around the world. With the exception of the East Coast of the US, 100% of them where manuals. I was given the impression that automatics where expensive special order vehicles.

As I say this will inevitably change. But the average car in the road is 12 years old. It’ll take a very long time until you are unlikely to ever encounter a manual.

[Oliver90owner]

Things to consider?

Fuel costs.

Are autos still more expensive than manuals?

Know of any electric car driving instructors?

Its usually the clutch that gets hammered in driving instruction car - so they change them before they fail. Auto gearboxes and fluid couplings are expensive if they fail.

Are conversions for dual controls more expensive to fit?

Does it tend to be the ‘less able’ that want to only learn on automatics?

Is a fiver that much in the whole scheme of learning to drive?

I can’t really comment much, as I learned to drive at an early age (well under 10 years old) - tractors, then motorbikes, etc. My instructor asked me if I had already arranged a test on our second outing - and I only had a couple of ‘lessons’ to get used to the car again, when the test date was very imminent.

Driving instructors, these days, only teach to pass the driving test - how to, not why - is my impression. But they often have to start at the lowest level, I suppose.

[Mr Gus]

I ran a google search.
It shows them out there, (EV instructors)

Fuel costs, marginal these days compared to a naff old Nissan bluebird from the 1980's
Fuel costs lower as a working vehicle for an ev owning instructor.

100,000+ miles on ours, no problem.

Dual controls not so commonplace now when I've been looking, actually seems to be low down on the list by vehicle owner instructors compared to those paid way Less by driving schools who taught them to be driving instructors & dictate which vehicles they have to buy / use to fly the brand flag.

"Less able" ? ffs ..as far back as 1967 Porsche 911 was available as a triptronic type "push" gear change.

[Oliver90owner]

"Less able" ? ffs ..as far back as 1967 Porsche 911 was available as a triptronic type "push" gear change.

I was referring to the learners.

We have had tiptronic auto-boxes (peugeot 607) for about the last 12 years or so.

My wife never uses the manual gear change option, while I use it more than the auto mode when I drive it.

Let’s face it, most of those who drive cars with auto gearboxes don’t really understand the ‘automatic’ part is for changing gears, not for sitting in gear, for minutes on end, with the foot brake held down.

[Mr Gus]

You had me howling with laughter at the thought of posh marque Porsche drivers being "special"

If you get someone to read the manual (who does that eh) !? then rev counter learning is as good as anything for stating "awake" to gear changes, the classic of buying a car you couldn't afford to fuel (a big prestige audi quattro, so you drove it like a doofus in a renault 5 campus to avoid filling it when you stole it off your dad)

Having a smart fortwo they typically have a "bug eyed" dash-pod set up with a rev counter, even with a software mod you still want to utilise the "nudge" of the tiptronic approaching a speedy roundabout, though it does sometimes still beat us to it, obviously that's where the paddles / soft touch help a learner driver, who feels the humiliation & loss of confidence of roundabout stalls, stalling their progress, a bind of modern learner lessons is that you go & pick up the next learner in your lesson, so a teen learner has to deal with the "two people judging my driving" stress.

Most hire vans we've encountered have messed up gates already, because car drivers aren't, in reality, attuned to driving a box van in that once in a blue moon, despite what a license says, (I learnt on tractors, a ww2 jeep & combines & if I were to go back today I'd be in the mire having lost every iota of familiarity with the machines in question)

Here is a wee search for EV instructors..
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Electric+car+ ... 0-1&ia=web

https://www.motortradenews.com/industry ... -increase/
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/nissan/10 ... e-in-an-ev (from way back in 2017 ..an insightful read)

EV driving lessons £31 per hour, better than £37, not as good as £25 but hey.

[Mr Gus]

KIddo has her test this week, (Thursday)

She's not ready for university (say's she's not mature enough yet, ..I haven't mentioned that the students will seem even more like wee children the longer she leaves it)

Right now she's keen to get passed, then practise gearshift & knock that on the head too (but has all but claimed the leaf for herself, bar title deed change & is a proud young generation EV driver) she wants to have some time in Canada, so is looking at applying for training to drive the hybrid & newer stock of BEV-Buses around the town in Banff (they have recently coughed up for a big computer training centre there so are clearly expanding)

I cannot knock the idea, likely she won't come home if she go's though, cannot blame her.
I don't think that if they hadn't already run hybrids for 12 years she'd have even considered the out of the blue dad suggestion of EV / hybrid bus training (a long way off) to allow her to stay in a town she considers home, that & she knows she's be an awful hotel room cleaner (which is what a lot of travelling kids do there)

Fingers crossed for that pass!

[Tinbum]

I have an 8x8 truck that has a really weird set up. It has a clutch and an 8 speed gear box but it also has a torque converter. The clutch is only their to enable changing the gear and when you have your foot on the clutch an air ram stops the accelerator peddle being pressed. The clutch is only small (thin) and not designed for slipping hence the air ram. Takes a bit of getting used to. You can do a standing start in 8th gear but thats not good for the torque converter.