Why is it harder / more expensive to rent cars with automatic transmission in Europe?

Question

I know that it is more expensive / harder to find a car with an automatic transmission to rent, but why is that the case?

My first guess would be that autos are more expensive to buy, and that any excess wear and tear on the car caused by people who are bad at driving manuals simply doesn't come close to the increased purchase price.

Another option would be that people prefer to drive manuals, I guess?

This answer states that they used to have better fuel economy: What is the most common transmission type for rental cars in Japan? Is that still the reason for primarily offering manuals?

The above question & answers indicate that Japan is now mostly (exclusively?) automatics in the rental market. I believe the same is true of NZ and Australia. Are those countries ahead of the curve, or are European countries behind it?

EDIT: Of course, NZ and AU import a huge number of their cars from Japan, so that's probably trickled on through to the rental market (Japan produces less manual cars, countries can't import as many manuals, less available to buy, rental companies wind up with mostly automatics).

Answer 1

Cars with manual transmissions are simply more popular in Europe. While the cost of automatic cars is usually higher by a small percentage that does not make up for the difference.

What allows rental agencies to increase rental fees is that automatic cars are a specialized demand which is almost exclusively catered to tourists. Locals are most likely to look for manual transmissions since that is more prevalent. When renting to tourists the cost of ownership of the car, from the point of view of the rental agency, must be divided by the volume of tourists renting which is likely lower than that of locals.

One place where this is taken yet a step further is Iceland where the cost of automatic car rentals is quite expensive. They have a very short tourist season, around 3 months, where they most cover their costs and accumulate profits. The large fleets of rental cars remains largely unused the remainder of the year. That is exactly what the explained to me when I commented about how much more costly it was to rent a car there.