Coming to support drivers who cannot afford the luxury of a fully automatic transmission, Opel has added the more affordable option of an automated manual gearbox on several models.
Named Easytronic 3.0, the new automated manual transmission is now offered on the Karl, Adam and Corsa family of small cars as well as the new Astra, which was recently crowned the 2016 European Car of the Year.
Opel justifies its decision to add the new gearbox due to numerous hours spent in traffic jams, during which the constant shifting between first and second gears and decoupling would often make drivers wish they spent a little extra on the “luxury of an automatic transmission“. However, this luxury, most of the times, means thousands of euros difference in price between manuals and automatics, and this is where the firm’s newest automated manual comes in.
The gearbox is based on a manual and it comes with an automated gear-shifting system, billed as “affordable [and] efficient alternative to a conventional automatic transmission for small or compact cars“. Compared to the previous automated manual transmissions, the Easytronic 3.0 is said to “impress with smoother gear shifts and reduced reaction times“.
It also offers manual gear shifting, a wide spread of the five gear ratios that reduce engine speeds for pleasant noise levels and it benefits from a “Creep” mode, for slow-speed maneuvers. On top of that, its start/stop function reduces fuel consumption, as Opel claims the new Astra 1.0 ecoFLEX, combined with the Easytronic 3.0, burns just 4.2 lt/100 km (56 mpg US) in the NEDC combined cycle.
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