If you are on the verge of buying a car, many unanswered questions can be on your mind. A common confusion can be between choosing a manual or automatic transmission.

In general, if you are driving a manual car, you are responsible for shifting the gears.  However, if you choose an automatic transmission car, it automatically senses and shifts gears whenever necessary.

Keep reading further to better understand the difference between automatic and manual cars.

In simple words, manual gear enables drivers to select one gear ratio to drive their car.  The type of gear ratio they opt for determines the torque and speed of the car.  For instance, when you choose a lower gear ratio, you will experience more torque but lesser speed.  Likewise, higher gear ratios offer less torque but more speed.

Furthermore, in a manual transmission car, the countershaft constantly gets meshed to the input shaft, comprising multiple gears.  The output shaft, countershaft, driveshaft and wheels are interconnected.  When you drive your car, the output shaft sends its connection first to the transfer case. And in the case of the reverse gear, it generally connects the fourth shaft for changing direction.

Before jumping into the discussion about automatic vs manual car, having a brief idea about an automatic transmission car is also important.

As the name indicates, with an automatic car, you do not need to manually shift gears.  They help in directing the rational force and controlling the car's speed. In short, the automatic transmission automatically shifts gear ratios as the vehicle moves. It detects the speed through its sensors and sends signals to automatically shift gears appropriately.

You can easily identify whether a car is automatic or manual. If your car features two pedals, then it's an automatic car.  Manual cars feature a third pedal commonly known as the clutch pedal.  A clutch pedal is smaller in size in comparison to the brake pedals.

Apart from this, you also know that there is not just one but different types of automatic transmissions. Torque converter automatic is the most common among all, followed by the continuously variable transmission or CVT, which enables an infinite number of gear ratios without interruption. A semi-automatic transmission (SAT) is more or less similar to a manual transmission.  The other types include dual-clutch transmission and Tiptronic transmission.