The End of Manual Transmission
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
There are the fun aspects obviously. I know that when I want to pass another car, go around a corner at speed, and navigate snowy roads I'll be in exactly the right gear without the computer having to guess what I want. But those are secondary to the demand of attention created by it.
e.g. eating and drinking, putting on makeup, etc.
wrt "the feel of the road", I think much of that is already lost with drive-by-wire technology. I haven't really had that feeling since I sat in a friend's old 90's civic and stepped on the throttle. You can get a little closer with Mazda tiptronic, but it's basically like "playing cars" instead of driving a car.
In the last few years ive made a point to reduce distractions while driving and no longer do this stuff, but the point being, once you get used to manual - you find a way to be dangerous driving it haha
Not a deal breaker for automatic though. Calmer driving, better experience and safety driving can prevent it.
They sure can, though it may be more inconvenient. In addition to the examples given by a sibling comment, I’ve seen a guy on a car with manual transmission steering with his knee while using both hands to eat ice cream from a cup.
I kid somewhat. I drove stick for years and it was a neat experience that is definitely more engaging, and I'm glad I have the skill now, but I really despised it sometimes.
(EDIT: or the game of "how good are you _actually_ at shifting" when trying to turn onto a busy road between two passing cars!)
Stop and go traffic can still be brutal. At least one of your legs gets a free workout.
Regardless of transmission... If someone finds themselves in this kind of traffic on daily basis - they should reconsider the mode of transport.
That said, I don't think we should be making a virtue out of necessity. There's nothing objectively better about this set of mechanical constraints compared to another set of mechanical constraints.
I remember EV sceptics using similar arguments half a decade ago. No gears, no engine noise, no rumble - what is there to get excited about? Well, guess what, EVs are some of the most exciting cars to drive these days, and having no gears to shift definitely doesn't take away from engagement.
It's just a different experience - not necessarily better or worse.
Update: the safety/attention argument might only apply if you have to think about shifting gears, like in a first year or two. I live in Europe where many cars still have manual transmissions. Trust me, there are plenty of terrible and distracted drivers over here too :)
Compare to an automatic or especially electric car, which will creep forward by itself and can accelerate strongly with an absent-minded prod of the accelerator.
These have much greater risk of unintended acceleration from a stop, which is the cause of a lot of accidents (mixing up the pedals, basically). Ironically in this way the manual car is more 'idiot-proof'.
I don't think it's an adequate reason to keep them, though. I exclusively owned manuals until 2013, at that point I found my objections with automatics no longer applied and no suitable manual existed--all were either bare-bones or sporty.
I live in the greater New York area and I walk a lot, or use my kick scooter (Xootr), so this is my perspective.
Comfy seats, phone, music, beverage holder—all the comforts of the living room—drivers are oblivious to everyone and everything around them. How many times is a driver ‘surprised’ when they realize you’re sharing the road with them. How entitled are drivers who flip out when anyone slows their forward progress. People wrapped in their personal auto-cocoon, and completely distracted and emotionally disconnected from people outside. Leave their air conditioned homes, and button up in their air conditioned cars. From isolation to insulated.
My family always had manual cars, and when someone dropped out, they would say, I’m too old, and too tired to drive the clutch. Automatic was for old people. Haha
The DSG version of my VW requires transmission fluid flushes every 40k! These dual clutch systems are incredibly complex.
My g/f's Acura has a 9-speed Automatic transmission. Can't imagine what it's like to work on one of those.
Every DSG VW needs it at 40k interval.
Obviously wouldn't be an issue for people who live in warmer climates, though.
When I could finally afford my own car, I purchased, as planned, a car with a manual transmission. It was engaging enough on the drive that falling asleep wasn't a risk.
It has many, many upsides. With the only true downside being the skill needed to operate.
Manual transmissions aren't going anywhere. Yes, the latest greatest $35,000 car that average Americans are buying will always be an automatic. But for trucks and cheaper cars they will always be the best choice.
Its main downside is an additional cognitive load that it imposes. You need to do one more unnecessary thing to drive your car.
There's basically nothing left but automatic anywhere on the market here :(
Fewer manual cars produced => lower scale efficiencies => higher delivered costs
It could also reflect the willingness of enthusiasts to pay more for a manual transmission (or to avoid the automatic).
BTW, the average new car price is nearly $50k. RIP to the $35k latest/greatest.
I have not come across any manual EVs
ICE vehicles aren't going anywhere, either. It will still be decades before we are even at 50/50 in the US.
* Made up number
It's about corporate interests (cram a small engine in a big car and don't ever let the thing rev if you can help it) being directly contradictory to what makes for pleasant merging or hell climbing experience (let the thing rev and don't up-shift until it's time). This is a large part of why manuals stuck around so long in Europe.
I will give up my manual transmission, if you will bring back pull-knobs, twist knobs and other tactile switches for the main controls of my vehicle, with the appropriate tactile feedback at set points so I can set them without looking.
I think we can all walk away winners here.
More seriously - I recently cross-shopped the major low/mid-tier brands (Toyota, Subaru, etc.) and the quality of these touch screens vs physical controls is shockingly bad for the sticker price. I, perhaps naively, expected the responsiveness to be at least as good as a recent iPhone... it was not.
the 70 series looks reasonable, maybe someday it will finally come to the US
They have a very fast and responsive touchscreen, but all the critical controls (AC, volume, seat heating, you name it) are physical. I rarely if ever touch the screen even on very long trips.
Recently I switched to an EV, and now I don't understand why people would want a combustion car, let alone a manual transmission anymore. All that power, available instantaneously. You feel the car, sort of like your old manual transmission. I wonder if autonomous driving will have the same trajectory.
With my truck, I can take an extra tank of gas in the bed and get back to civilization.
>With my horse, I can trot around through trees and streams, and even let it graze on grass
That's sincerely how irrelevant your example is to people like myself who don't drive 3 hours outside of cell reception or electricity, or ride horses through forests
I've actually got no doubt there are important jobs for which there is still no replacement for a horse.
That's the whole point. OP couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want an EV. I simply could not do the work that I do to help fix our streams and river to keep sediment & nutrients low and help rebuild the fish populations if I was forced to use an EV.
This is a huge, common issue especially amongst that silicon valley / bay area culture. They do not consider anyone's needs outside their immediate experience. This is a big part of the push back from rural communities against urban politics.
> I don't understand why people would want a combustion car, let alone a manual transmission anymore.
Then I said
> That's sincerely how irrelevant your example is to people like myself who don't drive 3 hours outside of cell reception or electricity, or ride horses through forests reply
Neither of us said anything about imposing anything on others, we strictly talked about our own circumstances, for which there is neither a need for horses nor a need for combustion vehicles. I am also against california "progressivism" but frankly you seem to have reacted reflexively to something neither of us was doing, just because we don't need combustion vehicles
OP indicated they couldn't see why anybody wouldn't want an EV.
In reality, there simply IS no feasible recharging plan in that scenario. The reason I made the point is this: I have regular need for my 4WD truck, and I carry a lot of self-rescue equipment: a 2-stroke gas chainsaw, winch, extra fuel, a satellite text communication device (this is less helpful than you'd think in a deep forest), food, water, clothes, shelter, hygiene products, a trauma kit and a firearm.
On this website loaded with urbanites, many people regularly attack those things as being "totally unnecessary" and would have no problem banning them without any consideration for edge cases.
It's easy to be defensive when the normal response is an attack.
Language is hard, and becomes very tame if you have to always add asterix everywhere. But fair point. It might not have been clear from my original post, but I was hinting that my current "cannot understand" would likely be challenged in the future, by autonomous vehicles. Rinse and repeat.
It's not super smooth.
It's not the height of efficiency (yet still 5mpg better than the best of my automatics).
But that's on me, not the car. It's a skill I can develop, and it's a skill I'm proud of developing. If I want to drive smoothly, I can. If I want to drive like a bat out of hell, I can do that too.
And no, I can't really do the latter in my automatic CVT, at least not comfortably. Stepping on the gas to overtake causes it to downshift erratically (yes, a modern CVT emulates a manual transmission and downshifts), bringing me close to a redline before it shifts (again, WTF CVT?) back up to avoid the redline.
Unfortunately, not all automatics are equally comfortable, and a quick test drive is often not enough to find out.
Manuals are not long for this world (unfortunately): the low end (smaller engines, city cars) are likely to go EV or auto for comfort in traffic and the high end is likely to go auto for performance/emissions.
I also feel, for some reason, that there is also a stigma around automatic transmissions being less reliable (when I actually think it's the opposite).
I would change my manual for an automatic in a nano second if I could.
With the centrally heated house rising, so we forgot the skill (and pleasure) to heat your house with a fire (coal, wood). We buy fully-prepared meals in the supermarket - no longer willing to go to three or four separate shops to buy the ingredients and spend time at home putting them together. Even bread-making at home has been replaced by a machine that does it for you.
Technology takes over, and there are always people that think this is a bad thing. But it's of all times and started before our ancestors decided to walk upright...
I don't have my MT Insight because I'm a gear-shifting control freak, but rather because it was the most efficient non-full-electric vehicle on the road until the Prius Prime. Being in graduate school still, I also don't have funds for anything fancy like a modern-ish Prius :)
Example, 08 bmw I had with a ZF 6 speed auto. Pain to drive taking off cold in the morning as the software would allow it to slip. Functioned as an old school auto. Normally however, kick it from the line, it would hook up. This was a car with 500+ lbft of torque.
A little software mod and it was probably better to drive (with the paddles) than a manual in terms of engagement. Also let you keep both feet on the control peddals to modulate around the track.
Could also drive this thing for 6-7 hours, arrive and not feel tired.
I feel like this is a red herring. How often does the computer fail to correctly upshift or downshift in such a way that it affects, say... mileage?
I find that when I drive my vehicle (an automatic transmission Mazda CX5), if I am using the "fake manual" (tiptronic), I tend to drive at a slightly higher rpm. I will sit at 2¼k rpms instead of the computer's preferable 1¾k rpms. I can assume from that that I am indeed burning more fuel (if only marginally)
However, the moment I could jump to an auto, I did. It's just SO much easier. I've been driving purely autos for over 20 years now. A lot of us see cars as a way to get us faster from A to B; there's no love affair here, it's just a tool. Any tool that makes it easier for the operator to use, is an improvement in my view.
Sure, keep the manual gearbox for the track. That's where 'fun' and 'hobby' driving should be. Out on the road, it's fuel economy (be it EV or Fossil) these days that really counts, and autos are much more economic.
I figured there were two options - either she could get rid of her manual transmission cars and replace them with automatics that I could drive (which wasn't a great solution because she really likes her manual transmissions and it seems dumb to ask her to get rid of something she loves) or I could learn how to drive a stick shift, and I knew the only way that I was _really_ going to learn how to drive a stick was if I was doing it every day, with no other options. Otherwise, I'd learn the theory of driving stick (clutch in, shift, clutch out slowly while you give it gas) but never actually be able to put it into practice at a time that it mattered.
Hence, the miata. My wife had to drive it home from the dealership when we got it, because I couldn't drive it myself, and I spent about a week trapped at home because I couldn't reliably get my car to start moving at traffic lights, but once I figured out how to reliably get from point A to point B again I realized that actually, it was kinda fun to get from point A to point B, and that there was no reason I couldn't just make a trip where point A and point B were the same place, driving just for the hell of it. Now I autocross once a month, go on drives with the local miata club, and put new car parts on my car to change what it does or how it sounds or how it feels, things that I never would have imagined I'd do back when I was driving an automatic just because I felt so much less connected to the use of the car.
Cars are basically appliances now. Who, apart from a narrow slice of demographics, really cares about their car? It's kind of like a washing machine in that way.
I did like the article, it accurately describes what we're losing. Driving is just much less an analog experience now than it used to be.
For me, an automatic is just a great way to make me not care at all about a vehicle. I enjoy driving. I love driving. I love vehicles. I love the engagement and the control provided by a standard shift. I love driving through the mountains, windows down, beautiful scenery. Each turn brings the joy and thrill of discovery. I am linked to my vehicle and we operate as a single unified being.
EDIT: I also regularly sit in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour or so and manuals still never bothered me.
My experience had been opposite. I had a manual car for about 6 years: 2005-2011.
It was fantastic in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The second gear had a lot of speed range so I could just stay in second gear most of the time, and use the throttle. Note: just the throttle, rarely the brake. Second will scale up to bursts of 40+ km/h, as well as down to very slow crawling.
When the movement slowed too much for the engine revs, then I instinctively stomped on the clutch, without shifting out of second gear; then if the movement picked up again, I just used the clutch to get going in second gear without going through first. As long as the car is rolling, you can start in second.
It was the only time I found any enjoyment in bumper-to-bumper traffic, like "damn, this is another thing you can handle nicely in a manual, making your life easier".
Another thing was being able to observe speed limits without having to look at the speedometer. You know from the sound/feel of the engine and the gear you are in how fast you're going.
Given how few new cars are sold with manual gearboxes these days, not to mention EVs, I suspect this law is about to change soon.
Pulling a glider up a hill, it couldn't make up its mind which gear it should be in, and shift back and forth every 15 seconds or so.
I test drove a CVT. To get a lighter engine to obtain better mileage to satisfy the EPA, you have a higher revving engine with really low viscosity oil and wider clearances - all of which will shorten engine life. Then there's the question of how long CVTs and high tech automatics will last.
Manufacture of a new car requires an enormous amount of energy to extract, smelt, cast and forge the metal parts.
Reducing fuel consumption does not save energy if the replacement cycle is shortened.
My current manual Subaru is 16 years old with over 400,000 km.
Stuff does have to be replaced; so far $1300 this year.
I remember a Renault 5 where just about everything but the transmission had to be replaced after 120,000.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/lit/1989_jetta_mexico/0...
This reminds me of the interest in mechanical keyboards. The varied input from the clutch and transmission in a vehicle is much greater than the feedback from a keyboard, but I wonder if we're seeing the same principal at work.
My dad insisted that both my sister and I learn stick, and I have to say, I do kinda miss it. All auto-everything barely feels like driving.
My next car will be electric. I will miss that shifter.
It will be the last stick vehicle I ever own sadly. Next car will probably take me to work while I sleep.
But I still chose the 6-speed even though the automatic was available with slightly more power. If I'm the last person on earth doing the little "am I in neutral?" wiggle that's fine by me.
I remember once, the first time, I drove up a steep hill and there was a stop sign at the top, but the stop sign was not where the car was level, so I was stopped with my car pointing up at a very steep angle. And what do you think happened next? Another car came up behind me, and was right up on my ass, no room at all.
So when it came time to let out the clutch and go forward, I was TERRIFIED that I would miss the timing and go backwards into the car behind me. Luckily it turned out ok and I didn't mess up, but I was sweating it. It was somewhere in Pacific Heights, maybe Pierce and Jackson intersection. I don't remember, but it was very steep for a manual transmission. Actually, I just looked at them in a Google street view, those hills don't look seem very steep at all...now, after I lived there a long time. But this was when I first moved there, and they were pretty damn steep in comparison from where I moved there from.
I ride dirt bikes and I believe that if they all become full electric someday, they will at least have a clutch.
This person is a wimp. Just two days ago I drove, eating sushi -- with chopsticks -- while easily shifting and steering.
Much more apt is Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. (“While flowingly shifting and steering” sounds horrible, but it captures it.) Fertile ground for flow is when the highly challenging is met with the highly skillful. It then sort of commences and sustains itself on its own, without demanding any conscious intervention - although you may choose to observe yourself in a flow state, which may cause broad grinning.
I remember driving a stick in San Francisco during rush hour. Bumper to bumper traffic. The hills sloped a lot more than I had anticipated, upping the challenge, since a lapse on my part could have meant stalling out, or even worse, rolling back into the car behind me. I had to make a lot of use of the parking brake trick, i.e. engage when stopped, not releasing until the clutch hit the sweet spot - like, every few seconds. Probably in excess of 100 instances total, maybe more! I have no idea, I wasn’t counting, because the old ‘99 Honda Civic Si and I had become a single organism, fused together as one, all parts acting in concert, with full awareness and a singular focus. I was even carrying on a conversation with a person who was totally unaware! (Never caught the appeal of a stick shift.) If she had expressed that something was different about me in that moment, it wouldn’t have been that I seemed preoccupied or distracted - not at all, because I was feeling sharper, more animated, more present, and not daydreaming or speaking in showerthoughts as usual! I was alive as fuck, and it was thrilling.
I used to drive a taxi and play ukelele for carloads of drunks at the same time, but since it was an automatic Crown Vic, it always remained two distinguishable activities that had to be coordinated, so it was just a pain in the ass.
It's a tool to achieve a goal, a means to an end, not a destination itself. I didn't buy my car because I like driving, I bought my car because it gets me from A to B safely and comfortably.
Most people don't buy cars (computers) because they want to spend all their configuring/troubleshooting/updating/optimizing them.
My first car was actually an "automated stick" VW Bug (1972), which had a stick shift but no clutch. You simply let off on the gas to change gears, and I think there were only three gears in addition to neutral and reverse. I moved on to two manual transmissions after that (a Merkur XR4Ti and a Taurus SHO), and have since stuck with automatic and can't imagine going back.
The rental car with automatic had a very annoying power drop in a critical speed range and it felt shitty.
EV will reinvent how we drive.
I need the thrilling man-machine interface in my life, but with slightly more convenience/safety envelope/practicality than riding a motorcycle.
Some automatics have that issue as well, due to the "stop/start engine" (alleged) feature that is common on modern vehicles with strong focus on fuel economy. I drove one recently as a loan car while mine was in the shop and it was an awful experience... you take your foot off the brakes, and then half a second to a whole second later the engine finally turns over and you lurch into motion.
Nowadays, there are convenience features like hill holding and auto downshifting.
One gripe I have is you get improper pedal placement such that you can't heel toe properly unless you're bigfoot or you've bought a real sports car. Manufacturers say this is what people want... screw that.
The article is paywall'd, but I agree, when manuals go away, something more will be lost.