Here are the modern advantages of an automatic transmission. What started as a vague and slurred shifting experience is now efficient and fast. The reason for such a steep manual decline? Automatic transmissions slowly but surely became more advanced, crowding out the previous necessity for manual transmissions. That means that even as I was easing off the clutch from the passenger seat, the market share for manuals was plummeting. Decades later in 2010, that number fell all the way down to 3.4%, dropping even further to 1.5% in 2020. data shows that the decline has been happening much longer than I expected-with 1980 being the manual transmission’s most recent peak production year, making up 34.6% of U.S. Let’s Do The NumbersĪs sad as it may be, manual vehicles make up a miniscule percentage of the current market share. Keep reading to find out why the manual transmission could soon be a thing of the past. In this emerging climate, building vehicles with three pedals and a gear lever is seen as, well… a waste of time. Most automakers have adopted a comprehensive electrification policy, largely converting their lineup to plug-in instead of fill-up as early as 2030. Now, fewer kids are going to have this chance as manuals become harder and harder to find. ![]() ![]() I’m not ashamed to mention that it took me a few sessions in a parking lot to get the fundamentals down. Most of my sense of accomplishment came from navigating the steep curve of learning how to drive a stick shift with my dad at my side-it’s not something you master overnight. In fact, this experience, and others like it, both piqued my interest in being a car enthusiast and brought me and my father even closer together-and we’re both better for it.īeing able to drive a manual car is about so much more than the simple joy of being in control of a machine. For me, the mechanical connection between man and machine was just so damn cool. Growing up, I would shift gears from the passenger seat of my dad’s manual BMW 325i during our commute to school.
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