system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How come most of the cars in the USA are automatics while most in Europe are manuals?
gpt
Automatics used to rather fuel and energy inefficient and heavy. With fuel always being cheaper in the US, it was no big deal to put bigger and more powerful engines in to the cars as the price to pay for fuel didn't matter much. Fuel in Europe has always been more expensive and the drive for more fuel efficient vehicles meant smaller and weaker cars, and thus manual transmissions.   
The difference in fuel efficiency in todays manual and automatic transmissions is negligible, but people are now more or less used to what they grew up with or what their parents drove.   
Edit: Automatics used to **be** ...