The Last 5-Speed Manual in the US Is Gone

https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-last-5-speed-manual-in-the-us-is-gone-as-nissan-discontinues-base-versa

by cf100clunk • 1 year ago

31 36 1 year ago

thedrive.com

floxy2• 1 year ago

Looks like ~1% of U.S. car sales have manual transmissions.

https://www.theautopian.com/manual-transmissions-now-make-up...

quantified• 1 year ago

It's be higher if they offered it more. You can't buy what isn't sold.

floxy2• 1 year ago

Why wouldn't automobile companies build more if people were willing to buy them? Is there some sort of environmental, safety, or other regulation pushing manufacturers away from manuals? Are EVs displacing the demand for manual transmissions?

bdangubic• 1 year ago

you must be living in China or something… american business will sell whatever people are willing to buy. no one wants to drive manual and hence they are not being made anymore, not the other way around in USA :)

throwcarsales• 1 year ago

I sold cars for a decade. I love manuals. My brand offered some cars still in manual at that time. I convinced the owner to spec more of our cars as manuals from the factory.

They sat and sat. I made it my personal goal to sell them because I felt bad. I would present them while walking past them no matter what car you came for. I eventually sold them all, even though there were 6 other salespeople working there. I was top 1% in the country so it wasn't a skill issue.

Tldr; manufacturers have been tracking 'average days to sale' for decades. They saw the trends even when the cars were in stock. They took way longer to sell, thus they are gone.

nradov• 1 year ago

The issue isn't consumer demand but rather dealer demand. US franchise new car dealers live and die by inventory turn rates. Due to the way that floorplan financing works they can't afford to have a car sit on the lot for months. Most customers who would prefer a manual transmission will take an automatic for a good price, but customers who want an automatic won't take a manual at any price. Thus except for a few sports cars, dealers are almost never willing to order manuals from the manufacturer.

In some other countries the new car sales system is a little different with more consumers wanting to custom order the car they want, then wait for it to be built. In the US, many mainstream brands won't even take custom orders anymore.

xbmcuser• 1 year ago

It won't majority of the people are not car or driving enthusiasts they just want a vehicle to get from A to B. And even car enthusiasts are more into classic cars and sports cars.

FiatLuxDave• 1 year ago

As someone who tried to put together a CVT startup in 2000-2001, that first graph on transmission production share over time makes me feel... damn vindicated. Too bad we missed that opportunity.

ternaryoperator• 1 year ago

Europe is behind the US in terms of the ratio, but even they are headed in this direction. 10 years ago in France, you couldn't rent anything but a manual transmission, now renting an automatic is not unusual.

bane• 1 year ago

I can drive a manual fine, and we don't rent fancy cars, so if it saves a few bucks we'll get the manual option when we visit Europe.

The last few times we visited Europe, the car rental places basically defaulted to either electric or automatics, but all three options were virtually the same price, or the manual is only a few Euros cheaper.

This last time we went to Spain, picked a manual, got to pickup where they told us they didn't have a manual and would we mind a free upgrade. Sure! They offered us an electric. We needed to do a lot of driving so we asked if they had something else, we ended up with a Toyota crossover Hybrid (CR-Z maybe) which was a CVT.

Merp.

I don't know the stats but it seems even Europe is starting to shed manuals. I don't know if its the popularity of electrics that has finally busted through or some other cause.

Another anecdote, we sometimes ended up a taking taxis while in Spain and Portugal, not a manual in sight, which was notable enough that I remembered it.

arlort2• 1 year ago

Manual wasn't a religious choice. They were cheaper, used to have better fuel economy and quality of the drive was better

New automatic gearboxes are pretty much better in any way other than raw cost and with things like hybrids and cruise control etc I imagine it'd actually end up costing more to adapt a manual to all that than just using an automatic

dzhiurgis• 1 year ago

Yeah it's bizarre. My partner (European) only got license to drive auto. Whenever we travel Europe it's either me who is going to drive or spend tons more to get auto.

I'm convinced the only reason manual is still made is so that rental companies could gauge for auto's. No sane person should buy manual (or ICE car to begin with).

Koshkin• 1 year ago

That isn’t much of a surprise, given that six-speeds have been the norm for years.

So, not everything is lost?

m463• 1 year ago

there won’t be any new five-speed manual vehicles for sale in the United States.
Only six-speed and a few seven-speed manuals will remain.

fragmede• 1 year ago

The problem with that is those are traditionally higher end sports cars. Porshes and BMW-M series and the like. 5-speeds have been more entry level cars (in recent history), though of course there are exceptions.

snapetom• 1 year ago

higher end sports cars

As a manual Miata owner, thank you for the compliment!

Robdel12• 1 year ago

Makes me happy to know the Ford CEO is a diehard racer and has said on stage they’ll be the last selling manual v8s.

Take it from my cold dead hands.

moderation• 1 year ago

I have a 5-speed manual Polaris Slingshot. A lot of fun.

js2• 1 year ago

The other day I was at an oil change place and the guy in front of me was waiting in front of the bay. After his oil was changed, an employee brought him his keys and he went and got into the car in the bay and drove it around, then went into the office and paid.

After he pulled around I guessed it was because his car was a manual and none of the kids changing oil had the ability to drive it. Confirmed it with him when he came out to leave.

I was sad. :-(

On a positive note, I recently read about a carjacker being foiled by a manual transmission, so there's that.

selimthegrim• 1 year ago

On a positive note, I recently read about a carjacker being foiled by a manual transmission, so there's that.

This happens all the time in New Orleans.

cafard• 1 year ago

I saw a bumper sticker showing a shift chart and the words "anti-theft device".

frognumber• 1 year ago

When I bought my car, TCO for manual was higher than for automatic. Base purchase price was about $500 lower, but required a pretty frequent maintenance schedule. Automatic was nearly maintenance-free (although the little maintenance required had higher unit costs).

I ran the numbers. Automatic won for cost.

For a cheap car, manual makes little sense for a rational consumer.

Ergo, they're only left on fancy sports cars.

cosmicgadget• 1 year ago

For a cheap car I'd especially prefer control over power delivery.

Dylan16807• 1 year ago

Why do you prefer it less on an expensive car?

BoorishBears• 1 year ago

Manufacturers are notorious understating maintenance items for automatic transmissions, like "lifetime" fluids and skipping filter changes.

A typical manual maintenance schedule will keep the gearbox running for a very long time. The typical automatic maintenance schedule will keep it alive for its "lifetime", but that lifetime ends up being a few hundred thousands miles and instead of more maintenance at the end of that interval, you end up with a dead transmission.

zinekeller• 1 year ago

Looks like Nissan is trying to create as much savings as possible to handle the 25% tariff on cars imported from Mexico.

No, no, no. The US tariffs may have a teeny tiny effect, but Nissan is actually cutting across-the-board due to their extremely bad spreadsheets (and failed Honda merger/acquisition).

euroderf• 1 year ago

I always understood the appeal of a stick shift as:

I want to drive the car, not the other way around.

The Last 5-Speed Manual in the US Is Gone

Related Stories