Stick Shifts
A manual transmission (MT) gearbox is popularly known as ‘stick shift’. The driver has to change the gear manually depending on the acceleration and deceleration. Stick shifts are by and large the most popular transmission in India. The gear box is very reliable and it’s easy to keep the car in control. However, considering the current traffic scenario, it’s sometimes a pain to keep shifting gears. There is a lot of wear and tear in the gears and that’s the only reason why people tend to shift to Automatic Transmissions.

AMT
Automated Manual Transmissions popularly known as AMT or robotic gearbox in certain markets is one of the cheapest automatic gearboxes available in the market which is a basically a conventional gear box (manual) with automatic option embedded to it in form of either automatic clutch or automatic gear shifts. This transmission works for a price sensitive market hence you would see AMTs in Maruti, Hyundai and Kia cars. Hyundai and KIA have gone a step forward and re-branded the AMTs as IMTs or Intelligent Manual Transmission which is basically a clutchless manual transmission. In terms of efficiency, AMTs are as good as stick shifts apart from the cost benefits. The downside of this transmission includes annoying transmission speed and shifts are not smooth.

DCT
Dual Clutch Transmission or Twin clutch has a mixed reaction from auto enthusiasts. DCT was innovated by Porsche during a motor racing event and was called ‘Doppelkupplungsgetriebe’, pretty much a difficult German name to pronounce, however the gear box is like a manual gear box but with double clutch, so when one clutch is engaged the other one is ready to be engaged with the gear shift. DCTs are good when it comes to gear shifts and there is no lag in transmission of power and the fuel efficiency is better. The downside is that DCTs are not a reliable gear box they are prone to constant wear and tear.

AT
AT or Automatic Transmission gear box is also known as torque converter and planetary gear box. This is a system know as ‘The Automatic Transmission’. If you’re familiar with manual transmissions, you know that an engine is connected to a transmission by way of a clutch. Without this connection, a car would not be able to come to a complete stop without killing the engine. Cars with automatic transmissions have no clutch that disconnects the transmission from the engine. Instead, they use a device called a torque converter. It may not look like much, but there are some very interesting things going on inside. The transmission is very smooth however the downside is that torque converters are expensive and there could be an efficiency problem.

CVT
A continuously variable transmission (CVT) is an automated transmission that can change through a continuous range of gear ratios. The flexibility of a CVT with suitable control may allow the engine to operate at a constant angular velocity while the vehicle moves at varying speeds. One of the earliest examples of CVT is our good old Kinetic Honda. CVTs are known as boring transmission as they do not give the punch of gear shifts however in bumper-to-bumper traffic they are easier to drive.

Each transmission tries to make the drive more exciting and entertaining as possible. However, it’s up to you to decide which transmission is suitable for your driving style.