or else they would’ve chosen to take their lessons in a regular manual like most people

More likely that it’s often their parents’ car, I suspect. Depending on where you live, practising in your own car can save thousands in driving school fees.

But for the non-Europeans reading, the thing is that with the manual license you get to choose. You can drive both. Automatic license, you can never drive a manual.

Rental companies are almost certain to replace their cars with EVs sooner rather than later. But if you want to rent a bigger van, those’ll likely be ICE for a while longer. A van like that can easily do hundreds of thousands of kms. That’s a lot for a van that does the occasional move.