What can be improved on a manual transmission? First of all, you have to like being able to help yourself in the face of ubiquitous electronic helpers, otherwise in the future we won't even be able to put on a gender- neutral trousers ourselves. Yes, an automatic also beats an experienced manual switch when switching back by milliseconds, but you switch back before you overtake and therefore have time.

With a manual gearbox you have almost everything in your hand you need to save fuel literally. You can roll much more often without gear than an artificial AI would even think of. It is still missing to be able to switch off the engine, but at least steering and brake support would have to work purely electrically then. It also takes a lot of practice to get the engine running smoothly without constantly ruining the clutch. Start/stop could help.

In the meantime, the electronic has not been able to keep its hands off this part either. So we try to find speed sensors for the shafts, e.g. for the input shaft on the far left. And, of course, in each case the gear engaged must be made known to the system. The mechanical construction has become even simpler, from top right to bottom left the gears 1 to 6. The selector sleeves 3./4. and 5./6. gear are on the input shaft, those of 1./2. on the output shaft.

Actually, we are dealing here with two output shafts, because the short one for the reverse gear is also connected to the large spur gear of the axle drive. The gear wheel of the first gear, one can only guess at it, combes both with the largest gear on the output shaft and with a gear of probably the same size on the reverse shaft. The wheels, only that of the reverse gear is visible here, which mesh with the wheel of the axle drive, also seem to be of the same size.

So reverse gear would have same ratio like the first gear and also would be synchronized like it. The spread, i.e. the jump from first to sixth gear, is already quite high at 7.89. It always grows when the lowest gear is transformed as short as possible and the highest gear as long as possible for a low engine speed due to easier starting under heavy load (e.g. 25 % with full load). The individual steps between the gears must be taken into account. Modern engines are helpful here, automatic transmissions with many more gears in advantage.

They had to consider the larger wheels of SUVs. What does that actually mean? You have to know that this means a really larger outer diameter of the tyre and not a larger rim with a lower section tyre. The former are a problem, because here the overall ratio, not the spread, between the still existing engine speed and the now even slower rotating drive wheels must grow.

Unbelievable that this quite overhanging construction gets by with 1.5 litres of oil and this small quantity is probably never changed (Long-Life) and certainly not flushed, another advantage of the manual transmission. Take a look at the bearings at the end of the two main shafts. How can the few balls in the bearings withstand the pressure produced by up to 340 Nm? Here one can suspect that, for example, the efficiency is improved compared to needle roller bearings.