On the flip side, we do get tachometers in cars with automatic transmissions...but no oil pressure gauge, and in many instances, no water temp. I'll take "Is Running Hot" over "Has Overheated" any day of the week. And I bet you'll agree: when you're used to having a dash full of gauges, you can tell at a glance when one of them is not normal. There's the "Right Picture" and the "Wrong Picture" in our heads...we don't have to digest each one, just take a quick snapshot. I wonder if at some point gauges weren't removed as a safety thing (too distracting for some folks.) Mazda's original Heads Up Display included the tachometer, and it was removed in a software upgrade because it was "too distracting." Yet the current Display includes icons that show when I'm drifting out of my lane of travel or following the guy in front of me too closely, because apparently I can't see that for myself through the windshield that the icons are projected onto.