AH, but my good man, like ball bearing pivots in knives it took a long time for for car companies to perfect that technology and some feel it still isnt perfect. I dont think comparing paddle shifting to automatic shifting is fair. Nor the comparison to bearings in knives really. There is no fair advantage to paddle shifting vs automatic shifting in a real world everyday application. There is with bearings in knives and general use. You have a system that can be just as fast if not faster than most assisted mechanisms and at the same time you have less moving parts and virtually no failure rate unlike the torsion bars or springs in A/O knives. That to me gives them an advantage that almost anyone could benefit from. In automotive, paddle shifters would be a novelty with no real advantage that the general public would concern themselves with. Most drivers wont care if they could improve launch times or experience faster gear changes. Even in the applications where paddle shifting has its advantages the technology for a long time was plagued with set backs and lag times between the time you hit the paddle and the time the shift actually took place. Its only recently that the technology was refined enough that it will start to catch on and be a realistic option for more applications.
Still it has limited scope seeing just how little advantage it has with the general public. Its only enthusiasts of racing and performance that have anything to gain from the technology. Anyone carrying an assisted opener has in theory, something to gain from a bearing pivot. Smoother, tighter action with little no risk of failure of moving parts while never sacrificing the speed than made A/O desirable. And if done with some finesse there is a balance where you can offer a knife that can be opened manually without speed at all which was only available on one assisted knife in the history of A/O's which you know as the cyclone. Still without people knowing about the technology and more companies willing to get the word out there in terms of advertising and promotion most people wont go looking for these advantages.
I think a better comparison if you want to go the automotive route would be the intermittent windshield wiper. Or the water dispelling tire tread. Hell even the automatic window and seat vs manual. Sure some wont justify the extra expense for the minimal advantage. But some have come to not be able to live without these small advances that improved upon or even replaced existing technology. You just have to make sure that its not a niche group that will benefit from the change. And then you have to make sure people actually know about it and understand it. Have you had many potential customers say they would have bought a 0560 if only it had speedsafe?
