Worst gear shift

Newer cars often eliminate extra gears for cost and simplicity. Newer control computers and transmission designs can operate better than older designs in selecting an optimum gear. So often these cars do have lower gears (or lower ratios on a cvt) but the computer will select it if it thinks you need it. People most often drive auto (barring health reasons), for the automated simplicity/less work or thought for them, or because they are intimidated or confused by manual. If they can’t fogure out 1-2-3-4-etc, then there’s not much point giving them extra gears. Most people don’t know how to or don’t make proper use of lower gears, or even neutral or Park, and improper use of an auto trans is a leading warranty failure cause. So it’s cheaper and makes more sense to say that if they don’t want to use a manual or even tiptronic, they likely don’t need and would do more harm than good with an L1,L2, etc.