Your guide to automatic gearboxes - Fully automatic

Changes gear without driver intervention using a torque converter – imagine a doughnut cut in half lengthways and filled with something gooey - to smooth the shifts. Many, including Audi’s Tiptronic, also allow drivers to override shifts manually.

These kinds of automatics have been around since the 1930s, but the big advance came in the late ’80s with the arrival of ‘fuzzy logic’ – electronics programmes that make autos shift just as a skilled driver would with a manual.

Best suited to more expensive and luxurious models: there’s too much of a fuel economy penalty with small autos.