The market penetration of automatics is increasing in Europe, if slowly. Because taxation in several major European countries heavily disfavors larger displacement engines (irrespective of fuel economy), until turbos and turbo-Diesels came along, the relative absence of low-engine-speed torque made many European cars poor candidates for automatic transmissions. European manufacturers have also introduced 'clutchless manuals' like VW's Dual Sequential Gearbox which is computerized shifting of manual transmissions. As with air conditioning, Europeans are catching on to American conveniences...